The Key to Yazd’s Resilience: Badgirs and Qanats, Innovative Secrets for Coping with the Arid Climate

As climate challenges intensify, cities in arid regions are increasingly compelled to rethink energy-intensive adaptation models in favor of sustainable alternatives. The historic city of Yazd in Iran, a UNESCO World Heritage site, embodies an ancient paradigm of energy resilience through an integrated Social-Ecological-Technological System (SETS) founded on the functional synergy of windcatchers (Badgirs) and qanats. Despite its historical significance, the lack of a systematic and multidimensional evaluation has hindered the translation of this indigenous resilient archetype into contemporary planning frameworks. To address this gap, the present study employs the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to identify and prioritize the key performance criteria of the Badgir–Qanat system. Drawing on the SETS framework, five principal criteria—ranging from technological efficiency and ecological sustainability to socio-cultural value, structural durability, and economic feasibility—were evaluated through pairwise comparisons by an interdisciplinary panel of 22 experts. The AHP results reveal that Technological Efficiency & Adaptability (weight = 0.375) forms the undisputed core of the system’s resilience, highlighting its foundational role as a passive, climate-responsive infrastructure. Furthermore, the findings empirically demonstrate the intertwined nature of Ecological Sustainability and Socio-Cultural Value, which received equal weights (0.215 each), thereby challenging conventional dichotomies between environmental and cultural preservation. The analysis also indicates that Structural Durability (0.121) is prioritized over Economic Feasibility (0.074), confirming that the resilience logic of this indigenous system is rooted in long-term vulnerability reduction rather than short-term financial returns. Ultimately, this research translates these quantified priorities into a criteria-driven model, providing a transferable framework for integrating indigenous knowledge into energy-resilient urban planning and climate adaptation strategies for arid regions globally.