EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

Due to the destructive effects of natural disasters and with this in mind that our community is vulnerable to natural disasters and hazards, special attention is needed for reducing the natural disasters and their effects. Most administrative policies are faced with physical interference problem while community-based components are devoted a very great position in this field. In fact, the traditional approach focusing on retrofitting structure of city for crisis management, nowadays has challenges with real-world functions and needs other aspects of social functions which could finally provide increased levels of resiliency.DAVAM (Community Emergency Response Volunteers) is a new policy which has been implemented in recent years in the workframe of integrated crisis management relying on dimensions of social networks specific to crisis management. Findings of this research indicate that with the exception of solidarity index in DAVAM group, all other indices including responsibility, management method and organization indicators have a meaningful relationship with cognitive and behavioral components of crisis management.

Tehran is located on an earthquake belt, thus it is faced with permanent threats. Streets and transportation networks are one of the main factors in aiding the injured after natural disasters. This paper focuses on assessing the transportation networks of Tehran city, and the ways of reducing earthquake damage in the northern Valiasr street as a case study. The probable damages to the street and the possibility of aiding through it after the earthquake, is analyzed and damage reduction strategies are presented. We have applied mathematical modeling techniques and survey method in this research. In addition, the transportation network was observed and studied and the existent maps were analyzed. The crisis points have been selected by definition of risky indicators such as maximum of buildings height and minimum of street width. Results of the study indicate that Valiasr Street in 31 percent of analyzed region has unsuitable status because of disregarding the ratio of building height to the street width and unfortunately most of standards and principles of seismic regions and urban planning areas have been ignored. Thus the transportation network might not be able to play a positive and effective role in reducing damage if disasters such as earthquakes, landslides and even fires occur in the area.

Tehran is one of the high risk cities in natural and man-made disasters. This city has a special condition due to its especial location and increasing urban development. Crisis management is the process by which an organization deals with a major event that threatens and harms the general public. There are possibilities of incidence of many disasters in Iran particularly in Tehran such as sinking and subsiding ground in buildings. In order to prevent the impacts of these problems, conducting comprehensive investigation before any urban construction is important. Geotechnical studies are to be performed to obtain information on the physical properties of soil and rock around the site to design earth-works and foundations for proposed structures and for repairing the distress to earth-works and structures which may take place in special conditions. For Tehran like other places, geotechnical studies and buildings structural design have to be prepared before issuing any permission for construction process.The hypothesis of the research is that, there is a meaningful relation between geotechnical studies and decreasing of ground subsidence in urban development. This study has been conducted through literature review and analyzing the available documents and reports on geotechnical investigations. Obtained results indicate a significant relationship between performing the geotechnical studies and reduction of building sinkings.

Historical tissues represent an important part of Iranian cultural heritage and they can be considered as accumulated capitals. These tissues which contain in themselves the social memories and the ways of thinking and living of our ancestors have become very unsustainable and vulnerable against natural disasters such as earthquake. Hence, it is necessary to pay serious attention in order to identify some opportunities and threats of crisis management with these tissues. This study was done to investigate some opportunities and threats of crisis management in Yazd's historical tissue by using SWOT model with the aim of finding some strategies for managing the crisis in optimal and effective ways.The results indicated that serious attention should be paid to the problem of crisis management in Yazd's historical tissue, because there are many valuable and unique historical, cultural and ancient monument in Yazd such as Eskandar jail, Jamea mosque. According to the results of this study, being irresponsible with this dilemma not only will cause damages to the monument and historical buildings, but also it is dangerous for tissues' residents, particularly by occurrence of the natural crises like earthquake. Although these tissues are very vulnerable during the crisis, they have some capacities which can be recruited in the process of crisis management and reducing the damages and indemnities.

Unprecedented crises of human beings such as social, family, spiritual, and environmental crises are some examples of identity crisis in the contemporary times.Urban identity moves towards a kind of conceptual loading on all urban phenomena that widely uses the cultural-value system process. A city enables citizens to find their identity in the course of structural and motional processes in the experience of urban space. The uses of western models in the current urban spaces of Iran without any attempt for harmony have led to disruptions in their context. Such disturbed conditions have been also appeared in social relationships in the residential context: Development of living in the suburbs without development of citizenship is an aspect of social crisis of housing and social behavior in Tehran.The above effects result in abnormal behaviors that automatically extend to the social chaos.Statistical studies of this research are followed in modern types of residential context of the suburbs of Tehran, designed in the form of residential complexes to stabilize multicultural and multi-ethnic societies in the suburbs. These textures are encountered with a non-homogenous cultural reality and have been exactly appeared when national identities are mostly threatened.This research includes residential complexes of Parand Satellite town that have been seriously included in the urban design of Iran under the influence of developed societies and frequency of anti-social events has been calculated in this type of housing. The present research has analyzed the details of social abnormalities crisis and shows that residential complexes which do not have a clear cultural identity are in line with antisocial behaviors. This will lead to an identity crisis (characterized by social alienation) that may be problematic if it is not prevented.

Rapid and ungovernable growth of urbanity leads to irrelevant system of services distribution and its insufficiency which can be observed in city network of Iran. One of these important centers in the field of disaster management whose vital importance in the response phase is obvious, is Disaster Management Sites (DMSs). It is obvious that, considering the quality of any land use program in locating them has a worthy effect on its success and optimum servicing. Considering the DMS’s requirements in their locating can guarantee their efficiency in needful times too.So in this research, DMSs and their function have been recognized to identify their necessary requirements in locating them. For this purpose, some criteria have been codified. In the analysis part, experts’ advices have been considered to evaluate and give preference to the criteria and then they (advices) have been made compatible with AHP method to calculate criteria’s weight with Expert Choice program. Then with spatial analysis of GIS and transforming the criteria to information layers, the resultant information has been combined and analyzed and finally the ultimate value of each block has been calculated considering the average value of pixels of each block and then the optimum block for locating DMS has been proposed. Finally, it is remarked that considering the physical requirements, their different effect and their buffers in locating DMSs impress the rate of their servicing.

After the 9.11 disaster in New York, we have become more awareo f the catastrophic threats in our communities. While the 9.11d isaster was not directed toward the oil industry, oil production facilities may pose an attractive target for terrorism. This study focuses on assessing the security risk of man-made disasters for critical assets in the oil industry. This research modifies conventional risk assessment methods for including terrorism and sabotage scenarios by Joshan model. The objective of this risk assessment is to identify possible security hazards, threats and vulnerabilities facing each target asset, and to find the adequate countermeasures to protect the public, workers, national interest, environment, and companies. This model includes five steps: asset characterization, threat assessment, vulnerability analysis, risk assessment and new countermeasures. Joshan-Pro, an in-house software, is introduced for security vulnerability assessment in critical asset protection.

Principles of civil rights may differ among different countries and societies. Various factors such as religion, believes, customs, geographical situation and economical conditions influence the codifying of the laws of civil rights. In the Iranian constitution, there is a chapter on nation rights, however the citizens' duties are not specified. There is a small number of laws related to the civil rights in Iran, most of which consider the initial rights of culprit and do not include other issues. In urgency situations where the civil and human rights are threatened, a more comprehensive law is seemed to be essential for preserving the citizens' rights.