Spatial analysis of strategic centers in Neishabour using an interactive approach

In the last 5,000 years, there have been 14,000 wars in the world that have left more than 4 billion dead, so much so that even sociologists have considered war as a social reality. Since 1945, there have been only two weeks without war. The study of world wars shows that cities have always been one of the first targets of enemies in air, missile and ground attacks due to the existence of population centers, vital facilities and infrastructure. In other words, in the wars of the contemporary period, cities and citizens are affected by attacks for various reasons, which cause a lot of casualties and damage. Therefore, even in countries that have not been involved in war so far and have only observed this ominous phenomenon, attention to passive defense measures in the field of architecture and urban planning has been significant.

According to reports and research, in the wars of the last three decades (including the Iraq-Iran war, the Iraq invasion to Kuwait, the 1991 Allied war against Iraq, the NATO war against the former Yugoslavia, 2003 US-British war against Iraq, The 33-day war of Israel in 2006 against the Lebanese people, Hezbollah, etc.), population centers and facilities and infrastructure in the sectors of water, electricity, energy, transportation, emergency services, defense of cities were the most important targets that have been subjected to the most severe military attacks.

This is an applied research by quantitative method. In this study, in order to achieve the goal of determining the degree of dependence of urban areas, interaction analysis and official scoring criteria announced by the passive defense organization have been used.

In this regard, to determine the degree of interaction of zones, four criteria of physical, cyber, geographical and logical interaction have been used according to the degree of their dependence on other assets and the results are defined in the form of points for each asset.

In terms of physical interaction, the assets of Neishabour Crisis Management Center and Medical Emergency, combined cycle power plant and electrical substations, hospitals and medical centers are in the first category in terms of physical interaction, respectively. The interaction of these assets is above 50. The assets of the Red Crescent, blood transfusion, air emergency base and Neishabour municipality are in the second category, respectively. The physical interaction of these assets is above 40. The assets of the oil pipelines and Telecommunications company and Bar dam are also in the third category with an interaction above 30. The results of spatial analysis of physical interaction showed that the largest pole of physical interaction is located in the southwest of the city. The main reason for the formation of this pole is the location of the electrical substation on Kashmar Road and the railway station in the southwestern part of the city. Due to the location of the electrical substation next to the Tavanir sports complex in the central area of the city, this area had the highest amount of physical interaction after the southwest pole.

interaction after the southwest pole.

In terms of cyber interaction, among these assets, combined cycle power plants and electrical substations had the highest dependence on the relevant information flow, respectively. Assets such as the Bar dam, TBS stations and the oil pipelines and Telecommunications Company were in the next category. The spatial distribution of this interaction indicated that there are three main nodes (east, south and southwest) in the city. Among these nodes, the eastern node has the highest rate of cyber interaction. The main centers of the east, south and southwest nodes are the Infrastructure Communications Company, the electricity substation located on Kashmar Road and the electricity substation next to Tavanir Sports Complex, respectively.

In terms of geographical interaction, it can be said that most of the assets of Neishabour are less than 5 kilometer away from each other and in general 19 assets (more than half of them) are in the category of very short distance. 13 assets with a distance of 6 to 7 kilometer are in the category of assets with a short distance as the second largest category in terms of the number of assets. 4 assets also had a distance between 7 and 8 kilometer and were in the category of assets with a medium distance. The 6 assets had a distance of 8 to 15 kilometer and were classified as long distance assets. 4 assets were also in the category of very long distance assets. The results of spatial analysis of this type of interaction indicated that the geographical interaction of assets located in the central part of the city was higher. It can be said that there are two main poles of geographical interaction in the city of Neishabour. The larger pole is located in the central part of Neishabour. The smaller pole is located in the southeastern part of the city and was surrounded by highly interactive assets. In the field of logical interaction, the assets related to water and electricity and health care infrastructures of Neishabour have the highest level of logical interaction with interaction rate of 4, respectively. The interaction rate of other assets is equal to 3. Railway assets also have no logical interaction due to the lack of other assets in the transport infrastructure. The results of spatial analysis showed that the western, southeastern and central parts of the city had the highest rate of logical interaction, respectively. The adjacent range of these three poles was in the category with high logical interaction. Most parts of the city were in the category of moderate interaction. The southwestern part of the city also had the lowest rate of interaction.

According to the findings of the physical interaction, it can be concluded that in the event of an attack on the southwest of the city, many urban centers and facilities will dysfunction. Because most of them have a high functional dependence on the strategic centers located in this part of the city; but in general, the distribution of these strategic centers in the city is appropriate.