ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS ABOUT ECOLOGICAL RESOURCES AND HAZARDS OF PEOPLE LIVING AROUND THE SAVANNAH RIVER SITE

摘要

Although considerable attention is devoted to environmental monitoring and assessemnt with respect to both pollutants and the status of particular plant or animal populations, less attention is devoted to assessing people's attitudes about the relative imporatnce of ecological resources.In this papr we examine the attitutdes and perceptions about ecological resoruces of people living around the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS), in South Carolina. Our overall hypothesis is that people who are directly affected by the possible outcomes and consequences of a particular hazard (i.e., those people employed at SRS) will undervalue the risks and voeralue the potential benefits from future land uses that favor contined site activity, compared to people whol live near but re not employed at SRS.