Resilience of human settlements against landslide risk: The case of Kurdistan Province, Iran

This study aimed to identify the problems and challenges facing the resilience of landslide areas using the strategic approach of futures studies (futurology) and its scenarios. Methodologically, this study is novel as it applied the mixed-method (qualitative-quantitative) analysis based on the futures studies approach to explore the efficient resilience scenarios of human settlements against landslide risks in the Kurdistan Province, Iran. This study is original and innovative in terms of thematic aspects as it attempted to provide a new and practical approach to identify the degree of resilience and challenges in the framework of strategic planning in the short, medium, and long terms. The findings of the qualitative phase showed that the most efficient scenario for improving the resilience of human settlements is the preparation scenario. The results of the quantitative phase revealed that the identified propellants for this scenario included improving organizational integrity and crisis management, organizational communication, increasing local institutions and community participation, improving insurance coverage, increasing the education and skills of people against landslide risks, zoning and characterizing high-risk areas, balanced distribution of services at the regional level, and increasing convenient access to transport networks during the crisis. Considering that crisis management before the occurrence of risk is unsuitable for Iran, therefore, identifying the bottlenecks and challenges facing crisis management using a futures studies approach can be an important step to provide affective programmes to solve the problems and predict the impacts of the natural hazards.