Dear Readers,

This book series, which was published in 14 volumes when the Disaster Management Excellence Center was first established in 2001 and was the first disaster management book to be printed in Turkish, reached 23 books after its second edition. In addition to our publications, our academic staff, who came from different departments of 13 faculties of our university and received disaster management training, respectively; Disaster Management Excellence Center, Disaster Management Center, Disaster Management Research and Application Center and finally Disaster Management Institute, have provided training to over 5 thousand local administrators, institutions and disaster management officers in many provinces of our country since then and continue to do so.

The first national projects of the Disaster Management Institute were completed with the support of the Strategy Planning Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Turkey. These projects; The National Emergency Management, Training and Drill Program Project, National Emergency Management Model Development Project, Turkish Fire Department Restructuring Project and National UAS-GIS Based Database and Disaster Management, Focused Decision Support System Standard Formation covered the subjects. Our academic staff has actively taken part in many important national projects and commissions and continues to do so. The most important of these projects are the Turkey Disaster Response Plan (TAMP) and the Istanbul Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Plan (IRAP), which was implemented with the Istanbul Governorship in 2021 and published in 2022.

In these days when we are experiencing one of the biggest earthquake disasters of the century, we are continuing the two and a half century-old mission of Istanbul Technical University and striving to reach all sectors in our country with the trainings we provide to civil society organizations, public institutions and private sector representatives who play an important role in disasters. Due to the earthquakes we experienced in our country on February 6, 2023, we had to experience once again how sensitive and current the issue of disaster is for our country. In the upcoming process, we will make an effort to do more work on earthquakes and reach more people.

As part of our 250-year mission, we opened our country's first Disaster Management master's program within the ITU Disaster Management Center in 2002 and since then, we have trained graduates who have worked to advance even further in disaster management in different provinces and institutions of our country. In the upcoming periods, we will also implement our Disaster Management Sciences and Engineering doctoral program within the Disaster Management Institute.

When we look back, our research and application projects that we have carried out on a national and international scale since 2001, the trainings we have provided all over Turkey, the graduates we have trained, and every individual we have reached and touched in the field of disaster management show that there is much more we can do for our country.

This study, which is an important step towards making our country ready for disasters, will hopefully reach more readers in the coming days.

Prof. Dr. İsmail Koyuncu
Former President of Istanbul Technical University