ABSTRACT

Risk characterization is a synthesis and summary of information about a potentially hazardous situation that addresses the needs and interests of decision makers and of interested and affected parties. Risk characterization is a prelude to decision making and depends on an iterative, analytic-deliberative process. Risk analysis concentrated on technology and the potential for accidents. This chapter shows that working on right risks is more than how to structure assessment but how publics and particularly vulnerable people may respond must also be assessed. The natural hazards analysts point out that there is continuing neglect of hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, and other environmental changes. Early public engagement with risk management is not only about improving the process of public support and engagement and the creation of community consent but also drawing in that expertise often missing from risk assessment and laying the base for guiding what risks to work on which, in the end, matter less.