In recent decades, environmental hazards, both natural and human-made (such as earthquakes, floods, landslides, frost, sandstorms, fires, social crises, etc.), are among the conflicts that the world's spatial areas are facing at various national, regional, urban and rural levels, and they also incur huge costs annually. Environmental hazards have now become a feature of every place. For any type of activity, especially spatial planning (land planning), which is the mainstay of Iran's development, economic and social activities, the characteristics and spatial distribution of these hazards must first be identified. A complete understanding of the spatial distribution of these hazards is the most important contribution to spatial planning of the land.
The Scientific Center for Spatial Analysis of Environmental Hazards, as one of the scientific and research centers, has taken fundamental steps in this regard within the framework of its duties. The publication of the Journal of Spatial Analysis of Environmental Hazards is also a platform for the exchange of ideas and opinions among researchers. This publication, with the thematic focus on spatial explanation of hazards as one of the most important and effective components of spatial planning (land planning), attempts to provide a platform for experts in related sciences to present their thoughts and opinions in this field for the development of science and the promotion of development activities, especially in the country of Iran. Accordingly, the activities of the publication are defined within the framework of the following axes:
Explanation of the theoretical and philosophical foundations of environmental hazards and theorizing in this field;
Explanation of the methodology of environmental hazard research;
Identification of environmental hazards and their spatial analysis;
Explanation of the effective trends in the occurrence of environmental hazards;
Future research of environmental hazards;
Evaluation and evaluation of development and planning activities in the field of environmental hazards;
Explanation of ways to assess and adjust environmental hazards and methods of adapting to them.
Ethical principles of publication
The ethical policies of the journal “Spatial Analysis of Environmental Risks” are mainly based on the principles of the International Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and compliance with the Code of Ethics for Publications of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
1. Publisher’s Responsibilities
1-1. The journal is committed to making decisions about submitted articles based only on specialized and professional judgments and avoiding personal interests.
1-2. The journal is committed to preserving academic and research records.
1-3. The journal regularly monitors the compliance of the editor, scientific editors, editorial board and referees with the ethical principles.
1-4. The journal considers itself committed to ensuring that the areas of advertising, reprinting or other commercial income will not have any influence on the decisions of the editorial board.
1-5. The journal will use its best efforts to promote ethical standards, especially for young researchers, and to provide extensive training and counseling, and to deal with any evidence of research misconduct.
2. Duties of the Editor and Scientific Editors
2-1. Review: The editor must ensure that the review process is fair, impartial, and timely. Research articles should normally have at least two external, independent reviewers, and the editor should seek additional reviewers if necessary. The editor should select experts with appropriate expertise in the relevant field for review and should refrain from biased selection of reviewers in favor of or against the author(s).
2-2. Fair Treatment: Scientific editors should evaluate the intellectual content of submitted articles without regard to the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, ethnicity, citizenship, or political affiliation.
2-3. Journal Criteria: The editor does not have the right to artificially increase the journal’s rankings. In particular, the editor should not force authors to cite articles in his journal, except for clearly scientific reasons.
2-4. Confidentiality: The editor is obliged to protect the confidentiality of all materials submitted to the journal and all communications with referees, unless otherwise agreed by both authors and referees. In exceptional circumstances, when an article is suspected of scientific misconduct, the editor may, in consultation with the publisher, share limited information with editors of other journals.
3. Duties of referees
3-1. Editors’ contribution to decision-making: Referees are a core part of the formal scientific community and are at the heart of the scientific method. Their sense of duty leads to sound scientific production; if editors determine that the review is poor in quality or timeliness, they are obliged to inform the editor so that their contribution to the review process can be reduced.
2-3. Confidentiality: Any article submitted for review should be treated as a confidential document. Reviewers should not share information about the article with anyone else or contact the author directly without the permission of the editor; reviewers should not use unpublished material from the submitted article in their own research or studies without the written consent of the author. Information and ideas obtained during the review are also confidential and the reviewer may not use them for personal gain.
3.3. Warning of ethical issues: The reviewer should be aware of potential ethical issues in the article, including any significant similarities or overlaps between the article under review and other published articles of which the reviewer is aware, and inform the editor of this. Any observations, conclusions, or arguments that have been previously reported should be referenced.
4.3. Standards of competing goals and interests: The review should be conducted objectively; Reviewers should be aware of any personal bias that may occur in the article and take it into account when reviewing the article. Personal criticism of the author is not appropriate. Reviewers should express their opinions with reasoning.
If reviewers are aware that a paper has a potential conflict of interest arising from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships with authors, companies, or institutions involved in the paper, they should consult with the editor before agreeing to review the paper.
If a reviewer suggests that an author should cite the work of the reviewer (or his/her colleagues), this should be accompanied by genuine scientific reasons and not with the aim of increasing the number of citations or strengthening the number of observations of their work.
4. Duties of Authors
4.1. Reporting Standards: The author of an original research paper should provide an accurate account of the work performed and an objective discussion of its significance. The headings given in the Authors’ Guide should be presented accurately in the paper. The paper should contain sufficient detail and references to allow others to replicate the work. Misleading statements or sentences that are deliberately misrepresented are unethical and unacceptable behavior. Articles and reviews should also be accurate and objective, and selected works of “theory” should be fully identified.
4.2. Data Access and Preservation: Authors may wish to provide research data on which their article depends for peer review and/or to comply with the journal’s open data requirements. The author should retain such data for several years after publication and be prepared to make such data publicly available. Authors can access more details by consulting the journal’s author guidelines.
4.3. Originality and Acknowledgement of Sources: Authors should ensure that all original works have been fully used and that they have been appropriately referenced or cited.
Acknowledgement of the work of others should always be made. The author should cite the literature that has influenced the work reported and place it appropriately in the larger scientific literature. Information such as conversations, correspondence, or discussions with third parties should not be used or reported without the express written permission of the source.
Submitting another article as your own, copying or changing the text of substantial parts of another's article (without citing the source), and claiming the results of another's research as your own are clearly considered plagiarism and are all considered unethical and inappropriate behavior.
4-4. Simultaneous, multiple, or additional publication: In general, an author should not submit his or her article to more than one journal. Simultaneous submission of the same article to more than one journal is unethical and inappropriate behavior. In general, an author should not submit an article that has already been published in another journal to another journal; except as an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic draft.
4-5. Authorship: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conceptualization, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported studies. All those who have made a significant contribution should be listed as contributors.
If individuals have contributed to some aspect of the article (such as language editing or medical writing), their contributions should be acknowledged in the acknowledgments section.
The corresponding author should ensure that all contributors are listed in the article and that no other authors are listed among the authors. All authors should review and approve the final version of the article and agree to its publication.
Authors are expected to carefully review the list and order of authors before submitting the article and to provide a specific list of authors at the time of original submission. Only in exceptional circumstances, when the author explicitly requests otherwise, may the editor (at his or her discretion) add, remove, or rewrite an author. In this case, all authors must agree to any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of authors.
All authors are responsible for their work. Each author must be accountable for questions regarding the accuracy and completeness of any part of the research.
4-6. Risks and issues involving humans and animals: If a study uses chemicals, methods, or equipment that pose unusual risks during use, the author must clearly state this in the article.
If animals or humans are used in a study, the author must indicate in writing that all procedures were performed in accordance with applicable laws and institutional guidelines and have been approved by appropriate institutional committees. The author must state in writing that he or she is aware of the experiments involving human subjects. The privacy of individuals must always be respected.
The author must ensure that the research is conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans. All animal experiments must comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and must be conducted in accordance with the UK (Procedures of Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and its associated directives or EU Directive 2010/63/EU for the protection of animals.
4-7. Warning of fundamental errors: When an author discovers an error or gross mistake in his published research, he has a duty to promptly inform the editor or publisher of the journal and, at the editor's discretion, to cooperate with him in removing or correcting the article. If the editor or publisher becomes aware of errors in a published work through a third party, the author has a duty to provide evidence with
The editor should cooperate.
4-8. Limitations of image enhancement: An image cannot be sharpened, blurred, moved, removed, or defined in any way, but adjustments to brightness, contrast, or color balance can be made to it if and as long as no information from the original image is obscured or removed. Image manipulation for better clarity is acceptable, but manipulation for other purposes may be considered a violation of scientific ethics.