Explaining the effective physical criteria in promoting resilience of informal settlements in the face of environmental hazards (Case study: Hamadan)

Abstract

The vulnerability of informal settlements to environmental hazards reveals the importance of paying attention to resilience. Resilience is considered a form of foresight due to the dynamic nature of society's response to risks. Accordingly, this issue is one of the ways to reduce risk and vulnerability in human settlements. This research has been carried out to identify physical factors affecting the creation of resilient neighborhoods in the areas involved with informal settlements in Hamedan city against environmental hazards. The research indicators were evaluated in five spectrums of user index, density index, access index, physical structure index, and road network. The present research method is practical in terms of its purpose and descriptive-analytical in terms of its nature and method, and to collect information and data, documentary and field method (questionnaire) has been used. The results show that the level of resilience of informal settlements in Hamedan city is lower than the average level and the first factor i.e. building resistance has the biggest role in explaining the improvement of resilience of informal settlements in Hamedan city. This factor can be successful in dealing with and adapting to resilience. Among the identified factors, the density factor does not affect improving the resilience of informal settlements, and other factors have a direct and positive effect.

Keywords

• resilience
• physical criteria
• informal settlements
• environmental hazards
• hamadan