Evaluation of Disaster and Emergency Meeting Areas in the City of Gümüşhane in the Geographical Information Systems Environment

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Our country is a country where many natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, landslides and rock falls are experienced due to its location. Although the origins of these natural disasters are different, the most important asset they affect is human. Therefore, many measures are taken by Ministry of Interior Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency to protect people from the effects of disasters, to improve the situation during disasters and emergencies, and to act in a planned manner. One of the important works carried out within the scope of these precautions taken before disasters is the determination and announcement of the areas to be gathered during disasters and emergencies. It is extremely important to identify these areas and to inform the relevant citizens before the disaster. The identification of disaster and emergency meeting areas is carried out by both field observations and Geographical Information Systems, (GIS) which has played an important role in decision-making for administrators. The fact that natural disasters appear quite frequently in our country, although their times are different according to their characters, shows the fact that predisaster meeting areas are determined. In this study, the current disaster and emergency meeting areas determined by Gümüşhane Governorship Provincial Disaster and Emergency Directorate in the city of Gümüşhane were mapped, the accuracy of these areas were discussed within the framework of the criteria determined by Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency and the most suitable meeting areas based on spatial basis were analyzed. With the cooperation of Gümüşhane Governorship Provincial Disaster and Emergency Directorate and provincial and district municipalities in Gümüşhane, a total of 134 meeting areas with 626,571 m² area have been created in Gümüşhane since October 2019. While these areas appeal to a population of 128,330, there is an average of 6 m² per person. In the city center selected as the study area, there are 24 meeting areas with an area of 107,890 m², corresponding to an area of 2.65 m² per person, addressing a population of 40,728. The criteria set by the Ministry of Interior Disaster and Emergency Management include population, slope, land use, geology, elevation, roads, with the approach that these gathering areas are based on a spatial basis and will yield more positive results during disasters and emergencies, the most suitable gathering areas have been determined by taking into account different geographical criteria such as distance to buildings and streams. Considering the most common natural disasters in Gümüşhane, weights have been assigned to the relevant criteria with Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the most suitable gathering areas have been determined by weighted overlapping analysis. As a result of the analysis, 26 alternative meeting areas were determined in addition to the 24 available meeting areas in city of Gümüşhane. While only 3 neighborhoods comply with the criteria of meeting space per person before the study, this number has increased to 12 neighborhoods with the proposed alternative areas and the current gathering area per person in the city has increased from 2.65 m² to 4.6 m². Thus, it is aimed to gather the population of Gümüşhane in the right places in a short time in case of any disaster and emergency, and to gather the population in safe areas away from chaos until temporary shelters are prepared.

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Gümüşhane , Meeting Areas , Natural Disaster , Geographical Information Systems (GIS) , Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

eastern geographical review

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eastern geographical review