EDIM: Earthquake Disaster Information System for the Marmara Region, Turkey

The Istanbul Earthquake Early Warning and Rapid Response System has been established in the aftermath of the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake, and represents one of the few examples of operational earthquake warning systems in Europe. Several new methodologies and technologies have been developed in the ‘environment’ of this existing system in order to improve early warning but also validate methods and compare progress with the existing technology. Main improvements refer to testing and optimizing the existing system with a realistic catalogue of accelerograms, development of a self-organizing and distributed observational system in terms of hardware and communication software, and utilization of information technology. We thus improved the three relevant pillars of the early warning methodologies: Monitoring, warning, and communication.