The city is close to the Alborz Mountains, near earthquake fault lines and near the dormant Damavand volcano, in a mass movement prone area. The city is divided into 22 districts, 123 regions and 375 neighborhoods.
Shocks and stresses
The city is exposed to earthquake, flood, drought, storm, mass movement and failure of buildings due to bad excavations and interactions with the groundwater, close to the surface. With the addition that Tehran is covered by 4 watershed areas with high amount of water coming from the near mountains. Even though Tehran is prone to flooding, the city has not experienced it a lot. Floods usually happen in spring after heavy rainfalls mostly through waterlogged streets. Earthquake remains the most harmful threat.
Recurrent hazards
The most recurrent hazard is air pollution -due to traffic and industrial fuel-, drought and failure of buildings.
On the social dimension, informal settlements, the homeless -especially in winter-, and drug abuses are common concerns.
Capacity of action
The capacity of action is defined at 2 levels:
At national level, the National Disaster management Organization (Interior Ministry). At local level, the competences of
The city owns a rapid assessment system put in place for rapid estimation of damages caused by earthquakes (Quick Damage and Loss Estimation system) based on seismic graphs.
In the surrounding mountains, there are Earthquake Early Warning System (EEWS) Stations. As well, in the coming years and in cooperation with JICA (JAPAN), a pilot project will develop an EWS for earthquakes to disconnect energy and gas supplies.
Every district has an emergency operation plan (EOP) and evacuation maps for each neighborhoods: when disaster hits, all citizens know where to go, which roads are safe for evacuation or which places are safe with a standing capacity for 72h.
The city has applied a communication strategy for its population focusing on public training and education. This community-based approach is implemented by TDMMO through the DAWAM program (Neighborhood Emergency Response Volunteers).
Priorities for the city
Disaster management regulation of Iran is currently under revision at the Iran Parliament, which is an opportunity for the city. Other priorities are: