Spatial analysis of the vulnerability of human settlements against earthquakes (Case study: West Azarbaijan province)

Introduction
Investigating the vulnerability of each province, including West Azarbaijan province, against earthquakes can play a positive role in reducing the vulnerability of human settlements. This province is located in the northwest of Iran and in an area with moderate seismicity, but the occurrence of destructive earthquakes in the past in Salmas, 70 km from Urmia, as well as the occurrence of destructive earthquakes in the city of Tabriz, which is a short distance from this province, along with the presence of active faults such as the Piranshahr-Selmas, Tabriz, Mahabad Dam faults and active faults in neighboring countries such as Turkey make it necessary to investigate the vulnerability caused by earthquakes in this province. therefore, based on the mentioned cases, The main purpose of this research is to analyze the spatial vulnerability of human settlements against earthquakes in West Azerbaijan province. to evaluate the vulnerability of this province based on fault data and point data while investigating various events in this area. in this regard, the main research question under the title "Which human settlements in West Azarbaijan Province are the most vulnerable?" has been mentioned.

Methodology
The current research is descriptive-analytical regarding its practical purpose and investigation method. in this research, the method of data collection has been done in the library and field, so that at first, the information of the literature part of the research was collected from scientific sources such as books and scientific articles, and then the information related to the analytical data part, which includes Slope, Elevation, linear data of faults and point data of earthquakes from the year It is collected from 1930 to 2018. the statistical population of this research is 19 townships of West Azerbaijan province. the analysis of research data has been carried out quantitatively using GIS software. Several methods have been used to spatially analyze data, such as the IDW interpolation model, Kernel density function, Line density function, Fuzzy Overlay model, and AND function. in this research, clustering is considered as a 5-point Likert scale, which includes very low, low, medium, high, and very high degrees.

Results and discussion
The findings of the research show that The vulnerability rate of the earthquakes that occurred in West Azarbaijan province shows that the biggest earthquake of this province with 7.1 Richter occurred in Salmas in 1930. Also, the vulnerability rate of the earthquakes that occurred in this province shows that the western half of the province has suffered a lot of vulnerability compared to its eastern half. Also According to the results, Salmas, Khoi, Chaypare, Chaldiran and Mako townships are in the north of the province, Takab township is in the southeast of the province, and in the south of the province, the townships of Sardasht, Mirabad, Piranshahr and oshnaviyeh are among the cities with a high vulnerability rate. According to the results, it can be acknowledged that the southeast of the province is less vulnerable than the south and the north of the province. In a general summary, about 46% of the area of the province and 18% of the population of the province are in the area with high vulnerability.

Conclusion
Nowadays, evaluating the vulnerability of human settlements on one hand and evaluating the vulnerability of existing faults on the other hand can help the science of crisis management, so that by evaluating the current situation and history of natural hazards in the area, critical areas can be identified and early policies can be adopted in this regard. day by day, this issue adds to the importance of increasing resilience in human settlements, following the recent hazards, especially the recent earthquakes in Iran and neighboring countries, we have witnessed unfortunate events; therefore, based on the results obtained in this research, it is suggested to form pre-crisis management before the earthquake in centers with very high vulnerability and by increasing the level of resilience to reduce the vulnerability of these human settlements, it reduced the amount of people who need help during natural hazards because the occurrence of this hazards is always accompanied by a lot of damage, which can be reduced by adopting appropriate policies in the amount of material and life losses in these settlements.

Funding
There is no funding support.

Authors’ Contribution
Authors contributed equally to the conceptualization and writing of the article. All of the authors approved thecontent of the manuscript and agreed on all aspects of the work declaration of competing interest none.

Conflict of Interest
Authors declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments
We are grateful to all the scientific consultants of this paper.