"Acceleration records obtained during recent earthquakes have demonstrated that geological and geotechnical site conditions have significant influence on strong motion characteristics on the ground surface. Therefore earthquake hazard studies should be able to generate site specific earthquake characteristics on the ground surface to be used for engineering analyses and design. The first option to account for the effects of local soil conditions in hazard analysis is to use contemporary attenuation relationships formulated in terms of site and source classifications. The second option is to use empirical amplification factors. The third option is to adopt a more comprehensive approach in estimating site specific earthquake characteristics based on 1 or 2 dimensional site response analysis using detailed site characterisation. The first phase of the proposed project involves the effective monitoring of the vertical array installed very recently down to depth of 150m, and further development of Istanbul Network composed of 100 strong motion stations as Urban Earthquake Test Site. Full support will be given by the Department of Earthquake Engineering by securing additional funds from Bogazici University and the Istanbul Metropolis Municipality for the installation of additional deep borehole accelerometers. 25 deep boreholes were prepared within the large scale project financed by the Istanbul Municipality including all the soil and site characterisation. The installation and monitoring of these additional vertical arrays will be the responsibility of the researcher Dr.Kurtulus. In the second phase numerical and analytical studies will be conducted using the data from the Urban Earthquake Test Site to further develop contemporary attenuation relationships, to formulate empirical amplification factors, to develop and calibrate computer codes to evaluate site response analyses. Dr. Kurtulus will coordinate and perform these analytical studies."