SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE FOR EARTHQUAKE, TSUNAMI PREPAREDNESS AND 
WARNING 
Orhan Altan 1 , Gerhard Kemper 2 
'Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul-Turkey - oaltan@itu.edu.tr 
"Office for Geotechnics, Geoinformatics and Service, Speyer / Germany - Boden-Umwelt-Kemper@t-online.de 
WG IV/8 
KEY WORDS: GIS, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry, Crisis Management, Crisis Preparedness, Early Warning 
ABSTRACT: 
Humanity is always under the threat of earthquakes. Anatolian peninsula is one of the well-known area which amongst the areas en 
dangered by earthquakes. During the history many dramatic examples have been occurred. In these earthquakes many people either 
died or have been injured. In addition, lots of damage in this area has been occurred. More west, in the Sea of Marmara, these earth 
quakes have also initiated Tsunamis which hit the coastline and caused secondary damages. Modem technologies in combination 
with remotely sensed data in GIS environment open a wide field for assisting in Crisis Management. The most important component 
of any Crisis Management System is a Crisis Preparedness Plan where especially our disciplines of Photogrammetry, Remote Sens 
ing and Spatial Information Science can contribute in many ways. Crisis Preparedness plays a key role in preventing the population 
against big disasters. All Crisis Management efforts need an interdisciplinary cooperation to receive a sustainable help for all citizens. 
In our paper, we aim to highlight the possible contributions of our disciplines by examples of Earthquake- and Tsunami-Risk for Is 
tanbul. Part of the discussed elements are referred to existing applications already installed or under construction around the world, 
others are taken from own studies in the area of Istanbul. Nowadays Crisis Management System is founded on 3 columns, the Crisis 
Preparedness Plan, the Early Warning System and the Rescue and Management Action. 
1. RISK-LEVEL 
Big events like earthquakes and tsunamis do not necessarily 
cause a high-risk potential. Risk appears in places of human ac 
tivity where nature is highly active and people e.g. build urban 
areas. This means that the risk for human live depends on the 
natural conditions in combination with the activities of the 
population and their society. There are many places on our 
planet where we meet high activity and rapid changes of the 
environment due to earthquakes, volcanisms, tsunamis, 
weather-disasters and many more. Natural disasters often occur 
unrecognized in areas apart from the population. Some places 
however bear a high risk for human live even they are not as in 
tensively used as others do. Population growth and the need for 
land usable for agricultural or urban settlement force to make 
use of such risky areas. Due to the history, people have been 
aware of these risks, however, depending on competition in 
farming and social factors, they accessed such unsafe areas. 
Some areas close by volcanoes even produced fertile soils and 
where attractive for farming. The coastlines are places where 
fishers work and live, even a high risk for Tsunamis might exist. 
Today mainly the urban sprawl raised the risk level but also liv 
ing and working in areas of high risk became a used fact. 
Istanbul e.g. was situated in the middle ages on the European 
side of the Bosporus, which geologically is saver than the 
southeastern part on the Anatolian peninsula. Today the city 
covers the coastline along the Sea of Marmara for several 10 th 
of kilometres and is situated now closer to the North-Anatolian 
fault. In addition, the densities of urban fabric with houses of 
several layers enhance the risk level. Strong Earthquakes and 
Tsunamis are disasters that do not appear very frequently. In our 
fast style of live, we very much like to forget or ignore such 
risks sometimes being naive to believe that modem engineering 
can manage such things. However, there is a need to balance 
the risk-level for good crisis preparedness and keep the citizens 
aware on their situation living in a potentially endangered re 
gion. 
Balancing a risk level is an interdisciplinary task. In the case of 
Earthquake and Tsunamis, we have to cooperate with specialists 
as Geologists and Hydrologist and bring them into contact with 
city planners and decision makers. 
2. EARTHQUAKES NEAR ISTANBUL 
Figure 1. Shift and Tilt dimensions of earthquakes along the 
north-Anatolian fault since 1939 (upper graphic) and the shift to 
west of the epicentres (graphic below) [www.jpgp.jussieu.fr, 
accessed on 1.4.08] 
The reason for earthquakes and tsunamis are the movement of 
geological plates. Some of them move against each, along or