How to improve public participation in disaster risk management: A case study of Buein Zahra, a small city in Iran.

Identifying and providing basic solutions using a collaborative approach in earthquake-stricken cities of Iran has not yet been addressed. This article focuses on an area of practice and views disaster risk management from the point of view of volunteer groups to illustrate how the main components of disaster risk management affect the strengthening of public participation. In this article, Buein Zahra, a small city in Iran, is considered as a high-risk earthquake zone. The basic components of risk management are identified, namely public awareness, knowledge, skills, enabling environment, organisational development and social participation. An assessment of these indicators was done, and multidimensional relationships were established between them to enable an increase in the capacity for public participation. Accordingly, the results indicate that a mere increase in public awareness and knowledge, as seen today, and an improvement in enabling environment, although affecting disaster risk reduction, cannot by themselves lead to real public participation. Organisational development and strengthening of crisis coping skills are two key components to improving participation during crises in the small cities of Iran. According to the results of this study, institutional capacity and unreal political commitment have caused inefficiency of public participation in earthquake preparedness.

Factors influencing carbon dioxide emissions in Iran's provinces with emphasis on spatial linkages.

Current economic policy planning places much emphasis on balancing development and environmental protection. Hence, it is important to determine the drivers of environment pollution from the theoretical, scientific, and policymaking aspects in the context of continuous economic growth. This paper investigates the factors affecting per capita CO2 emissions in 30 provinces in Iran from 2009 to 2014 with emphasis on spatial spillover effects using the Spatial Durbin Model. The findings show that per capita CO2 emissions are positively and significantly affected by per capita GDP, industrialization, and urbanization but negatively affected by changes in population. The results of the spatial section of the model indicate that both the more and the less-polluted provinces tend to cluster together, indicating positive spatial dependence for CO2 emissions in the provinces. Also, the spatial spillover of per capita GDP and the growth of urbanization have a negative and significant effect on per capita CO2 emissions in the provinces, while the spatial effect of changes in population is significant but positive. In other words, the economic development and rise in urbanization in one province are the results of changes in pollution levels in neighboring provinces.