From Healing to Protective Disaster Coping Efforts: An Evaluation of Building Inspection Approaches within the Disaster Policies Developed between 1924 and 2010 in Turkey

摘要

Turkey has long been suffered due to destructive impacts of earthquakes and has tried to develop pre and post disaster coping efforts by means of laws and policies since 1924. During this period, along with the developing national and international policy changes, a shift has occurred from traditional post-disaster (healing) to pre-disaster (protective) efforts in terms of disaster mitigation. During a brief historical evaluation of administrative advancements in terms of shifting understanding of disaster in Turkey a focus is given to development of ideas related to building inspection which was formally initiated as a risk-reduction approach after 1999. Knowledge gathered from interviews conducted among administrative and building professionals between 2008 and 2012 contribute to the critical evaluation of the administrative problems of the Building Inspection System (BIS) carried out today. It is revealed from this research that there is an urgent need for unifying the scattered and complex forms of legislations related to disaster issues in Turkey. It is revealed also that a risk-reduction approach has not been conducted in consistent with the practice of BIS in which the enforcement of the necessary knowledge and ordinances remain insufficient among its participants: building professionals, inspector firms and local authority. It is underlined, also that the legal and administrative advancements are not enough to achieve disaster resilient society if they are not digested by the community from a holistic perspective of disaster perception in the country.