analysis of environmental and natural hazards and risk management of lorestan province

introduction geographically risk of an area determines the nature of disasters, their magnitude and spatial distribution. geographically risk is been controlled by several environmental variables such as geographical situation, climatic characteristics, topography, landform processes, land changing and human impacts. in many countries environmental crises generally is under influences of inability in sustainable development, disturbance of the balance of environment capabilities and development rate. considering that one of the most important indexes of the countries is the rate of their community's preparedness against various types of natural disasters. in the most of countries is been paid low attention to emergencies and crises among their development plans. development and crisis planners work separately and this led to imbalances in the planning of the development and crisis .only a few countries have comprehensive plans for risk and disaster management in their development plans which has been given more attention to preparation phase and the most attention is given to phase for coping with crisis. lorestan geographical location is in the way that it is receptive to diversity of climate, precipitation, temperature, humidity, mountains, plains and etc. in the same ratio the variety of plant and animal habitat is compatible to fertility status. larestan area is appeared by many environment hazard which is located in a high risk zones in the country. therefore, in this study, environmental and natural hazards and risk management are analysed by sowt technique. for evaluating and managing environmental risks many researchers have tried to study and using different methods. study area lorestan province, with 28064 square kilometres included 7.1 percent of total area of iran. this province is one of the western provinces that is located between 32 ◦40' and 34◦ 23' north latitudes and between 46◦ 50' and 50◦ 01' east longitude? many years ago lorestan was the habitat of the people that has been known as asia nikos or aztec from descendants of this grope of people and we can mention guti and casey tribes that they have settled in kordestan, lorestan and bakhtiari. material and methods considering the purpose of this study, it is applied-developmental and the research's method of this is descriptive-analytical. for collecting required data and information, library studies and field studies such as interviews, observations, and visits has been done and according to obtained information the environmental and ecological hazards of lorestan province were analysed. in the next step for data analysing and providing risk management strategies in the next steep swot technique was used was used for data analysing and risk management strategies providing. for this purpose the list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were identified and according to the four factors of swot such as -so ,-st ,-wo and -wt were presented. the factors of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were ranked by authorities and finally with respect to the formation of the strategies by four factors rank of each factor were determined. result and discussions table 1: analysis of environmental and natural hazards and risk management of lorestan province external environment internal environment opportunities o1. possibility of using torrents for development of watershed projects o2. using the environmental standards by managers o3. promoting the culture of protecting the natural resources o4. introducing international standards of limit pollutants to officials and managers o5. possibility of geotourism development o6. ability to develop and diversify agricultural production according to climate variability o7. possibility of development and proper utilization of water resources in many areas as a prerequisite for development in all sectors of industry, agriculture and urban o8. potential of cold water aquaculture development in 7/1501 hectares of plains in the province o9. preventing migration to outside of the province strengths s1. climate variability s2.existence water with high quality because of locating upstream of areas s3 .having plains with high potential for groundwater s4.existence of all kinds of stone's construction s5. existence of numerous springs and waterfalls s6. having a pond and lake s7.existence of the intact and virginal nature s8 - 768,924 hectares of arable agricultural land resources s9. progress of seismology and earthquake engineering that enabled man to records the past earthquakes and analyses them accurately s10. existence of different specific species of plants and animals s11. special attractions s12. existence of the vast spaces of greenhouse vegetables and flowers, ornamental and medicinal s13. existence graduates in various fields of science threats t1. risk of the destruction of lakes and wetlands t2. risk of the destruction of protected areas t3. high seismic potential of province t4. severe soil erosion t5. climate fluctuations and the risk of dehydration period t6. risk of converting the land application to developing physical and non-agricultural one t7. risk of the destruction of province's glaciers t8. risk of destruction of the forests, vegetation and genetic reservoirs t9. reduction of surface water and groundwater caused by factors within and outside of the province t10. drought and migration to cities t11. drought and degradation of agricultural land and decrease in diversity of plants and animals. t12. decrease the role of agriculture in the province's economy. t13. increase the range of damages of pests diseases and reduction of rural animal nutrition resources t14. reduction in quality of agricultural products t15. infestations a lot of pests and diseases because of the wrong fight against them. t16. compromising quality of social-physical life of the city because of environmental pollution weaknesses w1. existence of many faults in province w2. existence of eroded areas devoid of vegetation w3. fight inaccurately and generally rely on chemical methods by the farmers who are beneficiaries w4. illegal dry farming in the high dips w5. distribution of villages of the cities (noorabad, selseleh, boroujerd, khorramabad, doroud and boroujerd) in earthquake-prone areas of lorestan w6. changing the natural applications like forests and grasslands to dry land farm. w7.grazing too much in grasslands w8. mountain barriers and lack of continuity of man-made structures and organic relationship between them. w9.lack of a proper wastewater collection system and its purification w10. poor distribution of rainfall during the year (the maximum february( the persian month esfand) - the lowest in august (the persian shahrivar) w11 .poor quality of installations and equipments in earthquake-prone areas w12. loss of the proper buildings for controlling the torrents in flood-prone areas of the province w13. weakness of trees and gardens affected by climatic phenomena (frost and drought) w14. consuming too much fossil fuels in villages w15. loss of suitable sites for waste landfills w16. forest fires w17.destruction of nature by tourists prioritisation of strategies by comparing internal and external factors in swot matrix the acceptable strategies were chosen from the primary strategies. the process of risk management strategies' and environmental hazards crisis prioritization of lorestan province was performed in two following steps: step one: prioritize of the four factors of swot (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) at this stage, the average opinions of the officials about the four factors are considered. the weaknesses with an average of 3.68 are in the first place, strengths with an average of 3.45 are in second place, threats with an average of 3.32 in third place and opportunities with an average of 3.18 are in fourth place. step two: prioritise of the acceptable strategies strategies and operational priorities determine acceptable strategies to improve risk management and environmental hazards crisis of lorestan province. acceptable strategies according to diagram (1) are obtained from combination of four factors. according to this average chart the factors have added together two by two. wt strategies with an average of 7.18 are in the first place, wo strategies with an average of 7.14 are in second place, st strategies averaging 6.77 are in third place and at last so strategies averaging 63/6 are in last place. figure 1.ranking strategies conclusion analysis of environmental and natural hazards and risk management is the result of the increase in opportunities and reduction of threats. if an opportunity is identified and that opportunity have been used it will become profit and also if the threat have not been avoided it will cause costs. no benefit from the strengths and opportunities of a region achieved automatically and randomly because success depends on good planning and control. the results of the investigation shows that the risks are in terms of the threats and weaknesses of the province but according to strengths and opportunities that facing the province by using an accurate planning and appropriate risk and crisis management and reduce the hazards that caused by threats. in this regard, 17 weakness, 16 threats, 13 strengths and 9 opportunities were identified that weaknesses and threats are environmental and biological risks, the strengths and the opportunities are for moderating the threats and weaknesses and according to the swot matrix, 17 aggressive strategies, 12 contingency strategies, 13 adaptive strategies and 8 defensive strategies were presented and according to the officials of the province the strategies ranked as follow: wt strategies with an average of 7.18 are in the first place, wo strategies with an average of 7.14 are in second place, st strategies averaging 6.77 are in third place and at last so strategies averaging 63/6 are in last place.