Journal of Spatial Analysis

Disaster risk which is the potential loss expressed in lives, health status, livelihoods, assets and services, can occur in a particular community or a society due to the impact of a natural hazard. Disaster Risk Reduction is a systematic approach to identify, assess and reduce that risk. Or (in identifying, assessing, and reducing …) To be specific, the purpose of this or (the current) approach is to minimize vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout an education factors (throughout an educational factor Or throughout educational factors) to avoid or limit the adverse impacts of natural hazards.

Knowledge and education are recognized as the key components of disaster risk management. Occurrence of enormous disaster in the world shows ( or pinpoints) the need to use  (or for using , in order to prevent repetition of the same structure) knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels. The role of education for disaster risk reduction strategies can thus be presented based on three types of activities, including Save lives and prevent injuries should a hazardous event occur; Prevent interruptions to the provision of education, or ensure its swift resumption in the event of an interruption, and finally Develop a resilient population which is able to reduce the economic, social and cultural impacts should a hazardous event occur. Education for Disaster Risk Reduction promotes critical thinking and problem-solving as well as social and emotional life skills which are essential to the empowerment of groups threatened or affected by disasters.

Iran is crossed by several major faults, 90% of whom are seismically active and subject to many earthquakes each year. Qazvin Province, which is located among active zones, suffers less earthquakes, but these may be more powerful because stresses have longer to build. Occurring earthquakes often affected rural settlement and societies. The main aim of the article is to respond how is the role of education in risk management and decreasing vulnerability level of rural areas based on earthquake in Qazvin province? The purposes of this article are to outline the existing seismic risk in Qazvin and to identify the crucial role of education in advancing culture of safety and the resilience of Qazvin rural communities to destructive earthquakes.

From objective points of view, this paper is practical kind of research and from analytic points of view; it would be categorized as the qualitative and quantitative research. The information contained in this article is based on a variety of sources and have been collected by means of both documentary and questionnaire techniques.

This research has adopted or adopts the qualitative and quantitative methods to respond to  (or to answer a basic question) a basic question. To formulate the strategies of earthquake risk reduction 29 villages were selected by cluster sampling and then it was estimated the samples by Cochrane method. For data collection, 386 households were selected by random method.

According to the research topic, the main criteria divided into two groups: formal and informal education. The formal education includes indicators as the number of showed films, corrugated education about earthquake and the informal education encompasses indices as  the effect of media or institutions raising awareness for earthquake, the effect of the earthquake, affected rural and peoples and finally experiences  concerning  the earthquake training.

Based on the results of the current research, the level of education plays an important role in enhancing the effects of hazards and ensuing vulnerability of rural areas after the occurrence of natural hazards (earthquakes).

The result of this research also shows that the rural or regions of Qazvin province are the more vulnerable and the range of knowledge of peoples about earthquake risk is low. It is necessary to consider the earthquake risk management to (or so as to) decrease the earthquake risk among the studied regions/areas in all earthquake phases. In order to reduce the vulnerability of rural settlements in Qazvin County, it is necessary to increase awareness and knowledge.

Regarding/ considering the results of this research and the role of education in risk reduction to  reduce the vulnerability of rural spaces, some strategies such as strengthening disaster risk management awareness, increasing knowledge among rural residents, improving communication skills regarding/concerning disaster risk management  have been proposed.