The Izmir City and Natural Hazard Risks

Abstract

Turkey has many geological disadvantages such as sitting on top of active tectonic plate boundaries, and why having avalanche, flood, and landslide and drought prone areas. However, this natural structure is inevitable; the only way to survive in such a harsh geography is to be aware of importance of these natural events and to take political and physical measures. Natural hazards are generally forgotten shortly after a while. Many projects that are planned to mitigate future hazards are suspended soon after natural hazards happened. Instead of taking pre- disaster measures and precautions, only emergency measures for recovery and post- disaster aid to the victims of a calamity are applied. Izmir which is the third biggest city in Turkey survived as a big city throughout its history of 5000 years and has been frequently renovated under geopolitical and geological influences. Izmir has been greatly affected by some disasters such as earthquakes, fires, epidemics and etc. Thus many edifices that would reflect historical background of the city did not survive until today and present remains are generally few and known only by experts and the neighboring people (Towards Agenda 21 in Izmir, 1998). Population increases and its development pressures on rural areas are inevitable problems for Izmir. Urban housing supply could not meet the demand, the housing policies could not be integrated with that of urban land and the housing subsidies could not help to serve low-income groups. Natural environmental features of Izmir increase its natural hazard risks. Izmir has sloppy topography that surrounds the city shape. Further more, soil geology is unsuitable for to settle down in built up area. On the other hand natural hazard risks increase because of the spread of the illegal urban settlements and because of the feeble building types. The major aim of this research is to bring up the magnitude of natural hazard risks in Izmir built-up zone, not being taken into consideration adequately. Because the dimensions of the peril are not taken seriously enough, the natural hazard risks, which are commonly well known, are not considered important or they are being forgotten after some time passes. Within this research, the magnitude of natural hazard risks for Izmir is being presented in the scope of concrete and local researches over Izmir risky areas.