Building damage analysis for the updated building dataset of Istanbul

Although the occurrence of earthquakes cannot be prevented, the vulnerabilities of them can be mitigated by decreasing the population, strengthening the vulnerable assets or both. The impact of the earthquake would be even higher if it is not managed properly. Istanbul has been affected by earthquakes throughout its history. The most recent damages in Istanbul that occurred due to an earthquake were during the 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake. Despite the fact that the epicenter of the Kocaeli Earthquake was far away from Istanbul (approximately 110 km), there were lots of damaged buildings, and many people died or were injured in Istanbul. Based on scientific studies after the 1999 earthquakes, it is predicted that Istanbul will face a major earthquake in the near future and that it will cause severe damage to the urban environment. In order to mitigate damage and to manage potential earthquake risks in Istanbul, building risk analyses are required. Following the analysis, the necessary precautions can be taken immediately. The building damage analysis results provide the basic data for the decision makers for the disaster prevention, mitigation and urban transformation studies. This article presents a building damage analysis for Istanbul, based on updated building data which are collected up to the year of 2013, that includes building age, number of floors and construction type for every structure that can be classified as a building. The building damage analysis was performed according to PGA and 0.2-s Sa demands by using HAZTURK software (Elnashai et al. 2008). Results from the damage analysis for Istanbul are presented for districts and sub-districts too, in order to compare with other studies.