SYSTEM DESIGN OF DISASTER MANEGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM IN 
TURKEY AS A PART OF E-GOVERNMENT 
C. Eraslan?, Z. Alkis?, O. Emem?, C. Helvaci?, F. Batuk^, U. Gümüsay®, N. Demir”, T. Turk ^, B. Bayram”, A. Alkis° 
? YTU, Department of Geodesy and Photogrammetry , 34349 Besiktas Istanbul, Turkey - (ceraslan, zubeyde, oemem, 
chelvaci, batuk, gumusay,demir, tturk, bayram, alkis )@yildiz.edu.tr 
Commission VII, WG 11/5 
KEY WORDS: E-Government, Disaster Management, GIS, Data Database, Communication, Decision support 
ABSTRACT: 
With the new advances in computer technology, information management has become easier than ever. Every governmental office 
has started to develop electronic systems according to their purposes. Hence, e-government has become an important tool in our 
daily lives. As a result, Turkish government has resolved to provide public services online in accordance with EU targets. As a part 
of this process, the prime ministry of Turkish republic has chosen Istanbul as a pilot project area where many complex tasks carried 
out by governmental offices. Since Istanbul has been growing rapidly without proper planning, severe precautions should be taken 
specifically against natural disasters. Therefore, it has been decided to build immediate natural disaster management information 
system. The consultancy of this project has been given to Yildiz Technical University (YTU). 
This project aims to determine the risky areas by geographical analyses before natural disasters. The other goal of this project is to 
manage an urgent and effective help services during and after the disaster. 
Before the design of the system, a questionnaire was given to many governmental offices and some other companies which can be 
possible data sources. After the analysis of the current situation is completed, the data and the data sources have been decided. 
The designed system is basically divided into two parts namely database design and communications design. The aim of the 
communication design is data update before disaster and to provide continuity of the data. 
Consequently a disaster information system is designed according to the standards of e-government which is all ways always up to 
date. When the system is setup Istanbul is going to be ready to deal with unwanted results of disasters. 
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 E-Government 
  
Today society started to adapt information technologies and as 
citizens they want to benefit governmental services in electronic 
environment. According to this situation some associations 
started to invest in developing their systems in order to service 
online. It appeared that there has to be coordination between 
these systems in order to accomplish effective and productive 
usage of the sources, correct investment planning and to form 
productive decision support systems. Also it is agreed that 
coordination is needed for obtaining opportunity equality in 
reaching information and to associating with the world, cte. For 
that reason Prime Ministry of Turkey decided governmental 
services to be online according to EU targets. After the 
problems at 17 7^ August 1999 earthquake as a part of c- 
Government project Disaster and emergency management 
system is decided to be build. Istanbul is selected for pilot 
project area because of being a perfect model of whole country 
and being the highest populated city which will suffer the worst 
from possible earthquake. The consultancy of this project has 
been given to Yildiz Technical University (YTU) by Prime 
Ministry of Turkey. Information about the design of Disaster 
and Emergency Management System is given in this paper. 
It is defined as proceeding the responsibilities and the services 
& duties of the government against the citizens, and the 
responsibilities and the services & duties of the citizens against 
the government mutually in the electronic communication & 
processing environment without any interruption but safely. 
(Türkiye Biligsim Surasi, 2002). 
“E-Government is the use of information and communication 
technologies in public administrations combined with 
organizational change and new skills in order to improve public 
services and democratic processes and strengthen support (0 
public policies." (Corbin, 2003) 
1.2 Disaster and Emergency Management 
The concept of Disaster and Emergency management can be 
described as; guiding, coordinating and application of all the 
sources of all organizations and associations for the common 
purpose of preventing loss and decreasing disaster damage. 
Hence it is not possible to prevent many of the disasters, 
precautions that should be taken by the associations for 
preventing disasters or minimizing disaster damage can be 
listed as below. 
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