Urban Resilience with Emphasis on Climatic Aspects in the City of Varamin

Cities are just as vulnerable to natural phenomena as they are the most influential human population centres on the natural environment. One of the important components of a sustainable city is its resilience to climate change and environmental hazards. This research aims to analyse the resilience of Varamin city by the Analytic Network Process (ANP) method and determine the effective indicators in its climate resilience. Varamin, a satellite city of Tehran in the southern plain of Tehran and adjacent to the desert plain with a hot and dry climate, is one of the major food suppliers of the capital. In this study, firstly, the key components and indicators related to climate resilience in Varamin were extracted using documentary and library research, field surveys and interviews with 44 experts and specialists in the field of urban planning, environmental planning and urban climate using the Delphi method and through a questionnaire. Afterwards, according to the stages of the Analytic Network Process method and the characteristics of Varamin city, the data and basic information were classified and consequently, the ANP conceptual model was developed. With four components and 33 indicators, the ANP model based on climatic resilience of Varamin city was generated using Super Decisions software and the results were then analysed. The outcomes obtained from ANP show that the highest priority in climatic resilience of Varamin city is related to the population living in informal settlements (including Omrabad, Lorabad, Goltapeh, Sakineh-banoo and Deh-Sharifa) with 0.22 normalized weight and 0.213 migration rate from the socio-economic component. Since the city of Varamin has a large share of the marginalized population and the attracted migrants are not able to provide housing in the formal markets, it is very important to increase the empowerment and improve the resilience of these settlements to climate change. Moreover, from the environmental point of view, the city of Varamin is threatened by climate change conditions due to the decrease of groundwater level and salinization of plain water resources. In addition, land subsidence is one of the major threats to the Varamin plain, as a result of vast agricultural lands, uncontrolled harvesting and abundant drainage of groundwater aquifers. Finally, considering the immigration, the physical growth of Varamin and the extensive change and conversion of land cover/land use balance changes the surface energy and water cycle of the region.