Relating landscape perception and risk perception. A contribution for informed decision-making processes

The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the relationship between landscape perception and risk perception, with the ultimate goal of understanding whether their joint consideration can contribute to define more informed decision-making processes in landscapes at risk. The work is characterised by a marked theoretical connotation necessary to declare the need for a political and technical commitment to this issue. The research is based on the individuation of several parallelisms, correlations and links that can be found from a broad comparison of landscape and risk in theoretical, practical, phenomenological and socio-cultural terms. To this end, it was conducted exploring the following questions: «what is the relationship between landscape and risk?», «how does landscape perception and risk perception influence each other?», «how can landscape perception and risk perception be exploited together to counteract the risks deriving from territorial dynamics?». First, the research treats risk and landscape and their perceptions separately, laying the knowledge base to investigate their relationship. Hence, the work addresses the topic from a phenomenological point of view, focusing on the interaction processes that characterize changes. Finally, some insights are offered to stimulate reflection on the possibilities offered by the comparative reading of existing literature and technical approaches to inform decision-making in landscapes at risk. Landscape management may acquire new meanings, overcoming the approaches currently diffused in risk prevention and setting new criteria and roles in political, technical, and societal terms. This could change the way of facing the risk, improving the response capacity to unexpected events and supporting communities’ disaster-preparedness capabilities.