Alterra, Wageningen UR, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Sci Total Environ. 2010 Aug 15;408(18):3899-907. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2009.10.045. Epub 2009 Nov 24.
Risk maps help risk analysts and scientists to explore the spatial nature of the effects of environmental stressors such as pollutants. The development of Geographic Information Systems over the past few decades has greatly improved spatial representation and analysis of environmental information and data. Maps also constitute a powerful tool to communicate the outcome of complex environmental risk assessment to stakeholders such as the general public and policy makers. With appropriate cartography one can improve communication and thus bridge the gap between experts and users. Appropriate risk communication is pivotal to risk management, decision making and implementation and may prevent unnecessary concern about environmental pollutants. However, at present few risk maps are specifically tailored to meet the demands of such defined uses. This paper presents an overview of the most important types of risk maps that can be distinguished using examples from the scientific literature: contamination maps, exposure maps, hazard maps, vulnerability maps and 'true' risk maps. It also discusses, in a general way, the most important issues that need to be addressed when making risk maps for communication purposes: risk perception, target audience, scale and spatial aggregation and visualisation such as use of colours and symbols. Finally, some general rules of thumb are given for making environmental risk maps for communication purposes.
风险图有助于风险分析师和科学家探索污染物等环境胁迫因素的空间效应。过去几十年地理信息系统的发展极大地提高了环境信息和数据的空间表示和分析能力。地图也是向公众和决策者等利益相关者传达复杂环境风险评估结果的有力工具。通过适当的制图，可以改善沟通，从而缩小专家和用户之间的差距。适当的风险沟通对于风险管理、决策制定和实施至关重要，并且可以防止对环境污染物的不必要关注。然而，目前很少有风险图是专门针对这些特定用途的需求而定制的。本文通过科学文献中的示例，概述了可区分的最重要类型的风险图：污染图、暴露图、危害图、脆弱性图和“真实”风险图。还以一般的方式讨论了为沟通目的制作风险图时需要解决的最重要问题：风险感知、目标受众、比例和空间聚合以及可视化，如颜色和符号的使用。最后，给出了一些用于为沟通目的制作环境风险图的一般经验法则。
