Review article
RISK PRESENTATION — A BASIC ELEMENT OF RISK COMMUNICATION
Dejan Škanata
; Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb
Abstract
Risk communication is not a simple process in which there are qualified senders of information on the one side, and their recipients on the other. It is very complex process in which multiple rules and procedures have to be respected. Within a communication procedure, the presentation of estimated risks is the first, and very often a directing factor. Quantitative risk assessment and appropriate presentation of the results are necessary, but not sufficient conditions for proper communication procedure, and — on that basis — for proper decisions.
The paper is concerned with the problem of presentation of the estimated risks. Author claims that the expert in the field of quantitative risk assessment is the most qualified to present the risks. In this context, the most interesting is the relation between the expert and the public. In analysis of that relation a stress has been put on the analysis of a semantic problem. Therefore, the paper accounts the methods of risk presentation that are nowadays at hand to the specialist in the field of quantitative risk assessment: analogy, numeric and graphic risk presentation. Each of this methods is analyzed in short, and their main advantages and imperfections have been pointed out. Although it is very difficult to determine in general which presentation methods should be used in certain conditions, the author prefers — in case of presentation of the risk to the public — analogy, relative numeric representation, and a combination of absolute and relative presentation.
Keywords
risk communication; risk management; risk presentation
Hrčak ID:
141441
URI
Publication date:
15.4.1996.
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