Hazard and living environment: combining industrial risk and landscape representations

In the context of the French estuary of the Seine River (Normandy), around the urban area of Le Havre, this paper studies the determinants of industrial risk perception of the resident population. More precisely, to what extent the presence of components in the industrial landscape may influence this risk perception. Several complementary methods were combined to evaluate risk perception, assess surrounding landscapes or measure the distance to landscape components. Qualitative, quantitative, and spatial data were collected, pooled and treated in a geographic information system in order to arrive at two main results. First, risk sensitivity depends on various factors including the landscape dimension and the visibility of industrial components. Second, mental maps drawn by people allow a better understanding of industrial risk sensitivity; it appears that areas of risk are more precisely delineated by people who are less worried about risk.