Kocaeli is located inside the active seismic belt of the Marmara Region. The city was the epicentre for the 1999 Marmara Earthquake which affected all the region and caused some 18,000 deaths.

Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality started its pilot programme “Prepare before it’s too late” in January 2012. With the establishment of a seismological monitoring and earthquake education centre, the aim of the progamme is to monitor, evaluate, analyze, solve and archive the characteristics of earthquakes via data gathered from 23 different ‘ground motion stations’.  The objective of gathering data from the region is to facilitate the task of developing a Local Earthquake Database, Earthquake Risk Maps, an Emergency Response Plan, an Earthquake Resistant Construction Plan as well as an Efficient Seismological Monitoring system. 

Besides the monitoring activities, the programme also intends to educate citizens and boost their awareness through various activities such as theatre, seminars and lectures.

The project directly affects three institutions (the project partners) and more than 1.5 million people living in the metropolitan region of Kocaeli.

1. Education

The Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey is the authority responsible to monitor seismological movement in the country. In the model supported by the Presidency, educational and dissemination activities use to stay in the background. 

Instead, the local programme in Kocaeli has started with theatre, training (theoretical and practical) educational and dissemination activities for the population. Earthquake education has been organized in primary schools. A theatre, whose name is ‘Moving World’, performs all around the city and has managed to reach approximately 20,000 students so far. Thanks to the special program for disabled children, hundreds of them have benefited from dedicated courses. Applied training has also been run by using an earthquake simulator (three dimensional quake tray) to simulate an earthquake environment.　　

2. Monitoring

The Local Earthquake Database has been generated according to the model of the existing National Database. A lot of meetings and technical study visits hold by Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Institutions as well as the University of Bosporus have provided training programs for the technical staff. The data collected from 23 stations feed the national earthquake database as well as the local network which is the first to be run by a local authority in Turkey.

Kocaeli Seismological Monitoring and Earthquake Education Centre project is running in partnership with Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality (KBB), Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD) and Kocaeli Chamber of Industry (KOSANO). The centre as well as the 23 stations have been financed by these three organizations. The Chamber of Industry undertook the coordination among the private industrial sector; the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency provided technical help during the start up phase to the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality by making 6 technical staff members available. 

Other institutions participate as associated partners in the programme:

• The University of the Bosporus provides technical education to the technical staff,
• The Turkish Scientific And Technical Researches Institution provides technical expertise to run the centre,
• The City Council’s disable and youth assemblies take part in enhancing civic engagement,
• According to the agreement signed between the Kocaeli National Education Directorate and the Metropolitan Municipality, the two institutions are responsible for disseminating knowledge among the pupils.

The main outputs of the project are as follow:　　

• The “Local Earthquake Network and Seismologic Monitoring System” has been established.　　
• The data gathered from the centre have been used as legal base for the law of “reformation of the lands under the risk of disaster”.
• In case of an earthquake, the early warning data will be shared with the private sector in order to implement the “emergency action plan”.
• With the cooperation of the research centre and universities, modeling studies will be carried out to predict the consequences of an earthquake on the territory.
• An Earthquake Master Plan will be developed, using these seismological data.
• With the help of the education division, the awareness among citizens against earthquake has been raised.

The theatre has reached more than 20,000 pupils (within two years) and the centre has been visited by approximately 3,500 people. Also, 500 children and their parents got information about earthquake and prevention as well as first aid techniques thanks to the "disabled children program".　　

Printed and visual media have helped increasing the awareness about the centre and keeping earthquake reality warm. 

Beyond scientific parameters such as azimuth, epicentral distance, depth of focus, coordinates, richter local magnitude used in the seismological centre, the number of visitors who attended the centre and the number of people reached by the initiative are regularly measured by experts. These statistics are used as a parameter to evaluate the success of the programme in terms of objectives reached.

Beyond the bureaucratic obstacle, the prejudices of people who experienced the 1999 Marmara earthquake were an associated difficulty. As a result, the focus of the programme has been set on education to overcome the reluctance of some people to participate.

The programme should be evaluated in terms of innovation, and benefits for other cities, regions, communities and local governments:　　

1. The structure of the partnership: The project has a multi-partnered structure. Through the programme, new managerial cooperation has been initiated under the leadership of the Local Government, the Central Administration (Emergency Management Presidency) and the Chamber of Industry. Other stakeholders such as NGOs, Universities, Research Centres (TUBİTAK), Private Sector Representatives, City Council and The National Education Directorate of the City have also taken part in the project as associate partners.
2. Providing opportunity for local governments to take part in activities that fall outside the scope of their authority: The centre serves as a model for the state for further enacting in that sense.　　
3. Serving as a model for other cities: The centre has gathered know-how regarding to the seismologic and educational aspects and is ready to share its knowledge with other local authorities.

After less than one year, a lot of representatives from other local governments, universities, foreign countries, and sister cities of the metropolitan municipality have visited the centre and shared technical information. Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality also uses its official press (newsletters, social and visual media) to disseminate the initiative.

- Prepare Before It’s Too Late: Learn To Live With Earthquake, Guangzhou Award for Urban Innovation, http://www.guangzhouaward.org/642/content_733.html (Accessed 21 April 2016)

- Prepare Before It’s Too Late: Learn To Live With Earthquake, Urban Innovation Database, http://www.urban-innovations.org/index.php/Prepare_Before_It%E2%80%99s_Too_Late:_Learn_To_Live_With_Earthquake (Accessed 21 April 2016)

- Kocaeli, Urban Innovation Database, http://www.urban-innovations.org/index.php/Kocaeli (Accessed 21 April 2916)