Socio-Economic Structures Affecting Resilience of Rural Settlements to Earthquake (Case Study: Kanduleh, Sahneh County)

The proper planning for disaster management in local communities does not merely address the vulnerability of the areas and requires the understanding of resilience. This is because identifying the resilience indicators and assessing the strengths and weaknesses if properly managed, can reduce the vulnerability of each community to natural disasters.

This is an applied research in terms of purpose and has a descriptive-analytical nature and is conducted using the survey method and questionnaire tool. The collected data are analyzed by SPSS software. In this study, the researchers investigate the socio-economic structures affecting the resilience of rural settlements and rank the villages of the region in terms of resilience using the TOPSIS FUZZY method by applying the resilience indicators in different dimensions (social, economic, institutional-infrastructural, etc.). The statistical population includes all 18 inhabited villages of Kanduleh County which are studied by random sampling.

The results indicate the low resilience level of Kanduleh villages, and the economic and social factors have a significant role in increasing the resilience of the rural settlements. In addition, there was a significant correlation between different socio-economic, infrastructural and institutional dimensions, social capital, etc. However, there was no significant relationship between the service factor and the dependent variable of socio-economic factors in the villages.

According to the results of the study, the villages of this district were ranked into 8 levels. Tazeh Abad had the highest resilience among the villages, while Kortavij Olya had the lowest resilience.