Geographical Research

With the rapid increase in world population it is observed that most of this population is concentrated in cities. Nowadays about half of the world's population live in cities and it is estimated that from 2.2 billion people that will be added to earth’s population in the next 30 years, 2.1 billion will be living in cities. And 2 billion of these people are expected to be born in developing countries (UNDP Annual Report, 2003), which is one of the most significant security issues. So understanding passive defense and the factors that shape it have a strong impact on the security of the country and minimizing the potential damages to the country. Since our country Iran has unique political circumstances and geographical location, in the last three decades it has always been threatened from different aspects which shows the importance of passive defense in urban planning of different cities. Among the outstanding issues that are important in passive defense and crisis management is the location of strategic or vulnerable facilities. The aim of this research is to achieve recognition of applications that could be affected in times of crisis and to identify criteria of user location affected in times of crisis from the perspective of spatial-physical indicators (effective in positioning applications) for preparation and development of projects based on rules and regulations, and this has been done for the city of Sabzevar. Therefore, the literature and concepts related to passive defense, crisis management and mapping applications are analyzed, and then the appropriate definition of vulnerable facilities has been presented, as well as guidelines for locating these types of applications for protection in the time of crisis. The next step is to review the documents and maps of Sabzevar to prioritize the indicators identified by order of importance. At the end with the help of AHP-GIS method optimized sites have been identified for these centers. The results suggest that, given the circumstances and characteristics of Sabzevar compatibility standards, comfort, performance, utility, health and safety standards in locating vulnerable facilities are the most important.