A Multiple Criteria Decision-Making Approach to Evaluate the Sustainability Indicators in the Villagers’ Lives in Iran with Emphasis on Earthquake Hazard: A Case Study

Beniamino Murgante, Mohamad Salmani, Mohamad Molaei Qelichi and Mehdi Hajilo
Additional contact information
Beniamino Murgante: School of Engineering, University of Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy
Mohamad Salmani: Faculty of Geography, University of Tehran, Tehran 1417853933, Iran
Mohamad Molaei Qelichi: Faculty of Geography, University of Tehran, Tehran 1417853933, Iran
Mehdi Hajilo: Faculty of Geography, University of Tehran, Tehran 1417853933, Iran

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-14

Abstract: Natural hazards such as earthquakes take place around the world and when combined with humans create natural disasters. Earthquakes, a form of natural hazard, have, in recent years, caused damage and destruction in many rural areas due to the lack of sustainability in political, economic, social, physical and operational criteria. Thus, to overcome the damage caused by earthquakes in rural areas, an assessment of sustainability status seems necessary to plan and strengthen in relation to the status of sustainability indicators. Data collection was performed through field methods and questionnaires. To test the hypothesis, T statistical methods, correlation method and F-test were performed using SPSS software (V22.0, IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA). The results of the study showed that villages were at a low and undesirable level for all aspects, except social index in terms of sustainability. Comparisons showed that there was a significant mean difference among villages in terms of sustainability. The multi-criteria decision-making analysis has been considered and applied to a ranking of villages in terms of sustainability against the hazard of earthquakes. Finally, in order to improve the sustainability indicators of villages, some strategies have been presented.

Keywords: sustainability indicators; natural hazards; earthquake; ELECTRE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/8/1491/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/8/1491/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:8:p:1491-:d:109237

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().