An analysis of Turkey's disaster management system in the context of disaster vulnerability and social resilience: The case of Turkey and global climate change

Global climate change marked by rapid spreading of forest fires due to extreme heat, increase of desertification, change in the quality of arable lands, changes in flora and fauna, loss of food and water resources, triggering of related massive human migration movements, prerapation of grounds for threats of regional wars in one part of the world, while causing natural disasters suchs as floods, frost and extreme land erosion in other parts of the world in almost a domino like effect. When one looks from the vantage point of not combatting of but rather adaptation to, climate change could be considered an opportunity for social reform that would question the unsustainable relationship formed with the environment as well as the inequalities created by development which is focused on economic growth. This thesis studies the global reality of climate change as a form disaster based on the specific case of Turkey's disaster management paradigm emphasizing two aspects underlying modern disaster management, namely vulnerability and disaster resilience. The study employs the qualitative method. In Section 1, the main disaster management paradigm is set out by demonstrating linkages among disaster, vulnerability, disaster resilience and climate change. Section 2 discusses Turkey's disaster management tradition, summarizing Turkey's disaster experiences. Section 3 sets out different global change scenarios from the vantage point of Turkey. Section 4 employs "Disaster Resilience Measurement Indicators Set" which is formed by associating technical, social, economic, organizational dimensions identified by Tierney and Bruneau (2007) with the systems and indices offered by Gall (2013) in order to provide analyses of Turkey's climate change disaster vulnerability and disaster resilience. The thesis concludes that Turkey's disaster vulnerability is high and disaster resilience is fragile and thus provides recommendations to improve Turkey's disaster resilience.