Explaining the Spatial Structure of Defense-Security Vulnerability in the Spatial Planning of Kurdistan Province's Border Region Based on a Hybrid MEREC-GIS Model

Border regions, situated at the intersection of national sovereignty, security, and development, constitute multifunctional territories in which security and development are not separate domains but mutually interdependent and reinforcing components. Iran, with 8,574 km of international borders and adjacency to 15 countries, is situated within one of the most geopolitically sensitive areas of the region. Nevertheless, existing studies have predominantly explained border vulnerability based on individual variables and lack an objective hierarchical model capable of simultaneously integrating the factors influencing vulnerability. Focusing on Kurdistan Province—a region with more than 200 km of border with Iraq and a combination of economic and natural potentials alongside geopolitical sensitivity—this study seeks to explain the spatial structure of defense-security vulnerability through a data-driven, multicriteria framework. To this end, 23 indicators were organized into 11 criteria, 10 dimensions, and four principal components: geopolitical-security, human-social, natural environment and land controllability, and natural hazards and barriers. The corresponding spatial layers were generated and standardized in a GIS environment. Objective weighting of the indicators was performed using the novel MEREC method based on a decision matrix derived from data for 10 counties, followed by hierarchical weighted overlay to derive the final provincial vulnerability map. The results showed that police checkpoints and roadblocks, border crossings, and distance from the border had the highest weights among the indicators, while the geopolitical-security component, accounting for 50.41%, substantially outweighed the other components. The final zoning pattern revealed a highly unequal and polarized spatial structure: more than 52% of the provincial area falls within the higher vulnerability classes, with Marivan (83.32%), Sarvabad (80.37%), and Baneh (76.38%) emerged as the areas with the highest levels of vulnerability. A key finding of the study is that this spatial pattern cuts across the administrative boundaries of the counties, allowing the province to be differentiated into four functional types—border-critical, central-strategic, transitional, and sustainably supportive—a finding that shifts the unit of analysis in defense-security territorial planning from administrative divisions toward functional typologies. This demonstrates that sustainable border security is achieved not solely through law-enforcement control, but through the integration of defense-security considerations into the core of territorial planning.