ABSTRACT
Previous authors have argued that trust may be based on the extent to which risk communicators are seen as good at discriminating safety from danger, are unbiased in their assessments, and share their audience's values. Residents of two English urban regions rated their trust in six potential sources of information about the risk of contaminated land in their neighborhood (independent scientists; local council property developers; residents' groups; friends and family; local media), and how expert, open, accurate, or biased these sources were and how much they had residents' interests at heart. Overall, scientists were trusted most and developers least, but this was only partly due to their greater perceived expertise. Resident groups and friends/family were also trusted, despite being seen as relatively inexpert, since they scored highly on openness and shared interests, these latter two attributes being more important predictors of trust in individual sources than perceived expertise. We conclude that, where a source is seen as motivated to withhold, distort, or misinterpret information, this will undermine public trust even in apparently knowledgeable sources, hence supporting the view that trust depends on a combination of perceived expertise and perceived motives as complementary processes.
ABSTRACT
The management of contaminated land is now assuming greater attention in Chinese debates on environmental governance. However, the existing management system appears ineffective as it lacks a clear policy framework and technical basis. In the United Kingdom (UK), contaminated land issues are dealt with through a risk-based approach. This approach emphasizes the application of risk approaches in both technical and integrated management systems. Conceptually, this paper outlines generic issues related to transferring programmes from one place to another. We argue that too much emphasis has been placed on the barriers to effective transfer, rather than focusing on methods of abstracting lessons for application in foreign settings. We then examine the Chinese system and its problems in managing contaminated land before turning to the UK risk-based approach to see what lessons can be learned from it. Four aspects are analyzed and compared: legislative and policy framework; administrative structure and capacity; technical approaches; and incentive strategy. Based on the experience of the UK in practice, some suggestions are then proposed for China in order to improve its management of contaminated land. We suggest that this should include: a focus on the problem sites; development of a risk-based technical approach and integrated management system; the introduction of financial incentives; and the use of planning control as a management strategy. It is believed that a risk-based integrated management approach may be helpful for China to achieve sustainable solutions for contaminated land.
