Assessment of geo-environmental problems of the Zonguldak province (NW Turkey)

The Zonguldak province is a coastal settlement area that has been suffering from serious natural and human-induced environmental problems sourced by its geology and geomorphology. Since the province locates at the heart of a coal-producing basin, the geo-environmental problems related to mining activities such as esthetic degradation, disposal of mining wastes and subsidence of the abandoned coal galleries are badly affecting every day life in Zonguldak province. Disposal of municipal wastes is also a big problem since only one municipality out of 32 has a sanitary disposal area. The rest of the municipalities dispose their solid wastes to rivers or to the sea. The province has also some health problems, which are pointed out in the literature, related to coal mining and geologic environment. These are cytogenetic damage in peripheral lymphocytes and pheumoconiosis (most commonly seen at coal workers), goiter and cancer. Landslides are the most important hazards in the area since 13% of the total surface of the Zonguldak is affected by landslides. In this study, considering the hazard potential special attention is given to deep landslides and using the stepwise forward conditional logistic regression technique, the landslide susceptibility map for the Zonguldak province is produced. The results showed that the most important independent variables governing the landslides are slope gradient, volcanic, and sedimentary rocks of Eocene and clastic and carbonate units of Cretaceous. The landslide map is used as a base map for the production of geo-hazard reconnaissance map on which areas subjected to other important geo-hazards (flood, earthquake and subsidence) are also shown to provide guidance for both existing settlement areas to take the necessary preventive measures and for new developing settlement areas to avoid the problematic areas.     

Assessment of landslide susceptibility for a landslide-prone area (north of Yenice, NW Turkey) by fuzzy approach

. Regional landslide susceptibility assessments pose complex problems. To solve these problems, numerous approaches, such as statistical analysis, geotechnical engineering approach, geomorphologic approach and fuzzy logic, have been employed. However, all the available methods for regional landslide susceptibility assessments have some uncertainties due to a lack of knowledge and variability. Minimizing these uncertainties provides realistic approaches. Use of the fuzzy logic approach to produce a landslide susceptibility map of a landslide-prone area in NW Turkey is the main purpose of the present study. For this purpose, the study includes five main stages, these being the preparation of a landslide inventory of the study area, the application of factor analysis, the extraction of fuzzy if-then rules, the use of a geographical information system, and the control of the reliability of the resulting landslide susceptibility map. Slope angle, slope aspect, land use, weathering depth, water conditions and topographical elevation were considered as landslide conditioning factors for the study area. A total of 23 if-then rules was extracted from the field data. Employing these rules, fuzzified index maps representing each parameter were obtained. Finally, combining these maps, the landslide susceptibility map of the area was prepared. When compared with the landslide susceptibility map, the landslides identified in the area were found to be located in the very high- and high-susceptibility zones. As far as the performance of the fuzzy approach for processing is concerned, the images appear to be quite satisfactory, the zones determined on the map being zones of relative susceptibility.     

Pressure–temperature evolution of lawsonite eclogite in Sivrihisar; Tavşanlı Zone–Turkey

The Cretaceous blueschist belt, Tavşanlı Zone, representing the subducted and exhumed northern continental margin of the Anatolide–Tauride platform is exposed in Western Anatolia. The Sivrihisar area east of Tavşanlı is made up of tectonic units consisting of i) metaclastics and conformably overlying massive marbles (coherent blueschist unit), ii) blueschist-eclogite unit, iii) marble–calcschist intercalation and iv) metaperidotite slab. The metaclastics are composed of jadeite–lawsonite–glaucophane and jadeite–glaucophane–chloritoid schists, phengite phyllites, and calcschists with glaucophane–lawsonite metabasite layers. The blueschist-eclogite unit representing strongly sheared, deeply buried and imbricated tectonic slices of accreted uppermost levels of the oceanic crust with minor metamorphosed serpentinite bodies consists of lawsonite-bearing eclogitic metabasites (approximately 90% of the field), lawsonite eclogites, metagabbros, serpentinites, pelagic marbles, omphacite–glaucophane–lawsonite metapelites and metacherts. The mineral assemblage of the lawsonite eclogite (garnet + omphacite > 70%) is omphacite, garnet, lawsonite, glaucophane, phengite and rutile. Lawsonite eclogite lenses are enclosed by garnet–lawsonite blueschist envelopes.Textural evidence from lawsonite eclogites and country rocks reveals that they did not leave the stability field of lawsonite during subduction and exhumation. The widespread preservation of lawsonite in eclogitic metabasites and eclogites can be attributed to rapid subduction and subsequent exhumation in a low geothermal gradient of the oceanic crust material without experiencing a thermal relaxation. Peak P–T conditions of lawsonite eclogites are estimated at 24 ± 1 kbar and 460 ± 25 °C. These P–T conditions indicate a remarkably low geotherm of 6.2 °C/km corresponding to a burial depth of 74 km.     

Extraction of potential debris source areas by logistic regression technique: a case study from Barla,Besparmak and Kapi mountains (NW Taurids,Turkey)

Debris flow is one of the most destructive mass movements. Sometimes regional debris flow susceptibility or hazard assessments can be more difficult than the other mass movements. Determination of debris accumulation zones and debris source areas, which is one of the most crucial stages in debris flow investigations, can be too difficult because of morphological restrictions. The main goal of the present study is to extract debris source areas by logistic regression analyses based on the data from the slopes of the Barla, Besparmak and Kapi Mountains in the SW part of the Taurids Mountain belt of Turkey, where formation of debris material are clearly evident and common. In this study, in order to achieve this goal, extensive field observations to identify the areal extent of debris source areas and debris material, air-photo studies to determine the debris source areas and also desk studies including Geographical Information System (GIS) applications and statistical assessments were performed. To justify the training data used in logistic regression analyses as representative, a random sampling procedure was applied. By using the results of the logistic regression analysis, the debris source area probability map of the region is produced. However, according to the field experiences of the authors, the produced map yielded over-predicted results. The main source of the over-prediction is structural relation between the bedding planes and slope aspects on the basis of the field observations, for the generation of debris, the dip of the bedding planes must be taken into consideration regarding the slope face. In order to eliminate this problem, in this study, an approach has been developed using probability distribution of the aspect values. With the application of structural adjustment, the final adjusted debris source area probability map is obtained for the study area. The field observations revealed that the actual debris source areas in the field coincide with the areas having high probability values on this final map.     

Observation of excess heavy metal concentrations in water resources to infer surface water influences on shallow groundwater: a typical example of the Porsuk River (Eskisehir-Turkey)

Water Resources - The Eskisehir province is well-known due to its industrial and agricultural activities, which are a threat for the aquatic environment. Hence, monitoring of water quality in the...     

Influence of seismic acceleration on landslide susceptibility maps: a case study from NE Turkey (the Kelkit Valley)

Particularly in the last decade, landslide susceptibility and hazard maps have been used for urban planning and site selection of infrastructures. Most of the procedures for preparing of landslide susceptibility maps need high-quality landslide inventory map. Although the rainfall and seismic activities are accepted as triggering factor for landslides, designation of the triggering factor for each landslide in the inventory is almost impossible when well-documented records are unavailable. Therefore, during preparation of landslide susceptibility map, whole landslide records in the inventory map are used together without classifying based on the triggering factors. Although seismic activity is accepted as a triggering factor, possible effect of the use of seismic activity on production of landslide susceptibility map was investigated in this study, and the subject is open to discussion. For this purpose, a series of stability analyses based on circular failure and infinite slope model were performed considering different pseudostatic conditions. The results of analyses show that gentle slopes have higher susceptibility to failure than steeper ones, even if their stability conditions (susceptibilities) are similar for static condition. The seismic forces acting on failure surfaces may not be sufficiently taken into consideration in the conventionally prepared landslide susceptibility maps. Employing the general decreasing trend in stability condition based on slope face angle and the seismic acceleration, a new procedure was introduced for preparing of the landslide susceptibility map for a scenario earthquake. The prediction performance of occurring landslides increased after the procedure was applied to the conventionally prepared landslide susceptibility map. According to the threshold independent spatial performance analyses of the proposed methodology and the produced landslide susceptibility maps, the area under ROC curve values were calculated as 0.801, 0.933, and 0.947 for the maps prepared by considering conventional method and scenario earthquakes having M _w values of 5.5 and 7.5, respectively.     

Susceptibility assessments of shallow earthflows triggered by heavy rainfall at three catchments by logistic regression analyses

Sometimes regional meteorological anomalies trigger different types of mass movements. In May 1998, the western Black Sea region of Turkey experienced such a meteorological anomaly. Numerous residential and agricultural areas and engineering lifelines were buried under the flood waters. Besides the reactivation of many previously delineated landslides, thousands of small-scale landslides (mostly the earthflow type) occurred all over the region. The earthflows were mainly developed in flysch-type units, which have already presented high landslide concentrations. In this study, three different catchments — namely Agustu, Egerci, and Kelemen — were selected because they have the most landslide-prone geological units of the region. The purposes of the present study are to put forward the spatial distributions of the shallow earthflows triggered, to describe the possible factors conditioning the earthflows, and to produce the shallow earthflow susceptibility maps of the three catchments. The unique condition units (UCU) were employed during the production of susceptibility maps and during statistical analyses. The unique condition units numbered 4052 for the Agustu catchment, 13,241 for the Egerci catchment and 12,314 for the Kelemen catchment. The earthflow intensity is the highest in the Agustu catchment (0.038 flow/UCU) and lowest in the Egerci catchment (0.0035 flow/UCU). Logistic regression analyses were also employed. However, during the analyses, some difficulties were encountered. To overcome the difficulties, a series of sensitivity analyses were performed based on some decision rules introduced in the present study. Considering the decision rules, the proper ratios of UCU free from earthflow (0) / UCU including the earthflow (1) for the Agustu, Egerci and Kelemen catchments were obtained as 3, 6, and 5, respectively. Also, a chart for the proper ratio selection was developed. The regression equations from the selected ratios were then applied to the entire catchment and the earthflow susceptibility maps were produced. The landslide susceptibility maps revealed that 15% of the Agustu catchment, 8% of the Egerci catchment, and 7% of the Kelemen catchment have very high earthflow susceptibility; and most of the earthflows triggered by the May 1998 meteorological event were found in the very high susceptibility zones.     

Prediction of earthquake hazard by hidden Markov model (around Bilecik,NW Turkey)

Earthquakes are one of the most important natural hazards to be evaluated carefully in engineering projects, due to the severely damaging effects on human-life and human-made structures. The hazard of an earthquake is defined by several approaches and consequently earthquake parameters such as peak ground acceleration occurring on the focused area can be determined. In an earthquake prone area, the identification of the seismicity patterns is an important task to assess the seismic activities and evaluate the risk of damage and loss along with an earthquake occurrence. As a powerful and flexible framework to characterize the temporal seismicity changes and reveal unexpected patterns, Poisson hidden Markov model provides a better understanding of the nature of earthquakes. In this paper, Poisson hidden Markov model is used to predict the earthquake hazard in Bilecik (NW Turkey) as a result of its important geographic location. Bilecik is in close proximity to the North Anatolian Fault Zone and situated between Ankara and Istanbul, the two biggest cites of Turkey. Consequently, there are major highways, railroads and many engineering structures are being constructed in this area. The annual frequencies of earthquakes occurred within a radius of 100 km area centered on Bilecik, from January 1900 to December 2012, with magnitudes (M) at least 4.0 are modeled by using Poisson-HMM. The hazards for the next 35 years from 2013 to 2047 around the area are obtained from the model by forecasting the annual frequencies of M ≥ 4 earthquakes.