Natural Disasters in Turkey

   In the northeast of Turkey, the Eastern Black Sea Region has been exposed to severe    coastal erosion and shoreline recession for the last 30 years.  Manmade activities are one of the most critical reasons for this problem.   This coastal imbalance was due to commercial and municipal sand mining. Another cause which contributed to this coastal imbalance was the construction of a highway near the shore. This project used fill soil close to the coast. Wave energy increases by reflected waves along these slopes and causes a littoral sediment transport. Finally, the other important reason for erosion and recession is also manmade, pertaining to incorrect site selection and planning and design of coastal structures such as harbors and fishery harbors, for example. Possible remedies to re-establish beaches are being investigated and some design criteria changes have been presented to change various engineering structures to fortify these coa...

First recorded hurricane (cyclone) in memory occurred in Turkey April 18, 2012 For the first time in recorded memory, a cyclone on April 18, 2012, hit Turkey, with strong winds battering Istanbul, closing the bridge over the Bosporus and wreaking havoc in the Grand Bazaar.    Turkish hydro-meteorology  specialists reported that the wind speeds, at the onset of the storm, reached nearly 50 MPH.  T he State Meteorological Bureau warned that winds with speeds of up to 62 miles per hour were expected. Scientists agree that this is the first time that Turkey witness ed   a hurricane -like   storm .  Residents living in the cities of İzmir and İstanbul who have lived their whole life in those cities, say they have never seen such a storm as this one.  Six persons are reported to have died in this storm.     Another powerful hurricane hit Istanbul on July 29, 2017.   Flooding was so deep that p...

  Giant hailstones and torrential downpours leave the streets of Istanbul under water. “Severe weather refers to events such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, mountain windstorms, heat waves and dust storms…and are considered hazardous because of the energy they release and damage they are capable of causing,” according to Keller and De Vecchio in their textbook, Natural Hazards . Here is an interesting news segment of scientists talking about recent incidents of severe weather in the U.S., and whether those are the result of extreme weather or climate change.   Although the length (24 minutes) is somewhat long, the interviews with a cadre of scientists from highly regarded scientific institutions throughout the U.S., along with insurance industry experts, as they strive to create extreme weather events in a huge lab, make for fascinating viewing: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/techknow/2015/12/extreme-weather-coincidence-cl...