Turkey

Turkey and Syria recently experienced two devastating earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and closely followed by a magnitude 7.5, resulting in extensive damage and destruction. The International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' was activated by Turkish authorities, the United Nations, and the International Federation Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies in response to the earthquakes. The Charter provided more than 350 crisis images from 17 space agencies worldwide, which were used to create damage and situation maps to estimate the hazard impact and support relief actions. The Copernicus Emergency Mapping Service (CEMS), which has a cooperation agreement for sharing data and collaborating with the Charter, has also been activated. The service, which has a collaboration agreement for data sharing and working with the Charter, also employs observations from several satellites to deliver on-demand mapping.

Satellite data is proving to be invaluable for emergency aid…

UN Mappers calls all mappers to support the Turkish Open Street Map community following the earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday 6 February.

Together with Copernicus and the International Charter activation, UN Mappers has also been activated. The community has organised a "mapathon", that will be held live on Friday 10 February from 15:00 to 17:00 CET, although mappers are invited to continue the activity over the weekend.

Click here for more information on the event. Registration is already open!

A major earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck Turkey with epicentre on 23 kilometres east of Nurdagi (Gaziantep Province) on February 6, 2023. By the activity spreading to adjacent faults, the region was hit by a 6.7- magnitude and a 7.5- magnitude aftershocks respectively. The earthquake also affected neighbouring Syria.

The space community is also taking action through the activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters. The charter provides a mechanism for the provision of satellite data to support the relief efforts of disaster-stricken areas. The Copernicus Emergency Management Service (EMS) has also been activated to provide support to the affected countries.

The use of space-based information can greatly assist in disaster response efforts. Satellites can provide detailed images and maps of the affected area to help search and rescue teams identify areas in need of assistance. They can also provide information on the extent of the damage,…

UN-SPIDER conducted a training programme on Combatting Disaster in Arid Regions Using Space-Based and Geospatial Technologies from 18 to 20 February 2020 in Istanbul, Turkey. The event was the first attempt of broadening UN-SPIDER efforts to include countries in a vast swath of arid regions in Asia and North Africa, and to increase awareness of the need for space technology to combat disasters in the context of a changing climate and growing populations. The programme was jointly organised with Delta State University, a Regional Support Office of UN-SPIDER. The Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey (AFAD) provided the local support as the host agency.

A total of 22 participants from 11 countries attended the training. They included participants from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Armenia, Turkey and Egypt and experts from UN-SPIDER, Delta State University, the Iranian Space Agency, the International Centre for…

The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters has been triggered to provide satellite-based emergency maps in response to floods and landslides caused by torrential rains in the Artvin Province of Turkey. The mechanism was activated yesterday, 26 August 2015, at 18:50 (UTC+03:00) by the Disaster…

Airbus Defence and Space offers data on crop monitoring through SPOT 6 and SPOT 7 satellite imagery to the Agricultural Monitoring and Information System Project (TARBIL), a programme coordinated by the Turkish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, and funded by the Ministry of Development. The project, started in 2011, aims to generate up-to-date agricultural maps of Turkey which could support present and future crop yield forecasts for each commodity.

SPOT 6 was launched in 2012 while SPOT 7 was put into orbit in 2014. They form a constellation of Earth observing satellites designed to provide continuity of high-resolution, wide-swath data up to 2024.

Airbus Defence and Space has has been involved in TARBIL since 2012, when it signed an agreement on agricultural monitoring with the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), although the collaboration between both entities dates back to 2002, when ITU started to get SPOT 4 data. The agreement also included the…

Ensar Gul, chairman of Turksat Satellite Communications, announced the production and launch of national satellites to occur within a five years time-frame.

“If you have experience, you can build a satellite within three years and launch it within another two years. That means Turkey will have its own satellite within five years,” Gul said.

Turkey has already sent three communication satellites in orbit and has built five satellites in total. Also, the country possesses an earth observation satellite and is currently developing its own space agency.

The UN Secretary-General is organising the first large-scale global humanitarian summit, the World Humanitarian Summit, to be held in Istanbul in 2016.

The goal of this summit is to find new ways to tackle humanitarian needs in our fast-changing world. This three-year initiative is being managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Among the themes highlighted for the summit are humanitarian effectiveness, transformation through innovation, serving the needs of people in conflict as well as reducing vulnerability and managing risk. Particularly, the last subject-area will explore effective ways to support countries and communities in building resilience as a response to the changing nature of shocks and stresses, such as natural disasters.

A series of Regional Consultations will bring together individuals and groups in…

Turkey has launched Gezgin Geoportal, an online portal making available detailed imagery of the country from the Turkish RASAT satellite, as the newspaper Hurriyet DailyNews reported.

“There is great competition in the field of space industry. At a time when the world is becoming increasingly smaller (...), information, informatics and surveillance have become important in the world,” Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık said at a ceremony launching the Gezgin Geoportal.

The ceremony on 19 August 2014 also marked the third anniversary of the launching of the RASAT satellite, Turkey’s first earth observation satellite.

Following the successful launch of the 4B Satellite earlier in the year, Turkey is set to open a satellite manufacturing and testing center later this month at the Akinci Air Force Base in Ankara. Turkey will then become the twelfth country worldwide capable to produce, test and launch its own satellites.

The Satellite Assembly and Integration Test Center UMET operated by the Turkish Aerospace Industries TAI will open in August with a grand ceremony and begin manufacture and testing of the TÜRKSAT 5A, 5B, and 5C using only national resources with the launches scheduled for 2015.

In July 2014, the Turkish Under secretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) had signed a contract with Rokestan, the country’s national manufacturer of missiles, to develop the Turkish Satellite Launch System (UFS).

The state scientific research institute of Turkey, TÜBITAK, has stated that the imagery received by Turkey’s RASAT satellite will be opened to the public through an online portal this year. This online portal is part of a project started by TÜBITAK’s Space Technologies Research Institute, TÜBITAK UZAY, which also participated in the design of the satellite itself.

RASAT satellite is Turkey’s first earth observation satellite, which was launched into space on 17 August 2011 from the Yasny Launch Base in southwestern Russia, bordering Kazakhstan. RASAT satellite has shot images of an area coming around 3.8 million kilometers to the date, that are already being used by several public institutions including the Prime Ministry’s Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD).

In this context, RASAT has already met the demands from public institutions, private firms and universities in 2013.

The launch of Turkey's Earth Observation Satellite Göktürk-2 is scheduled for 19 December 2012, 18:13 Turkey time. Turkey’s first domestic observation satellite, Rasat, was successfully launched into space in August 2011. The second satellite Göktürk-2 has three times as high a resolution as the first one and is of a mass four times that of Rasat. It will be launched from the Jiuquan base in China, which is located in the Gobi desert near the border with Mongolia. Güktürk-2 was created by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and Turkish Aerospace Industries.

The Göktürk-2 satellite aims to be used for the image requirements of the Turkish Armed Forces and as other institutions that require satellite images for agriculture, transportation and urban development with 2.5 meters of resolution.

The 12th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 12) to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will take place over two weeks in Ankara, Turkey. As the Convention's primary decision-making body, the COP will meet to discuss and make decisions regarding the Convention's implementation.

The 2017 EFDRR Open Forum will be hosted by the Government of Turkey from 26 to 28 March 2017 in Istanbul, Turkey. As a requirement of the Sendai Framework, one of the intended outcomes of this Open Forum will be to compile experiences; lessons learnt and gap analyses to be presented during the 2017 Global Platform in Cancun, Mexico in May 2017. The Open Forum will be a unique opportunity to shape the implementation and monitoring of the Sendai Framework in Europe.

The main objectives of the EFDRR will be to contribution to transforming the commitment of governments and stakeholders made in Sendai during the WCDRR into national and local action; and to set the direction to accelerate regional implementation and monitoring of the Sendai Framework.

To register, please go to: http://www.efdrrturkey.org/Registration

Turkish State Meteorological Service (TSMS)

Contact Person
Mr Fatih Demir
Tel: +90312 302 26 19
Email: fdemir [at] dmi.gov.tr
Web: http://www.dmi.gov.tr/en-US/forecast-5days.aspx

About TSMS
The main objectives of the TSMS are:

To make observations,
To provide forecasts,
To provide climatological data, archive data, and other information,
To communicate these to the public,
To provide meteorological needs of army and civil aviation 

TURKSAT

Contact Person
Mr. Mustafa Canli
Tel: +90312 615 32 50
Email: mcanli [at] turksat.com.tr

Mr. Nejat Doger
Tel: +90312 615 30 00
Email:…