Participatory Mapping as a Tool to Investigate Public Risk Perception
Author(s): Paulina Budryte
Thursday 15 | 10:00-10:20
Room: TP54
Session: Environment risk and expertise
Nature and the natural environment are often associated with rural areas, however, the environmental risks affect cities just as strongly as rural areas (Asmara et al., 2022). They could be regional, like extensive heat waves, which are extremely dangerous to elderly citizens, or local, like the spread of pollution from localized sources or floods after extreme rain events. The existing knowledge body indicates that predictions of natural hazards are improving (Axelrod et al., 1999; Oubennaceur et al., 2022), yet a political and technological response is lacking (Wachinger et al., 2013). Further, since the population of city dwellers are growing, it becomes paramount to be prepared for risks, including environmental ones, in urban settings.
Public risk perception as an intuitive judgement of a person (Slovic, 2000) does not always correlate with existing scientific knowledge and professional expertise (Sjöberg, 1970, 2011; Wachinger et al., 2010). However, such a dichotomy of views leads to miscommunications in the discussions on political agenda and development aims and tasks. Although investigations and scientific inquiries on this topic have been stemming for decades (Balzekiene et al., 2022), there are still unanswered research questions, and adverse outcomes still appear, like political miscommunication, fake news, unprepared communities for the crisis or harming and/or inadequate reactions to the crisis (Anderson & Renaud, 2021; Siegrist, 2021; Yang, 2019).
Here, I would like to present the results of the participatory mapping on risk perception. These activities with local communities aimed to explore public risk perception on various risks in their close surroundings, including environmental risks. It is essential to underline that participatory mapping was done in the third biggest city in Lithuania – Klaipeda, which is also a port city close to the Lithuanian-Russian border. This city holds a reputation of irresponsible manufacturing companies. In Klaipeda, almost every year, some environmental disaster happens due to poor practices in companies (sewage or pollution spills, waste fires, etc.).
Additionally, the SGD terminal is very close, and in the near future, an off-shore wind farm will be built. This context creates sensitive and sceptical communities. During participatory mapping activities, community representatives indicated risk spots on the map and drew impact zones. Additionally, discussions about such results were carried out, and reflections were collected after the introduction of professional maps of risks. In this way, knowledge co-production has a direct impact on the communities – hopefully, they will have awareness regarding risks and will be better equipped to react if any crisis happens.