Applying risk governance principles to natural hazards and risks in mountains
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Date
2011-11-09
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Abstract
The multidisciplinarity of spatial planning leads it to address all spatially relevant issues present on
a territory. Among them, the question of natural hazards and risks gained a particular attention in
the last decades.
Despite the permanent deepening of knowledge about natural hazards and risks, and the various
strategies adopted to reduce their impact on societies, natural disasters are still causing
considerable damages and taking lives. Obviously, the traditional approaches have reached their
limit. The new challenges posed by natural risks create a need for a more comprehensive
approach, risk governance.
This framework includes risk assessment and risk management, embedded in a large risk
communication environment. The place of the public in this approach has to be shifted from
potential victims to active actors in the decision making processes.
In addition, the general dynamic of harmonisation of policies observed in the European Union
conducts to consider an harmonisation of natural risks related policies. Moreover, as many regions
in Europe are facing similar risks with different strategies influenced by their respective risk
cultures, sharing methods and knowledge could help reaching a higher efficiency. But the transfer
of methods is hindered by the dissimilarities in risk cultures.
This study addresses the perceptions and expectations of the public in risk prone areas, in an
attempt to understand how far they influence risk cultures. By comparing perceptions and
expectations in two sites with similar risk settings, the study aimed at pointing out the elements that shape risk cultures, and understand how they could be considered when transferring good practice
examples.
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Keywords
Governance, Natural hazards, Risk