Roads, as the main artificial linear structures in any landscape, have an important role in the VULNERABILITY of natural ecosystems and their sustainability. The purpose of this research is to introduce a systematic method for ecological VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT to be used in road site selection and environmental impact ASSESSMENT procedure. Five steps of the VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT are involved in this study; like determining the indices of VULNERABILITY dimensions, calculating and mapping the indices, standardization of the indices, determining the VULNERABILITY index and analysis of local variability. Lorestan province was selected as the case study due to its ecological properties and the presence of important road NETWORK to transfer goods and passengers. Indices like infrastructure fragmentation index, fractal dimension, residential neighborhood index, road traffic noise, erosion, topographic position index, and landscape connectivity index and dominance degree have been applied to quantify sensitivity, exposure and adaptive capacity as major components of the VULNERABILITY. The findings show that the highest tension of road events is on the woodland habitat in 157270 ha. Besides, the regions with a high degree of sensitivity cover 28/1% (795132 ha) of the total study area. Wetland and temperate grassland habitats have the least adaptive capacity. Furthermore, the VULNERABILITY classes in very low, low, moderate, high, and very high cover 2/5%, 52%, 42/1%, 3/1% and 0/3% of the total study area respectively. Therefore, approximately half of the province has the VULNERABILITY degree in over average. This study showed the importance of the ecological VULNERABILITY evaluation in environmental impact studies of development projects.

In the response phase the most important step is to assess disaster after occurrence. By disaster ASSESSMENT, we can obtain all the needed information for controlling, decision-making and also disaster planning. Lack of disaster ASSESSMENT causes you to make unsuitable decisions based on limited or inadequate data which leads to imperfect disaster response. According to IFRC, disaster response operation will have an unsuitable function without disaster ASSESSMENT. This paper presents the principles and concepts of disaster ASSESSMENT.

Resilience as a counterpoint to VULNERABILITY can reduce the VULNERABILITY of various natural, man-made, and technological threats in complex technical systems. The present study was designed and conducted with the aim of comparative ASSESSMENT of the VULNERABILITY of a gas supply NETWORK to natural and technological threats. This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study was carried out in Tehran metropolis gas supply NETWORK including town board stations, gas supply, and distribution NETWORKs in 2019-2020. The study was based on the VULNERABILITY analysis method including three factors of likelihood, severity of consequences, and the degree of preparedness for threats. Comparative VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT in these three sections of the gas supply NETWORK was performed using IBM SPSS software v. 23. 0. Out of eleven identified hazardous elements, the VULNERABILITY index for three hazardous elements was estimated as a weak level threat,four hazardous elements as a medium level threat and the VULNERABILITY index for four hazards were evaluated as a severe threat. The results of comparative VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT based on three parts of gas supply NETWORK showed that the highest vulnerabilities related to the gas distribution NETWORK (133. 66±, 24. 63), gas supply NETWORK (115. 0±, 35. 35), and town board stations (79. 49±, 68. 51. In addition, the results of Kruskal-Wallis test showed that the VULNERABILITY difference in these three sections was not significant (p>0. 05). The findings of the comparative ASSESSMENT of VULNERABILITY between different parts of the gas supply NETWORK including town board stations (TBS), gas supply and distribution NETWORK indicated that the resilience of these parts is relatively low and requires special attention in order to reduce VULNERABILITY in Tehran metropolis gas supply NETWORK.

While risk reduction has been mainly addressed by seismologists and engineers by now, the total impact of earthquake greatly depends on urban planning factors. The effects of planning can be considered in the socio economic and physical aspects. Urban planning may have a dominant role in various earthquake phases: at the time of earthquake, rescue, and emergency, as well as temporary and permanent settlements. There is a strong relationship between the level of planning and the effects of a disaster on the community. Urban planning with the purpose of VULNERABILITY reduction has to recognize VULNERABILITY causes for every physical city elements. Seismic pathology of communication NETWORKs, especially urban roads, as one of the main physical elements of city, is a key issue. Initially, urban roads should play key roles in the provision of access to suitable open spaces and escape. The main purpose of this research is to analysis and recognize the factors affecting urban roads VULNERABILITY and to determine their effects. In the context of urban planning criteria, special criteria are selected for evaluation of urban roads VULNERABILITY. In this process, AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) method, as well as GIS, SPSS and Export Choice software were utilized. As the case study of the research, Karmandan neighborhood, located in the central established area of Karaj City, some 30 kilometers west of Tehran, the capital, was selected. Some information and data were collected through existed and approved plans for the case study area. However, the main data were collected through field survey, conducted during the research in the city of Karaj. Using previous research and studies, 10 criteria were selected for evaluation the roads VULNERABILITY, including: 1-hierarchical accessibility, 2-degree of roads enclosure, 3-the quality of roads wall, 4 type of roads (dead end or open end), 5 material types used in roads, 6 land use of allotments located in roads, 7-the gradient of roads, 8-location and characteristics of urban infrastructures, 9-internal angle of roads, and 10-population density related to roads. The findings of the research showed that three criteria are the premier factors affecting VULNERABILITY of urban roads, including population density related to urban roads NETWORK, the location and characteristics of urban infrastructures, and the gradient of roads. Two other criteria are less important, including hierarchical accessibility and internal angle of roads. The results of correlation analysis showed that it is not possible to determine the level of threshold for the mentioned scales. The reasons for this are: correlation among scales, data overlapping and direct and reverse effects of scales on each other, and seismic VULNERABILITY of urban roads. VULNERABILITY of urban roads is not the effect of one factor, but it is the consequence of various factors. It seems that the model introduced by this research, benefiting from simultaneously analyzed criteria and factors, can be a fair and efficient method for evaluation of the VULNERABILITY of urban roads. By using this method, priorities may be determined in action plans to prevent seismic VULNERABILITY, as well as pre implementation evaluation in new urban development projects.

Urban centers, due to population density and the density of water supply and wastewater collection and disposal facilities, need to be provided with care, reinforcement and special measures to deal with the effects of natural events, especially floods. The area of aAbfa in Tehran The northernmost region of Tehran is considered. while the main rivers that affect the settlements of Tehran and its vital arteries and are always considered as a risk factor for the flood. The rivers in northern Tehran, despite the average discharge rate, have relatively high flood flows that can cause severe floods in the downstream areas. The research method was based on descriptive-analytical method and conducted by library and field studies. In the research stages, firstly, the effective sub-criteria for the VULNERABILITY of the research area were determined and were weighted by AHP-FUZZY method. As a result, the effect of each of them on the VULNERABILITY of the indicated indicators was determined and distributed using the TOPSISIS model. Runoff modeling was performed using maximum daily rainfall of Tehran's meteorological stations, which was used to estimate the runoff height of the studied area using Arc CN-Runoff method. Overall, the results of sewage VULNERABILITY in the 20-year runoff scenario, Most vulnerable In two categories High and very high (29. 27%)In the area of one Tehran was observedWhile the lowest VULNERABILITY was seen in low and very low (94. 66%) areas in Zone 6, the results were cleared, Tehran is one of the four other areas of Tehran's water and sewage Due to the high cumulative facilities with high economic value (sewage pipes and manholes), high cumulative risk centers (gas stations and transmission lines), aging texture, gradient, high population density, condition of facilities (in terms of diameter and depth of brokerage Specifically with respect to the Preference index hydrology and wells In particular watercourse north Tehran (Darakeh Darband, Velenjak, maqsud beyk, Jamshideh Darabad and Lark) An obstacle to the placement of the facility buried in deep depth for protection and security are the and other variables, There is a substantial risk that no.

Earthquake as a natural phenomenon causes serious damage to humans. One of the most important measures before an earthquake is to be aware of the VULNERABILITY of urban infrastructure. The transportation NETWORK as one of the main infrastructures of the city can help the water infrastructure in critical conditions and provide water supply to the people by transporting water by tanker to the water supply centers. What is needed here is to assess the VULNERABILITY of the transport NETWORK to earthquakes in order to provide the necessary arrangements. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the VULNERABILITY of Hamadan transportation NETWORK in terms of selected indicators and designation of alternative water supply centers. From the scientific methodological point of view, this research can be considered as a descriptive-analytical one where the descriptive data are collected through library studies and other field data are obtained through field operations. For this purpose, the VULNERABILITY of the routes in each of the selected parameters (population density, age of the building, outdoor access, distance from the fault, etc. ) was investigated and the overall VULNERABILITY map derived from the integration of all the indicators in the transport routes. The water was obtained by paired comparison method and ArcGis software and finally, considering the water requirement of each area and the VULNERABILITY of the waterways, the number of alternative water supply centers was determined, which for a 3 center area, two 5 center area, Area 3 has 3 centers and area 4 has 2 centers.

Identification of areas vulnerable to land degradation is essential for sustainable management of natural resources as one of the steps in the conservation framework. Identification of areas susceptible to degradation as well as determination of VULNERABILITY to this phenomenon is one of the most important issues to an ASSESSMENT of land degradation. This study tries to assess the land degradation VULNERABILITY in Maharloo-Bakhtegan watershed using nine criteria including land use, vegetation, soil salinity, quantity and quality of groundwater, livestock density, literacy level, and population. In the first step, the relationships between the criteria were determined using the eDPSIR framework, then the weight of each criterion was determined using the ANP method. Fuzzing the layers, the map of land degradation VULNERABILITY was provided by combining the layers using ArcGIS10. 3 software. The results showed that the high class of VULNERABILITY covers the highest area in all elevations class except for the first 200 m. the most vulnerable class was in the high class covering about 64. 31% of the area. The high and medium classes of VULNERABILITY include rangeland and agricultural land uses, respectively, indicating a high level of VULNERABILITY and impact of human activities. This percentage of VULNERABILITY in rangeland and agricultural land uses is due to the importance of land use and vegetation criteria having the highest weight among the criteria affecting the VULNERABILITY to land degradation.

The urban road NETWORK is one of the main components of the city’s lifelines that especially after crisis play significant role including the rescue operation, evacuation of the wounded. So the analyzing of the urban road NETWORK besides planning for reducing these harms, are inevitable. The present study was performed with “descriptive analytical” method to assess the seismic VULNERABILITY of the urban road NETWORKs in the zone1 of Tabriz with crisis management approach. In order to evaluate urban road NETWORKs VULNERABILITY of region 1 of Tabriz, 3 criteria of density, level of inclusion and building features were employed. In this regard, the density criterion includes both sub criteria of residential density and construction density. In addition, the criterion of the building features includes 5sub criteria such as: The building date, building quality, land use type, occupancy levels and types of materials which each of these sub-criteria are divided into other sub-criteria that these sub-criteria were weighted using Delphi method. Ultimately, after evaluation of roads VULNERABILITY in terms of each criterion, the layers were overlaid using multi criteria evaluation. The ultimate results show that, the roads NETWORK VULNERABILITY (excluding the region 1) is higher than the average, high and very high. The VULNERABILITY of the road NETWORKs are observed mostly in informal settlements area that should be noticed in planning.

In Recent years, it has been mentioned that the Transmission Expansion Planning is an effective way to mitigate the cascading failure impacts in transmission NETWORK. Also, solving transmission expansion planning with cascading failure issues via analytical and ASSESSMENT approach instead of optimization approach causes that the impacts of cascading failure are more effectively mitigated. The Analytical and ASSESSMENT approach offers a set of critical lines as a suitable candidate placement of new lines. However, installing new lines for all of elements of the set of critical line is an impractical and uneconomical way. In order to overcome this drawback, a new method is proposed in this paper. The proposed method is based on introducing a vulnerable area in transmission NETWORK instead of providing a set of critical lines. The vulnerable area is provided via finding the most vulnerable line and considering a bus farther way (adjacent bus) strategy. All of possible transmission expansion plan at this area are considered to find the best transmission expansion plan. Moreover, a transmission NETWORK solidification index based on transmission NETWORK VULNERABILITY index is proposed in this paper to rank the possible transmission expansion plans at the vulnerable area. The efficiency and feasibility of the proposed method is investigated at IEEE 39-Bus test system. The numerical results show that using the proposed approach is able to mitigate cascading failure impacts in transmission NETWORK.