Risk Perception of Heavy Metal Soil Contamination by High-Exposed and Low-Exposed Inhabitants: The Role of Knowledge and Emotional Concerns

Soil contaminated with heavy metals is a salient example of environmental risk. Consumption of vegetables cultivated in contaminated soil or direct ingestion of soil by small children can damage health. In contrast to other kinds of pollution or risks such as air pollution or exposure to ozone, the individual risk concerning soil contamination is highly dependent on the way one is exposed to the local source of risk. Thus, we wanted to know if risk perception varies according to the level of exposure. A quasi-experimental, questionnaire-based study was conducted in a community in northwest Switzerland, where the soil is widely contaminated. The level of contamination varies with the distance from the source of the contamination, a metal processing plant. We investigated the perception of risk of heavy-metal-contaminated soil by inhabitants with high-exposure levels (N= 27) and those with low-exposure levels (N= 30). Both groups judged the risk for oneself similarly whereas the low-exposure group, when compared to the high-exposure group, judged perceived risk for other affected people living in their community to be higher. Besides this exposure effect, risk perception was mainly determined by emotional concerns. Participants with higher scores in self-estimated knowledge tended to provide low-risk judgments, were less interested in further information, showed low emotional concern, and thus displayed high risk acceptance. In contrast, actual knowledge showed no correlation with any of theses variables. Judgments on the need for decontamination are determined by risk perception, less application of dissonance-reducing heuristics and commitment to sustainability. The desire for additional information is not affected by missing knowledge but is affected by emotional concerns.