The scientific outputs of earthquakes in Turkiye A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Keywords: Bibliometric Analysis; Disasters; Earthquake; WOSviewer; Türkiye

Introduction

In the historical process, the nature of disasters makes the defense mechanisms of all social systems ineffective, as it is unpredictable where and when they can occur [1]. Among the disasters with high impact power in social, political, and economic terms, earthquakes occur more frequently than other types of disasters and cause great losses. For these reasons, earthquakes take place in academic studies quantitatively more than other natural disasters. The fact that earthquakes cause loss of life and property at high rates, -especially in geographical regions defined as earthquake zones- makes it necessary to examine them not only as earth crust events but also as phenomenon that has fundamental social and economic consequences. The earthquake by nature erupts suddenly, cause serious casualties and economic losses. Thus, the social desperation causing by this disaster led to the intensification of studies focusing on what should be done before, during, and after this disaster take place. The impacts of the earthquakes are not limited to the damages in the social lives of people but they have also negative impacts on the psychological and physiological conditions of individuals. In this respect, earthquake investigations have not been limited to engineering and applied sciences, but in recent years, they have become the subject of a wide range of sciences, including almost all social sciences as well as urban management, civil defense, and applied sciences. In this respect, scientific models and analyses have been developed in various disciplines about what can be done to cope with earthquaks when they happen. Türkiye is one of the countries located in the earthquake zone and under the threat of this type of disaster. However, social sensitivity and scientific interest in earthquakes gained momentum after the 1999 disaster. A considerable number of publications on earthquakes in Türkiye have been produced both nationally and internationally

within the framework of interdisciplinary studies. In this context, studies on where and how earthquakes can occur and to what extent they can have an impact are noteworthy. Until recently, engineering disciplines that focuses on the technical side of the story have dominated the literature and thereby the social and economic aspects are relatively neglected. Considering Türkiye’s economic scale, population, and urbanization structure, it is necessary to conduct more studies in the field of social sciences to predict the possible effects of this disaster. Especially the earthquake that occurred in the center of Maraş on February 6, 2023, caused a great loss of life and property. However, the effects of the earthquake were not only limited to the regions where it erupted, but also caused a certain degree of concern all over Türkiye and even in countries located in the earthquake zone. These concerns have become a problem that needs to be analyzed by different disciplines in individual and social dimensions. This situation has naturally shaped the scope and direction of earthquake research. In particular, recent studies have shown that the sociological, economic, ecological, and psychological dimensions of the issue are worth examining as much as engineering in terms of quality and quantity. This study provides a comprehensive overview of earthquake studies conducted worldwide in Türkiye over the past thirty years, aiming to guide future scientific research on the social dimensions of earthquakes in Türkiye, while considering the current trends in scientific literature. The study maps out the realm, disciplines, keywords, and contexts in which the qualified studies on earthquakes in Türkiye, that were recently published in distinguished science portals. Secondly, focusing on the Maraş earthquake, which took place in February 2023 -and immediately found its place in the scientific world as a scientific publicationthis article examines similar questions and develops and analysis to this earthquake. By doing so, it aims to provide

Sigma J Eng Nat Sci, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 513−522, April, 2025

a comprehensive overview of the recent literature and make a modest contribution to the future production of scientific studies in Türkiye.

The study aims to determine the general trends in earthquake studies by taking into account the articles indexed in the Web of Science database. Undoubtedly, earthquake studies in Türkiye are not limited to the articles scanned in this index. However, we preferred the Web of Science as it is the most reputable citation system that provides the data that will enable us to make a general bibliometric analysis most appropriately. A total of 6862 articles on the subject were identified in Web of Science, and the database containing the content and tags of these articles was transferred to the VOSviewer program, where the analyses were intended to be performed. As a result of the applications, several analysis methods have been developed in order to measure the effectiveness of studies, researchers, institutions, and countries related to earthquakes. Considering the target and data limitations of this study, co-occurrence-author keywords, citations-organizations, and citations-countries analyses were considered appropriate. At this point, we are trying to find answers to the questions mentioned above based on a dataset consisting of scientific publications that have emerged around the keywords “Turkey” (including “Türkiye”) and “earthquake” in the last thirty years. Due to the large number of studies on earthquakes, and to reach the current issues in the field, only the studies between 1990 and 2023 were taken into consideration in the process of creating the database. Before indicating the details of the findings specific to Türkiye, it can be useful to have a look at Türkiye’s place in earthquake studies around the world from the most general perspective as can be seen in Figure 1. In 1990, a total of 200,000 publications on earthquakes were available for citation worldwide. Türkiye has an important place in the distribution of publications. Although it ranks 12th with 3.1% in the publication ranking, there is not much difference in quantitative terms with Germany, Iran, Canada, and Russia, which are working in this field.

Research Methodology

The wide scope of the subject to be researched, the fact that many studies have been carried out on earthquakes in Türkiye until today, and the fact that it is a field that is constantly up-to-date have played an important role in determining the study method. The fact that the subject of earthquakes is analyzed within the framework of various disciplines and sometimes handled in an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary framework has led to a systematic but scattered literature. Under current conditions, it is very difficult to present the complete picture of earthquakes in Türkiye with a conventional systematic literature review. Considering this situation, the study has adopted the bibliometric method instead of systematic literature in order to make it possible to identify the active studies in this field, the classification of related publications, and the institutions, organizations, and countries interested in the field. To reveal a panoramic view within the scope of studies on earthquakes in Türkiye, we deemed it appropriate to apply the bibliometric analysis method. Bibliometric analysis makes it possible to systematize the disorganization that inevitably arises in the literature by using increasing information technologies and software. In academic literature implementation of this king of traces back to the early twentieth century [2]. As Naveen Donthu et.al truly sketches out, bibliometric analysis allows the academics to indeed identify the gaps in the literature and to “position their intended contributions to the fields” [3]. Undoubtedly, this method is not a substitute for a systematic literature review, which is a sine qua non condition for scientific studies, but it reveals the results that will guide and incline these studies and help in determining the target subjects and questions. In addition to this, as in any other field today, concerns about important points such as sorting out studies on earthquakes and determining the reliability and timeliness of the sources are eliminated by bibliometric analysis. Researchers extensively use this study method to classify the mass of data in the field and enhance its understandability. Bibliometric analysis can be defined as the analysis of all scientific studies in any field through quantitative analyses and statistical indicators [4]. Thanks to this analysis, all sources, such as articles, journals, books, proceedings, and editorial materials published in a certain period, can be classified separately according to their years, and the studies of the authors or researchers on the subject can be classified depending on the country or institution they belong to (Zeren & Kaya, 2020: 37). The data obtained as a result of this classification is visualized through software packages, and quantitative data is made meaningful.

Comprehensive Analysis of Earthquakes in Türkıye in Scientific Literature In world literature several bibliometric studies have been done on the world earthquakes in general and on Turkish earthquakes in particular. Xingjian Liu et al. using a substantial dataset consisting of more than 84,000 publications, presented the research performance on earthquakes in the world throughout the twentieth century [5]. Fernando Morante-Carballo et al. [6] concentrated on American peninsula while analysing scientific production on earthquakes. Dal et al. [7] bibliometric study on the Turkish earthquakes particularly focuses on its affiliation with architecture. Taşkın [8] develops a citation analysis on Marmara earthquake (1999) relying on more than a thousand articles by Turkish scholars. As an earthquake-prone country, scientific studies have been carried out in Türkiye since very early times. This chapter provides an overview of the studies carried out in Türkiye in the last thirty years and tries to reveal the levels

Sigma J Eng Nat Sci, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 513−522, April, 2025

Figure 1. Country distribution of studies on earthquakes between 1990 and 2023. of accumulation in earthquake studies, where the publications focus on this subject, and where the scientific articles are clustered. The earliest publications on earthquakes in Türkiye that are indexed in international information sources were found in 1992. Researchers can obtain a processable time series between 1998 and 2023. Undoubtedly, the global increase in publications on earthquakes is expected to continue. Naturally, the increase in publication opportunities and the accumulation of scientific knowledge will have an important effect on triggering new publications. Figure 2 shows a noticeable increase in the studies on earthquakes in Türkiye in 2002 and 2021. It is possible to think that

the 1999 Gölcük earthquake and the 2019 earthquakes in Istanbul had an impact on this. Since earthquakes are instantaneous events and it takes a period of time to feel and measure their effects, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of publications one or two years after the earthquakes. Therefore, scientists typically consider earthquakes as a lagged variable in time series analysis within their research studies. In the 2023 Great Maraş earthquake, the temporal process of the disruption was quite short. In other words, the publications started to come one after the other immediately after the earthquake occurred. The relatively shorter duration of the broadcasting processes and the fact that this earthquake disaster was at the top of

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almost the entire world agenda may have contributed to the immediate succession of publications. Turkish academia dominates the realm on Anatolian earthquakes. The number of articles published in Türkiye among the 6862 studies conducted in total is 5581. The ratio of the studies conducted in Türkiye to all studies is

Conclusion

The earthquake issue has entered the agenda of almost all countries due to the fact that its economic and social dimensions affect the whole world as well as the countries located in the earthquake zone. As a natural consequence of this, earthquakes have started to be included in the scientific literature as one of the most serious types of disasters. In Türkiye, which is one of the countries most exposed to this type of disaster, studies on earthquakes have been addressed since early years. The devastating effects of the 1999 earthquake triggered the emergence of more studies. The February 6, 2023, earthquakes, on the other hand, carried the country’s scientific interest to a different dimension due to the fact that they covered a very large geographical area and caused many casualties. The bibliometric analysis of earthquakes in Türkiye reveals the orientations of the qualified studies conducted so far and also reveals the changing character of the field of study. In this respect, the study aims to serve as a guide to give an idea of where future studies in different disciplines can be directed. Three striking points can be concluded from the detailed numerical breakdowns and bibliometric maps of the study. First; the weight of the social and health sciences in earthquake studies has increased in recent years. Especially the pioneering studies on the earthquakes of February 6 clearly show this tendency. The loss of life in these earthquakes, the process of rescuing those trapped under the rubble, and the subsequent discussions on the reconstruction of cities have made it necessary to examine the issue more within

the scope of not only engineering but also social, economic, and health sciences. Second; the interdisciplinary studies have gained more prominence in recent years. An earthquake, which is the subject of different disciplines in terms of its character, has passed to a more complex but qualified dimension with the contributions of social and health sciences. Future studies on earthquakes in Türkiye will inevitably have a multidisciplinary character. In this context, technical universities with faculties of economics and health sciences seem to be promising in contributing to the literature. Finally, there is a growing interest from more countries in the geography of Türkiye in terms of earthquakes compared to previous periods. Especially in recent years, the emergence of Asian academic articles on earthquakes in Türkiye is remarkable. It is also possible to observe a similar situation in academic publication citations. The expansion of the country’s base for conducting research on Türkiye can be considered a harbinger of a wider range of international cooperation opportunities in the long term.

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by Yildiz Technical University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit under project number FBG-2023-5734.

Data Availability Statement

The authors confirm that the data that supports the findings of this study are available within the article. Raw data that support the finding of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.

Conflict Of Interest

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Sigma J Eng Nat Sci, Vol. 43, No. 2, pp. 513−522, April, 2025

Ethics

There are no ethical issues with the publication of this manuscript.

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