Assessing and Evaluating the Vulnerability of Buildings against Earthquakes(A Case of Marand)

The location of most of the cities in the boundaries of active faults has increased the vulnerability of urban buildings to earthquakes. The city of Marand is located within 15 kilometers of the active fault line of Azerbaijan in earthquake zoning. The presence of marginal and worn-out tissues will cause double damage to these tissues against earthquakes. The present research has investigated and analyzed the earthquake risk in the human settlements of Marand using a descriptive-analytical methodology. The statistical population of this research is the worn-out tissues of Marand. In order to assess the earthquake risk in the study area, first the earthquake risk assessment model was presented in the worn-out context of Marand, and then by weighting the indicators using the opinion of urban science experts and information processing in the geographical information system environment, through the model weighted overlap, vulnerability zoning map of worn out fabric of Marand was extracted. Building quality indicators, building age, structure type, distance from roads, facade type, building density, and population density have been used to evaluate the vulnerability of worn-out fabric. According to the maps derived from the weighted overlay model, 40% of the worn-out fabric area of ​​Marand with an area of ​​372,958 square meters (37.2 hectares) is exposed to very high and high vulnerability to earthquakes.