GIS: agent-based modeling and evaluation of an earthquake-stricken area with a case study in Tehran, Iran

Although many researchers have attempted to prevent or mitigate damages, estimate vulnerabilities and control natural catastrophes, an important phase of disaster management that has received less attention is the challenge of managing people and resources directly after an incident. Because earthquakes can be one of the most disastrous events, especially in Iran, the purpose of this article is to develop an easy-to-use multi-agent simulation and modeling environment for the assessment of different disaster management scenarios as measured in terms of saving additional lives. The earthquake-induced damages to buildings, streets and citizens are the inputs to the proposed model. Five mobile agent types: citizen, paramedic, street-opener, police and robber; one stationary agent type: gas valve; and five inactive agent types: building, street, shelter, hospital and fire station form the context of the model. Disaster managers are provided with customizable settings for the number and attributes of the agents in the user interface and can assess various statistical and visual results to determine the optimal number and characteristics of the agents as well as evaluate the effectiveness of the location of shelters. To simulate the extent of a calamity, this model is tested on a small region in Tehran, Iran. The agents are created and input to the model automatically via vector GIS data layers and the entire model is vector-based. A comparison between the results of two different scenarios highlights that increasing the number of street-openers and paramedics would not create the desired improvement as long as these agents are focused on fire stations and hospitals. Additionally, the impact of street blockages is significant after an earthquake, and therefore, the potential capacity of the street-openers demonstrated in the simulations points to the necessity of retrofitting buildings and widening streets before an earthquake occurs. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013