Page 9 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 2

The negative effects of disasters influence our cities more and more, and
this situation requires a change in all approaches and methods in fields from
architecture to urbanization, agriculture and food to education, production
to finance, transportation and logistics to environmental policies in and
adaptation to new circumstances in all 81 cities of our country. “Resilience”
stands out as a conceptual expression of this new policy. As a concept inclusive
of climate change and all other disasters, “resilience” is a concept used
effectively in studies on urban transformation and fight with climate change.
Resilience is defined in literature as “the ability of a system, community or
society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover
from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including
through the preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures and
functions”(UNISD, 2009). The ability to recover is one of the leading components
of this concept. To put it simply, resilience is dressing the wounds of the society
as soon as possible. The Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate
Change has placed resilience to the center of risk management system through
the risk management process, which can be defined as the ability to recover,
and the precautions it has taken and the strategies it has developed before
the emergence of disasters. Serving as “preventive measures”, resilient cities
will contribute a great deal to preventing the destruction and deaths caused
by natural disasters, especially earthquakes. It is essential that particularly
urban transformation, gentrification of historic city centers, industrial areas
and the countryside as well as projects such as national gardens and all
infrastructures projects should be implemented with resilience in mind. To this
end, all urbanization practices, from spatial planning to construction processes,
construction techniques to materials, architectural projects to environmental
sensitivity, energy-efficiency to zero waste applications and local culture, are
being redesigned with a focus on resilience.
After the 1999 Marmara Earthquake, which is considered a milestone for
Türkiye, and after 2002, great changes were observed in the urbanization
approach in Türkiye. Rendering cities resilient has been the primary area of
practice in every field. In order to maintain such practices well, very important
regulations were made and accordingly, new applications were put to use. To
this end, earthquake regulations were made, and a system of building inspection
was established, and made widespread. Moreover, compulsory earthquake
insurance was enforced, housing production was accelerated by municipalities
and TOKİ (Housing Development Administration of Türkiye), and finally, after
the Van earthquake in 2011, an Urban Transformation Law was passed.
The rightful, voluntary and rapid urban transformation movement started
by Mr. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2012 with the goal, “Urban

VIII Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate