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