Abstract
Risks have been classically understood as a probability of damage or a potential hazard resulting in appropriate management strategies. However, research on environmental issues such as pollutants in the aquatic environment or the impacts of climate change have shown that classical management approaches do not sufficiently cover these interactions between society and nature. There have been several attempts to develop interdisciplinary approaches to risk that include natural as well as social science contributions. In this paper, the authors aim at developing a social-ecological perspective on risk by drawing on the concept of societal relations to nature and the model of provisioning systems. This perspective is used to analyze four cases, pharmaceuticals, microplastics, semicentralized water infrastructures and forest management, with regard to risk identification, assessment and management. Finally, the paper aims at developing a perspective on risks which takes into account non-intended side-effects, system interdependencies and uncertainty.
Highlights
The detection of anthropogenic micropollutants in the water cycle or the environmental changes caused by climate change are examples of current risks, which point to the relation between society and nature, as well as to the relational character of risk; put in a simple way, this is a relation of cause and effect
The aim of the paper is to elaborate a social-ecological perspective on risks by drawing on four case studies analyzed with the concepts of societal relations to nature and provisioning systems
A social-ecological perspective on risks has been elaborated by drawing on the concepts of societal relations to nature and provisioning systems
Summary
The detection of anthropogenic micropollutants in the water cycle or the environmental changes caused by climate change are examples of current risks, which point to the relation between society and nature, as well as to the relational character of risk; put in a simple way, this is a relation of cause and (often undesired or adverse) effect. A definition often referred to says: the “term ‘risk’ denotes the likelihood that an undesirable state of reality (adverse effects) may occur as a result of natural events or human activities” [2] The technocratic understanding is an equation involving the possibility of an adverse effect and the potential damage, while emphasis in the social sciences, for instance is laid on perception and decision-making [3]. For instance ecotoxicology, environmental risk assessment considers a cause deriving from a toxic substance (e.g., chemical, which has effects on an organism). Classical risk analysis calculates the possibility of an adverse event and the potential damage, for instance an assessment of the ecotoxicity of hazardous substances based on dose-response relationships. Risks are calculated for socio-technical systems such as energy or water infrastructures which are susceptible to hazards
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