There have been many destructive earthquakes and tsunamis in the world. The recent events are 1999 Izmit Earthquake in Turkey, 2004 Sumatra Earthquake/Tsunami in Indian Ocean, 2008 Sichuan Earthquake in China, 2011 East Japan Earthquake/Tsunami in Japan, and so on. Very recently a destructive earthquake occurred in Central Italy. Based on lessons learnt from these destructive earthquakes/tsunami, it is important to plan measures of the reduction and recovery for possible occurrence of earthquakes/tsunamis before it happens. The 1999 Izmit earthquake in Turkey and previous earthquakes suggested to us that the Marmara Sea should be focused on multi-disciplinary research because of the seismic gap in the North Anatolian Fault. The city of Istanbul, being a metropolitan city with high population, is located in the Marmara region. The seismic risk of Istanbul seems to be under the similar condition as Tokyo. Apart from sharing similar degree of disaster possibilities, Japan and Turkey have long history of friendship and partnership. In 2013 a research project, MarDiM SATREPS, started by the agreement of the two countries. The Project runs researches to aim to raise the preparedness for possible large-scale earthquake and Tsunami disasters in Marmara Region.
In this session, not only SATREPS researches, but also presentations on newly obtained results on “Earthquake Hazard and Disaster Mitigation” in other research fields are very much welcome.