Although Iran has a strategic position in the Middle East and there are threats of neighboring and non-neighboring countries, projects and economic infrastructures have been established without proper defensive considerations and are targets for enemy threats and other offensive actions. The present study is an applied and developmental research that aims to study and scrutinize the vulnerability of infrastructures in Ardabil province from the perspective of passive defense. Moreover, analytic network process (ANP) approach is used in GIS environment with elements of physical and biological environment, accessibility, and infrastructures in order to carry out the research. The results of spatial pattern analysis and vulnerability zoning show that the spatial distribution of infrastructure in Ardabil province is cluster type (non-dispersive) and in terms of vulnerability, 7% of Ardabil province is located in highly vulnerable areas which are themselves among the most densely populated places with high amounts of established infrastructures. This is due to poor physical indicators and lack of sufficient managerial, industrial, and military institutions in these areas of the Ardabil province.

Nowadays, infrastructures play a significant role in the safety process in ordinary times and during the crisis. From this point of view, maintaining the safety of infrastructure against threats would be a security priority for any country; therefore, understanding current situation and vulnerability of infrastructures in a regional scale can be used as an efficient mechanism to formulate regional and national security strategies. This paper assesses the vulnerability of infrastructures with passive defense approach and analytical method, in Yazd province. The analysis of data and information collected were done with analytic network process model (ANP) and geographic information system (GIS) due to the interaction between infrastructures. The results showed that about 51 percent of province area is in the situation of high and very high vulnerability. The central part of the province, Yazd and Meybod, is the most vulnerable regions, because of their failure to comply with principles of passive defense, favorable environmental conditions, further concentration, centralization of infrastructure, and political, administrative, and geographical centrality.