Dr. Bülent Batuman Awarded a TÜBİTAK 1001 Grant

Dr. Bülent Batuman has been awarded a grant under the TÜBİTAK 1001 Scientific and Technological Research Projects Programme, one of Turkey's principal national research funding schemes, to lead a project on urbanization policies and earthquake vulnerability. The award supports a multi-year study that Dr. Batuman directs, bringing sustained research on disaster and the built environment to Bilkent LAUD.

The project asks how a city's pattern of growth shapes the damage it suffers when the ground moves. Rather than treating earthquakes as purely natural events, it reads seismic vulnerability as something produced over time, by urbanization policies, planning decisions and the way small and medium-sized cities are allowed to develop. The devastation of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes gives this question a stark urgency.

The research focuses on the small and medium-sized cities of the affected region, comparing five settlements of different scales, Antakya, Adıyaman, Elbistan, İslahiye and Gölbaşı. Reading these cases side by side, it traces how patterns of urban growth and planning choices translated into concrete risk on the ground, and where those choices left communities more or less exposed.

By connecting the histories of how these cities were built to how they withstood the earthquakes, the project aims to make visible the links between urban policy and seismic resilience, offering evidence that can inform how vulnerable cities are planned and rebuilt.