Melika Amirzadeh - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Publications by Melika Amirzadeh

Land Use Policy, 2024

Since its emergence in the latter half of the 20th century, the concept of place making has under... more Since its emergence in the latter half of the 20th century, the concept of place making has undergone substantial evolution. To fully comprehend how this concept has transformed and encountered diverse trajectories, it is beneficial to examine its evolutionary path over time. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a thorough review of the literature surrounding the expanding matrix of place making through a combination of bibliometric analysis and selective review. The paper seeks to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of nine interrelated paradigms of place making as a subfield of urban planning and design. These are, namely, late 20th century place making, sustainable place making, digital place making, democratic place making, creative place making, strategic place making, healthy place making, resilient place making, and post-pandemic place making. Results reveal that there has been a transition toward community-based participation and a stronger emphasis on social and environmental elements. Also, there has been a shift from emphasizing functional spaces to promoting community building, social connectivity, healthy, and resilient environments via long-term strategies as well as the deployment of smart city and digital technologies.

LOCAL ENVIRONMENT, 2024

Poor and marginalised communities worldwide bear a disproportionate burden of the impacts caused ... more Poor and marginalised communities worldwide bear a disproportionate
burden of the impacts caused by flash floods, resulting in significant
socioeconomic and financial damages. To enhance community
resilience to floods, it is crucial to comprehend flood risk perception
(FRP) and preparedness levels for future disasters. This study aims to
investigate these two essential factors in the Saadi community, which is
one of the most flood-prone and marginalised communities in Shiraz,
Iran. A field survey was conducted using a questionnaire (n = 400),
supplemented by in-depth interviews with six informants and
observational methods, to gain a comprehensive understanding of FRP
among residents of the Saadi neighbourhood and assess their
preparedness for future flooding events. The survey questionnaire
consisted of three main domains: FRP and climate change perception,
infrastructural capacity building in post-flood scenarios, and the extent
of disaster preparedness. These questions were derived from a review
of relevant literature and tailored to the unique conditions of the area,
resulting in 18 variables. The results indicate that a high level of FRP
(87.5%) was reported among affected residents who experienced
previous floods and suffered consequences. Moreover, survey
participants believed that more than three-fifths of the infrastructure
remained unchanged. This study underscores the presence of high
levels of FRP and medium-to-low levels of preparedness for flash floods
in one of the most vulnerable communities in Shiraz city. The research
findings can provide valuable insights for urban planners, city officials,
and policymakers in developing more effective and realistic community
resilience plans for communities prone to flash flooding.

Journal of Risk Research, 2023

Community flood resilience assessment of Saadi neighborhood, Shiraz, Iran

Environmental Development, 2023

Climate change-induced disasters, such as floods, are threatening coastal communities, particular... more Climate change-induced disasters, such as floods, are threatening coastal communities, particularly vulnerable communities in developing countries, around the world. While various tools and measures are under examination for building and enhancing resilience capacity in order to improve the preparedness of these communities for future events, social capital has been shown to influence how local communities can be resilient using their social connectedness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of social capital in informing and improving the resilience capacity process of coastal communities in northern Iran. This study used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and analyzed a number of social capital indicators in the study area in a field survey using questionnaires and techniques of inferential statistics (i.e., Pearson correlation and T-test). For this reason, 376 residents from the towns that sustained the largest human and financial losses were chosen for examination. The results showed that bonding capital has a considerable effect on the community's resilience capacity. Moreover, some social capital criteria, including respect for the rights of the neighbors, existence of public green space, children's playground, and planting trees, are the most important criteria in developing capacities for enhancing resilience among the residents of the community under study. This shows that developing community resilience through social ability and trust will be more successful than doing so by just raising awareness of hazard threats. This study recommends that further efforts be made to increase the capability of both formal and informal communal institutions. The structural adjustments that are necessary, on the other hand, are difficult.

Intternational Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2023

Sustainable Cities and Society, 2023

With the global prevalence of COVID-19 disease, the concept of urban resilience against pandemics... more With the global prevalence of COVID-19 disease, the concept of urban resilience against pandemics has drawn the attention of a wide range of researchers, urban planners, and policymakers. This study aims to identify the major dimensions and principles of urban resilience to pandemics through a systematic review focused on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and comparing different perspectives regarding resilient urban environments to such diseases. Based on the findings, the study proposes a conceptual framework and a series of principles of urban resilience to pandemics, consisting of four spatial levels: housing, neighborhoods, city, and the regional and national scales, and three dimensions of pandemic resilience: pandemic-related health requirements, environmental psychological principles, and general resilience principles. The findings show that resilient cities should be able to implement the pandemic-related health requirements, the psychological principles of the environment to reduce the stresses caused by the pandemic, and the general principles of resilience in the smart city context. This framework provides scholars and policymakers with a comprehensive understanding of resilience on different scales and assists them in making better-informed decisions.

Sustainable Cities and Society, 2022

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2021

Over the recent years, community resilience has been the center of attention in many theoretical ... more Over the recent years, community resilience has been the center of attention in many theoretical approaches and policies against hazards and creeping environmental changes. However, the issue of how to achieve resilient communities has received less attention. The present study aims to develop a framework for devising strategies in order to improve community resilience, particularly to slow-onset hazards such as drought. Hence, the relevant literature was reviewed in order to establish a conceptual framework. Afterwards, the researchers investigated the framework in the context of two local communities (Barazandeh and Abbas Abad neighborhood) in Iran, i.e., Isfahan, against drought as well as drying up of Zayandehrood River and its aqueducts using a qualitative research design and retroductive strategy. For data gathering, semi-structured in-depth interviews were used and data analysis was performed through qualitative content analysis using ATLAS-ti software. Totally, 32 interviews with authorities, experts, researchers, and other stakeholders were conducted in two local communities of Isfahan. Findings indicated that any policy making regarding community resilience should not be restricted to local community level and should be expanded to multiple scales of local, regional, urban, and national community levels, even considering the two major disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) categories.

Journal of Environmental Studies, 2019

Introduction Over the past few decades, studies on local communities have been increasingly devel... more Introduction
Over the past few decades, studies on local communities have been increasingly developed. In these studies, there is an emphasis on the role of social interactions between community members and the bottom-up approaches to encourage local communities’ participation and identify human agents on community level. Amongst the most recent approaches is community resilience. Despite considerable progress in defining community resilience and its attributes, there are several ambiguities in the theorization of this concept. Due to the nature of resilience as a complicated and multi-dimensional concept, which is strongly linked to the cultural context of a society, the investigation of the beliefs, attitudes, and values of stakeholders is essential in its conceptualization. Thus, this study conceptualizes community resilience and develops a framework for resilience assessment through the qualitative analysis of various stakeholders’ viewpoints and experiences in regard to the matter. Although, before entering the research field, diverse studies related to this concept were reviewed. After reviewing the literature on community resilience and its conceptualizations, research method is presented. Then, the findings are discussed, and lastly, conclusion is presented.

Materials and Methods
The current literature on community resilience mostly focuses on the reaction of communities to the external risks, pressures, changes, and stresses that threaten their welfare, physical and mental health, and identities. The majority of these studies examine the local and small communities with limited geographical extent, such as neighborhoods or small towns.
Finding appropriate indicators for resilience assessment highly relies on developing an appropriate conceptual model for conducting the research on community resilience. Thus, after reviewing the prior conceptualizations, an initial conceptual model was extracted. However, this diagram is merely a primary model and, due to the exploratory nature of the study, it is modifiable, and its components can be eliminated or added during the study process.
Since community resilience is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon, which is significantly affected by the stakeholders’ attitudes, it can be defined differently in diverse communities. Therefore, it is essential to target the identification of participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and values. It is also necessary for the researcher to develop a close relationship with the participants, and he/she has to consider the participants as collaborators. In order to achieve this goal, this study utilized the interpretive paradigm and qualitative research method.
Several in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders including local residents, government officials, non-government organizations, consulting firms, university lecturers, and researchers. The residents were recruited via available sampling technique and other participants were recruited via purposive sampling technique based on an initial list that was developed including key stakeholder categories. This was followed by sequential sampling to identify more participants relevant to each stakeholder group on the list. The snowball sampling began with the recommendations of the first group of respondents. Lastly, to be able to include stakeholders outside the social network of the first respondents all key stakeholders on the initial list were also contacted. Each interview was completely recorded and during interviews notes and memos were written.
The gathered data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using ATLAS-ti software. ATLAS-ti was mainly used for accuracy and comfort of data analysis process. There were three main steps in data analyses: 1) the initial coding of interviews’ texts, 2) the concepts’ categorization and themes’ identification, 3) the reduction/ modification of codes and themes to achieve the research model.
Case studies were two local communities in the vicinity of Madies (neighborhood aqua-ducts from Zayandehrood River) in Isfahan, namely Abbasabad and Barazandeh districts.

Discussion of Results
Overall, 32 interviews were conducted from May to September 2018. The average time of each interview was 57 minutes. After initial content analysis, 96 codes were extracted. Following several reviews and modifications, some of these codes were combined and integrated into mutual categories. The study conceptualized the resilience of both cases in two major social and communal levels. Additionally, 48 sub-themes and 10 major themes were identified. Therefore, this study confirms the prior conceptual frameworks. However, some other themes and sub-themes also were identified in two selected communities. The main themes of social level include urban governance, economic situation, sustainable development, and laws. The major themes of local community level consist of economic, socio-cultural, political (local governance-institutions), natural, spatio-physical, and informational and communicational.
The main difference between the final model and the initial model involves the addition of social level and its sub-themes. In addition, social and cultural domains were combined, and according to the data analysis, spatio-physical domain was added to the model. Finally, due to the critical role of informational and communicational domain, it is placed in the center of the final model.

Conclusion
Recently, many studies have examined conceptualization of different natural and urban systems’ resilience. One of the recent approaches in the resilience literature is community resilience. Despite developing various community resilience frameworks, few studies have highlighted the role of stakeholders and just few of them have focused on a unique slow-onset hazard, such as drought or rivers and aqua-ducts’ drying up. Whereas, resilience is a complicated and multi-dimensional concept that is strongly linked to the cultural context of a society. Thus, this study studied the stakeholders’ beliefs, attitudes, and experiences about the main contributing factors to the resilience of two diverse communities in Isfahan.
The study conceptualized the community resilience of the selected communities in two major levels. These levels included society and local community. Additionally, 48 sub-themes and 10 major themes were identified. The main themes of social level critical for community resilience include urban governance, economic situation, sustainable development, and laws, and the major themes of local community level consist of economic, socio-cultural, political (local governance-institutions), natural, spatio-physical, and informational and communicational factors.
Amongst all of the identified themes in this study, the most contributing factor to the resilience of selected communities in Isfahan is socio-cultural domain. This domain included 16 sub-themes and 289 quotations of all the 32 conducted interviews. Lastly, it is suggested that the qualitative research methods be utilized by researchers working on development of urban and community resilience frameworks.

Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 2019

Background and Purpose: Zayandehrood River’s drying up is one of the most important events with d... more Background and Purpose: Zayandehrood River’s drying up is one of the most important events with devastating impacts on the city of Isfahan and the local communities living in this city in recent decades. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the resilience of two local communities in the vicinity of Madies (neighborhood aqua-ducts from Zayandehrood River) in Isfahan, namely Abbasabad and Barazandeh districts.
Research method: To evaluate the resilience of these communities, survey and second data analysis were utilized. These techniques were based on a predeveloped resilient community framework. Overall, 22 of authorities and experts from the Municipality of Isfahan and 379 of the two local communities’ residents were surveyed. The gathered data were analyzed through using SPSS software and quantitative methods.
Findings: The findings showed that the overall community resilience level is below the moderate level. The lowest score, which belongs to local institutional/ governance factors, is 1/7 and the highest score is 3/25, a few points higher than the moderate level. The latter score belongs to spatio-physical factors in Abbasabad district.
Discussion and conclusion: Community resilience is not just about tolerating the sudden shocks or chronic pressures and stresses. The overall score of community resilience of the local communities in Isfahan is not in an appropriate condition. Therefore, there should be strategies to enhance the community resilience of Isfahan.

Papers by Melika Amirzadeh

Conference Presentations by Melika Amirzadeh

FUPS2018: First International Conference on Future of Urban Public Space, 2018

Over the last decades, urban life has been indelibly influenced by climate change. Recently, sign... more Over the last decades, urban life has been indelibly influenced by climate change. Recently, significant efforts have been made to mitigate consumption of carbon and other contributors to climate change. But today many cities around the world are confronting this issue. Climate change affects all cities with a combination of extreme weather events and chronic conditions. In our country, Iran, it also has had different devastating consequences on urban physical structures and people's everyday life. Therefore, in recent years, particularly drought has become prominent in environmental and urban policies as well as national political debates, in a manner unprecedented in the last century. However, Iranians, as an ancient civilized nation, have always faced this issue and have yielded innovative achievements such as vernacular architecture and aqueducts (Ghanat) during the history. In this paper it is highlighted that although cities are considered as major contributors to climate change, they also play a key role in mitigating this problem as well as adapting to its outcomes in future. Thus, after reviewing resiliency and its diverse descriptions we will discuss why we should care about resilient cities and public spaces and the role of urban design in resiliency of our cities. Finally, several urban design strategies for greater resilience or building resilient cities and public spaces are proposed.

INDM‐2017: 8th international conference on disaster management, 2017

SET2011: 10th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies, İstanbul, TÜRKİYE, 2011

Vernacular architecture was developed and used by many civilizations across the world through the... more Vernacular architecture was developed and used by many civilizations across the world through the centuries. Different civilizations have produced their own architectural styles based on the local conditions. Looking at old urban fabric in the desert areas of Iran, indicates that the ancients were aware of techniques and implemented them that have not been followed later. The structure of urban fabric and architecture of hot and arid areas of Iran represents some special principles which despite approaching to the practical and aesthetical purposes, has been adapted to the natural and ecological environment. These construction methods not only have decreased environmental capacities, but also have increased the quality of that. From this point of view, adaptability to the natural environment and implementing natural energies like wind power and solar energy is of paramount importance in this built environment. So identifying and modelling these features and techniques for next development is necessary. However, these solutions should not be considered as models to be copied in current architecture. Our technical capacity and cultural context prevent us from returning to these architectural abstract forms, but the attitude of builders of this kind of architecture can be a source of inspiration, which recovers a relationship to the environment which has been lost in the more official architecture of 20th century. This study was carried out on the vernacular buildings and urban fabric of Anarak that is a little town in the middle of Iran. The old urban fabric of Anarak-surrounded in some rock mountains-is one of the valuable historic fabrics of Iran that consists of a unique physical and spatial order. A survey of houses was carried out among three parts of the urban fabric of Anarak. The study has yielded findings relating bioclimatic to the vernacular architecture of the region. Also, different solar and wind passive features are available in most of these houses, related to temperature control and promoting natural ventilation. These houses are constructed using locally available materials and represent unique examples towards sustainable building design. In this article after introducing Anarak and its historic background, we will represent the sustainable patterns in housing and fabric of this settlement which is counted as a unique example of hot and arid climate of Iran in operating vernacular architecture.