Social and Economic Sustainability Analysis of Rural Settlements Located in the Hazard-Prone Areas

Case Study: Villages Surrounding the City of Sanandaj

Abstract

This study is aimed at analyzing economic and social sustainability of rural settlements in the hazard – prone zones. Accordingly, the present descriptive – analytical study with emphasizing on its practical aspect is trying to identify high risk zones to locate the villages surrounding the Sanandaj City using Geography Information System (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). In this regard, for zoning of hazard – prone areas, information layers such as distance from the fault, gradient layer, height layer, distance from the river, landslide layer, and soil type layer were created utilizing the information existent in the database of GIS at Sanandaj Municipality. Finally, hazard – prone zones were identified by applying the technique in ARCGIS10 and its practical functions and algorithms. In the next step, the layers of villages surrounding Sanandaj City were adapted to the prioritized zones and so the villages (Salavat Abad, Dolat Abad, Gazar Dareh, Khalijan, Issa Dar, Hassan Abad) which are located in hazard – prone zoning, were identified. To assess the socio – economic conditions of these villages are used FTOPSIS technique. The studied samples were two Councils members in each village which were selected randomly to survey and to achieve the goal of research. The results showed that economical aspect of the indicator (rural road networks), with ID = E5, and social aspect of the indicator (health facilities), with ID = E8 gained the lowest weights in the minimum, average and maximum fuzzy criterion, and also the indictor of rural power network and its backup services, with ID = E1, and taking care of villages with cultural and historical monuments gained the highest weights in the minimum, average and maximum fuzzy criterion.