Population change and resilience in the city of Van after the 2011 Van earthquake

In order for cities to adapt to the changing and/or transforming social and natural environment, many researchers are focusing on a new concept called "resilience". The need for cities to recover and transform rapidly and healthily from natural disasters or human-induced threats is increasing day by day. Therefore, the resistance and self-renewal process of cities against threats gain importance. In this context, a method based on resilience theory has been developed in this study, which deals with the population change in Van city (until 2019) after the 2011 earthquake. Thanks to the developed method, analyzes were made both at the city level and at the neighborhood level. In the applied study, the residential zone was firstly set as a statistical analysis unit, and the population change was analyzed using basic statistical methods. In addition, correlation analysis, change in demographic ranking by neighborhood level, and weighted population center point measurement were performed. Resilience measurement was analyzed by dividing it into city, residential zone, and neighborhood dimensions for multidimensional analysis. Thanks to the resilience method developed, it is understood that the 2011 earthquake caused great changes in the residential zone and the neighborhood level of Van city. When evaluated from the perspective of resilience, it shows that the city of Van did not regain the growth trend of the population before the earthquake until 2019. In addition, it is another fact that the TOKI project, which was carried out to quickly respond to the negative impact of the earthquake on houses, was a factor that led to more resilience changes in the residential zone and city dimension beyond the earthquake in 2013. This study, which aims at an analysis of city, residential zone and neighborhood level, is expected to contribute to the city of Van to be a sustainable settlement and to transform it into an effective and flexible city of resilience in an environment where change is inevitable, and will be the basis for further studies.