Istanbul International Conference on Seismic Risk Mitigation

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Final Declaration of IICSRM 2009

The devastating earthquakes occurred in 1999 in Turkey have been milestones in seismic risk mitigation for the entire country. Due to national collaborations and international supports, several pioneering projects have been conducted to improve seismic resilience at both building and urban scales. ISMEP Project aimed to settle a comprehensive disaster management system, provide financial and technical assistance in seismic retrofitting and disseminate earthquake risk awareness among decision makers, professionals and community. The paradigm shifted in Turkey since 1999 Earthquakes from reconstruction and recovery to mitigation and preparedness. ISMEP Project has achieved successful steps to that end. In the Istanbul International Conference on Seismic Risk Mitigation, our main focus has been to introduce the development of disaster preparedness since Marmara Earthquake as well as to discuss best practices in the world with 1000 participants from 26 countries. In this framework, our guests gave valuable contributions on seismic interventions to reduce vulnerability at every level of urban areas, starting from buildings through megacities. Furthermore, socio-economic issues and public-private partnership have been revealed as significant topics to support mitigation process discussed during the sessions. We request all governments of disaster prone countries to invest in disaster risk mitigation and preparedness.

Hereby, this declaration states crucial points arisen regarding to ideas, best practices and discussions held in the IICSRM Conference.

• Seismic risk mitigation starts from individual level.
• Seismic risk mitigation requires cooperation and collaboration of all stakeholders.
• Seismic risk mitigation is not only the responsibility of decision makers’ responsibility, but also the responsibility of communities.
• Seismic risk mitigation is not just an engineering process; it has human and social dimensions as well.
• Seismic risk mitigation is not a onetime activity, but should be sustained.

In order to accurately implement the outputs of seismic risk mitigation techniques/methods discussed in this conference, we should engage a platform to share our experiences and to disseminate the knowledge on state-of-art of mitigation. As we have experienced in the last decades, disasters are not only burdens for a single region or a country. Their collateral impacts, transmissions through every level of society and reflections on economy urge all of us to “think globally and act locally.”

Turkey is ready and keen to share the experience and knowledge gained from the ISMEP Project with the rest of the world. We have discussed the possible means of this, during the conference and we are very glad to declare that Turkey plans to achieve this through a center of excellence in DRM which will be established with support from the Government, The UN, the World Bank and GFDRR. We invite you all to participate, contribute and benefit from the Center.