Dr. Manoochehr Mortazavi Chamchali, Dr. Ghazaleh Mohebbi Tafreshi, Dr. Amin Mohebbi Tafreshi,
Volume 20, Issue 1 (6-2026)
Situated in northern Iran, Manjil City faces significant seismic risk due to its proximity to active fault systems and its role as a corridor for critical regional infrastructure. Past catastrophic events have emphasised the need for robust spatial risk assessment to mitigate the impact on people, the economy and infrastructure. This study presents a comprehensive seismic risk assessment and spatial zonation for Manjil, employing an integrated multi-criteria evaluation approach that couples Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and fuzzy logic. Risk was modelled as a function of the interaction between seismic hazard potential and spatial vulnerability. Vulnerability indicators, including residential density, land use patterns and critical urban infrastructure, were standardized and weighted using the AHP framework. Our findings suggest that high-density residential areas primarily contribute to urban vulnerability, whereas critical infrastructure components play a disproportionately vital role in emergency response scenarios.. In the hazard assessment, a range of proxies were analyzed, including proximity to faults, fault density, peak ground acceleration (PGA), active tectonic indices, topographic slope, and lithological characteristics. These parameters reveal heightened hazard levels in zones adjacent to active faults. By applying fuzzy membership functions and a gamma operator (γ=0.9), we generated an integrated earthquake risk map, classified into five vulnerability tiers ranging from ‘very low’ to ‘very high’ Spatial analysis revealed four distinct high-risk focal zones within the urban footprint, driven by the convergence of elevated seismic hazards and dense concentrations of residential and critical infrastructure. This research demonstrates the efficacy of the GIS–AHP–Fuzzy integration in providing a reliable, data-driven framework for evidence-based urban planning and proactive seismic risk management in seismically prone areas.
