Earthquake Vulnerability Evaluation of Istanbul's Districts Using DEABased Models

Abstract

Recent earthquakes in southeastern Türkiye have highlighted the need for disaster preparedness in the country's most populous city, Istanbul. Scientists believe that a huge earthquake is likely to strike Istanbul. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a valuable tool for evaluating the efficiency of decision-making units (DMU) in various managerial areas, including disaster management. This study employs common-weight DEA-based models, which enable incorporating interval data, to evaluate the earthquake vulnerability of Istanbul’s districts. Building stock, and estimated ground motions are taken as inputs while expected disaster losses and damages are used as outputs for assessing the earthquake vulnerability. The results depict that the most vulnerable district of Istanbul to earthquakes is Fatih while the least vulnerable one is Sile. The proposed earthquake vulnerability evaluation approach can be a practical guide for authorities for disaster risk reduction projects.