Case Study: Istanbul, Turkey
Background
- Istanbul is highly vulnerable to earthquakes, particularly offshore events
- Most of Istanbul’s buildings were constructed before the establishment of earthquake-resistant building codes in 1998
Project
- We deployed a seismic station in the Kandilli Observatory at the Bogazici University Earth Sciences campus on September 20, 2019, with the goal to detect seismic events in the region, particularly in the Marmara Sea
- A magnitude 4.7 event occurred 70 kilometers west of Istanbul in the Marmara Sea on September 24, 2019
- We designed a pilot to demonstrate the capabilities of the system working in a “noisy” urban environment and providing real-time early warning for offshore events
Results
- Figure 12 shows the location of the catalog earthquake indicated by the black arrow in Figure 11. Our system’s real-time location is at the center of the area overlapped by the orange ring and the red beam
- This detection proves the system’s ability to become operational shortly after deployment, as well as to be accurate and deliver alerts at all times, even when the station is installed in the heart of a noisy city like Istanbul
- The results of the pilot led to a joint venture with local partners to create Istanbul’s first private network with plans to expand to Izmir
