The Measurement of Resilience and Its Distribution in Tehran Districts

In more developed countries significant changes have occurred in the ways in which risks are viewed, so much that the prevailing view has shifted from a mere concentration of vulnerability reduction towards increasing resilience against disasters. On this basis, risk reduction programmes should seek the creation and reinforcement of resilient communities. Due to its particular natural and geographic conditions, Tehran has been vulnerable against a series of shocks including earthquakes, floods etc., rendering the attention to the concept of resilience all the more necessary.
The present paper views the measurement of resilience in Tehran using indicators, and the offering of an investigation method, as a first step towards making the city more resilient. This is done here based on Tehran districts’ 2001 statistical data, using ‘Baseline Resilience Indicators for Communities’ (BRIC) methods, and with a focus on a series of indicators based on amended ‘Disaster Resilience of Place’ (DROP) model as presented by Cutter et al. A conceptual model is made on this basis, and used to calculate a combined resilience indicator using ‘Fuzzy Analytic Network Process’ (F’ANP), which is comprised of factor analysis and ANP network model. After accurately defining the conceptual model through affirming factor analysis according to resilience levels, Tehran’s 23 resilience indicators were determined under six categories socio-economic, public service accessibility, infrastructural-social, open space (infrastructural), activity-economic, and infrastructural. These factors and their indicators were then used to process F’ANP analytical model. This significance factor was then combined with arithmetic combination method, and eventually the resilience combined indicator was worked out, and then applied to Tehran districts. The results show higher resilience levels for the northern half of Tehran compared to its southern half.