Introducing A Model for Earthquake Risk Assessment and Reduction in Economically Valuable Historic Urban Fabrics (Case Study: Ardabil Historic Bazaar)

The occurrence of earthquakes can have serious social and economic ramifications in economically valuable urban fabrics such as traditional bazaars. Despite the significance of such fabrics, there have been few studies on earthquake safety upgrading and crisis management in historic fabrics: a fact that necessitates further research on such topics.
Aiming at better understanding seismic hazards in economically valuable historic fabrics, the present paper proposes a new model based on hazard measures, seismic vulnerability and confrontation capacities against earthquakes. These measures and quantitative components were determined based on a study of the consequences of previous earthquakes, the related technical literature, and analytic, comprehensive assessments. Also, the weighing factors of these measures were determined with reference to expert opinions and the AHP method. The proposed method was then applied in the Ardabil’s traditional bazaar, studying the methods of correcting hazard measures to correspond with operational interventions. The assessments showed that the proposed model is capable of assessing seismic hazards in traditional bazaars, and can be used to identify and prioritise hazard reduction interventions, and propose short-, mid-, and long-term programmes.