City and disaster: The vulnerability of Van city center in terms of earthquakes

This study examines the vulnerability of Van city centre in the context of the increasingly paradigm of vulnerability in disaster research. The socio-spatial, social and economic vulnerability of Van city centre, where it has been home to a number of loses, and which is predicted to go through possible severe earthquakes in the future due to its active seismic risk zone, is discussed around the data obtained from national and local sources. Within the scope of the research, the stock of vulnerable housing, where 473.913 people reside, in 37 districts in Edremit, İpekyolu and Tusba counties all in the city centre, and the distribution of elderly, disabled, women, children, illiterate and poor vulnerable groups were identified. Unlike similar studies, with reference to each vulnerable element in itself, tables and maps were used to explain what parts of the city, for what characteristics and to what extent they are prone to vulnerability. According to the research, the fact that 93.3% of the existing housing stock is unauthorized, in other words illegal, the ratio of the structure with the policy is limited to 17% and especially the lack of improvement activities related to the damaged housing stock in 2011 shows that the city centre is highly vulnerable in terms of socio-spatial. It has been determined that illegal construction and non-policy building stock concentrate in the surrounding neighbourhoods and thus the risk increases radially. It is observed that the damaged and still unrepaired housing stock has spread to all around the city centre. In terms of social indicators, it was found that the surrounding neighbourhoods were more vulnerable than the centre. In particular, the presence of highly illiterate groups indicates a low level of awareness on disaster prevention. Again, the average household size of 5 people and over, unemployed and unqualified female population, precarious elderly population and densely child population are other risk factors for the social characteristics of the city. 123,087 people, which account for 26% of the central population, received various amounts of assistance from foundations, as well as 44,360 very poor, weak or normal households, indicates that the city is also extremely fragile in economic terms. In particular, 8,273 very poor or poor households live in disaster conditions. The economic vulnerability is particularly much more pronounced in the surrounding neighbourhoods than in the central districts. Due to these characteristics, it is determined that Van city centre is highly vulnerable in terms of seismic risk and socio-spatial, social and economic aspects. Again, it was found out and visualized with maps that the neighbourhoods on the periphery of the city are more fragile than the neighbourhoods in the city centre.