Turkey's Disaster Archive System

Turkey, due to its geological, topographical and meteorological conditions, is often faced with major natural disasters. In those regions which experience natural disasters, losses are increasing more and more because of population density and extent of economical activities. In order to create a more resistant society against natural disasters, it is necessary to be successful in every phase of the disaster management. Therefore the importance of knowledge about the previous disaster events, which researchers and decision-makers should have, is increasing. In developing countries which have poor social memory such as Turkey, this issue is very significant. In order to awaken the social memory, these events should be archived. In the global world, an archive is a very important knowledge base which sheds light on the future from a record of the past. Decision-makers, researchers and executives should build their policies and strategies on this knowledge. In recent years, public archives have been opened to researchers in the internet. Therefore, the General Directorate of Disaster Affairs (GDDA) is aiming at contributing to this process by developing a National Disaster Archive System. This project was given priority to earthquakes, landslides, floods, avalanches, rock falls, which affect Turkey most. The GDDA archive contains more than 18.000 disaster files that have been scanned, and nearly 4500 files which meet these archive’s criteria have been transferred to the system. In the next phase, we will be in contact with other institutions; and natural and technological disaster data, which are in the archives of these institutions, will be entered into the system as well. In conclusion, an archive system, which could be accessible by researchers from at home and abroad, developed. In this paper, information about the aim, scope, targets, types of the archives, archives criteria of the Turkish National Disaster Archive System (TNDAS) were presented.