Disasters can no longer be considered as isolated events. They have the potential to exert cascading effects, having profound impact across systems. And if the affected systems have been subjected to anthropogenic modification, this increases their vulnerability, putting community safety and infrastructure at risk. A single disaster can initiate subsequent events, or lead to a series of economic, social, and environmental challenges.
To address these issues, DANGER, a research project led by Prof. Dr. Tolga Görüm at Istanbul Technical University (ITU) Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences, has officially launched. Supported by the TÜBİTAK BİDEP 2247-A National Leading Researchers Program, the project aims to identify and analyze cascading hazards in post-disaster scenarios.
Prof. Dr. Görüm emphasized:
“The project aims to predict where landslides may occur after an earthquake, their impacts on slopes, and how these events may grow, amplify, and evolve into additional hazards over time. We also aim to develop tools for stakeholders to calculate these risks in advance, before secondary disasters occur. This approach creates awareness and perspective on where to invest and what preventive measures are needed. Given the frequency and magnitude of natural disasters, their probabilities change annually. In machine learning, each new event will be added as a case to the system, enhancing its predictive capacity. Our goal is to integrate more dynamic models into the system, which learn from each new case and increase accuracy, while closely following developments in artificial intelligence technologies"
The AI-driven system developed within the project will collect real-time data from disaster-affected areas, generate risk maps, and model sequential hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, siltation, and erosion. Each new event serves as a learning instance, enhancing predictive accuracy and enabling decision-makers to plan interventions more effectively.
The DANGER project is expected to make a significant contribution to Turkey’s disaster management strategies and provide a replicable model for anticipating and mitigating cascading hazards in future disasters.
