Aims and Objectives

The Earthquake Studies Program aims to foster interdisciplinary teaching and research related to natural disasters affecting Turkey and particularly in the area of earthquakes. Turkey lies in one of the most active earthquake zones of the world. Furthermore, due to the negative effects of low-quality building in urban areas Turkey is one of the countries having the highest risk with respect to earthquakes and disasters. In earthquakes affecting urban areas within the last ten years, more than 20,000 persons have died and property losses have exceeded 20 billion US dollars. These losses are an obstacle to Turkey's economical development. The reduction of high seismic risk in earthquake-prone cities to acceptable levels is possible with the implementation of unified projects involving all disaster-related disciplines.

For the mitigation of earthquake losses, it is necessary to ensure that the disciplines of earth sciences (geology, seismology), earthquake engineering, risk-based urban planning and communal psychology/sociology be made to work together. In both developed and developing countries of the world, there are no cities that face as high an earthquake risk as that of Turkey. The reason for the high risk lies not only in the great danger due to earthquakes but also in the fact that the building stock is of poor quality. This is why Turkey provides the most effective application area for multidisciplinary studies related to earthquakes.

The main aims of the Earthquake Studies Program have been determined as follows:

• To institute an academic program in the areas of Earthquake Engineering, Active Tectonics and Disaster Management leading initially to the Master's degree (M.S.) and further ahead to the Doctoral degree (Ph.D.).
• To coordinate integrated indisciplinary research within the framework of graduate theses and thus enable the transfer of knowledge and data to the public and private sectors.
• To offer educational services and conduct extension courses.

Earthquake Studies Program is an interdisciplinary program leading to an M.S. degree in the following three fields of study:

• Earthquake Engineering
• Active Tectonics
• Disaster Management

The information and curriculum for each subprogram are given under the heading of that subprogram.

EQS 501 Earthquake Disaster Policies, EQS 503 Seismology and EQS 590 Seminar are the compulsory common courses for all of the three sub-programs. However, students in the Disaster Management subprogram can take EQS 505 Fundamentals of Earthquake Studies instead of EQS 503 Seismology.

The names of the deficiency courses, compulsory courses and elective courses are also listed under the heading of each subprogram. The course descriptions of the non EQS courses can be found in the General Catalog of METU.