Risk Perception Frames in Environmental Decision Making

Abstract

In environmental decision making, local community residents and activists frequently make claims about risk and its management that run counter to expert knowledge. Environmental practitioners who dismiss these claims as irrational or emotional become ill-equipped to cope with them. How might we better understand risk perceptions, and what are their implications for environmental professional practice? This article examines how these differences emerge as a result of frames, or interpretive lenses. As described in this article, lay perceptions are often based on extreme outcomes rather than expected value, built upon experiential rather than analytic models, focus on social rather than physical risk systems, and seek zero risk rather than relative risk reduction. Divergent perceptions of risks not only alter preferences for specific decisions but also aggravate disparities in identity and characterization frames. These disparities further decrease trust and inhibit communication, which in turn further widens divergences between risk frames held by experts and lay publics. Certain strategies may facilitate more effective communication and decision making when risk perception frames diverge. These include promoting more active listening, more carefully assessing frames within which risks are perceived and evaluated, and disentangling characterization and identity frames from risk frames.

Framing environmental policy by the local press: Case study from the Dadia Forest Reserve, Greece

“…In terms of environmental disputes, the word 'frame' denotes priorities and opportunities or risks involved with different stakeholder choices (Elliott, 2003). Disputants' frame may be distinguished not only by variations in interests and beliefs, but also by core conceptualizations of the dispute itself (Elliott et al, 2003b;.…”

How policies become contested: a spiral of imagination and evidence in a large infrastructure project

“…It hence could help researchers to further develop specific frame types in relation to time. Why do actors over time come to emphasize conflict (Brummans et al, 2008), risk (Elliott, 2003), or scale (Kurtz, 2003;Lieshout et al, 2011) in their arguments, rather than other dimensions of an issue? This might be due to the imagination and evidence interacting in specific ways to produce these foci.…”

Stakeholders’ frames and ecosystem service use in the context of a debate over rebuilding or removing a dam in New Brunswick, Canada

“…For example, in a conflict over water use from an aquifer in Texas, a judge framed the situation of overuse as an "emergency" and implied that water use restrictions would deliver gains. On the other hand, rural water users framed restrictions as a loss in agricultural irrigation that offered few gains (Elliott 2003).…”