Sustainable Urban Planning and Risk Assessment of Earthquake Hazards in Turkey

Cities in the developing world are facing increased risk of disasters and the potential of economic and human losses from natural hazards is being exacerbated by the rate of unplanned urban expansion and influenced by the quality of urban management. Risk assessment has come to be regarded by many analysts as a critical part of the development of sustainable communities. The risk assessment function has been linked to issues such as environmental stewardship and community planning. The crucial point is the linkage between hazard mitigation efforts and urban planning in the context of building sustainable communities. But this conceptual linkage has been difficult to implement in practice. The resolution of this difficulty and a clarification of the essential linkage of hazard mitigation to urban planning will require a broader definition and a reformulation of the risk assessment function. Turkey is one of the countries that support the international sustainability. However, it is hardly related urban planning with sustainability in Turkey. At this point, this paper aims to introduce the integration of sustainability and risk assessment in Turkey. The components of the sustainable communities have been discussed and earthquake risk in Turkey has been explained with the recent past examples. At the end of the study, the relationship between risk assessment and the sustainable urban planning in Turkey has been examined in terms of Turkish urban planning system. * Corresponding author.