The new zoning approach for earthquake risk assessment

Abstract

In Turkey, mitigation works have been given more importance since the 1999 Gulf earthquake. The first drafted projects put forth for Istanbul are the seismic microzonation and earthquake risk assessment projects. However, the fundamental plan which provided a ground for thorough assessment deducted from the mentioned projects as well as a road-map for mitigation is the Earthquake Master Plan. YTU (Yildiz Technical University) settlement and urban planning team have been faced some difficulties for risk assessment and priorities, during the IEMP (Istanbul Earthquake Master Plan) project. Therefore, some processes related to spatial decisions such as definition of priority areas were applied just for highly macro level. Risk priority areas could not be determined due to the lack of necessary information. The team has developed a new zoning approach for risk zoning based on density, pattern and other properties according to the requirements of previous projects with the contribution of BU (Boǧaziçi University) project team. In this paper, existing GIS contents of risk maps and other information as the most essential component of the mitigation phase of disaster management, new zoning approach developed by YTU-BU teams during the IEMP project and possible results are presented. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.