Page - 204 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

be improved bygreater stakeholder involvement and utilization of citizen science and thereby improve the foundation for timely and efficient societalmeasures. Keywords Citizenscience,Plasticpollution,Publicparticipation,Riskperception, Stakeholder involvement 1 Introduction Risk is often portrayed as a function of hazard and exposure or in otherwords as beingdeterminedby theprobability of an adverse event and themagnitude of this event’s consequences [1].The scientific capabilities for quantifyingbothprobabil- ities and magnitude related to many risks are often relatively uncertain, which implies that quantification of risk is inherently uncertain [2]. This means that interpretations of risk are very important for human’s response to the risk, since the risk perception, rather than an (often unknown) actual estimation of risk, will guidesocietal response to therisk.Uncertaintyfurthermoreplaysaprofoundrole in regard to human’s psychological responses to risks [1]. This implies that psychol- ogy is important in regard tohowweas society react to a given risk, but elements such as communication and social structures also influence risk behavior as they frame theoverall social and technical perception of both hazard and exposure. Risk perception can be explained as the subjective assessment of a negative incident happening together with our concern of the consequences. The term risk perception is perhapsmostly associatedwithUlrichBeck’s description of the “risk society” inhis bookof the samename [3].Beckargues that societymust (andwill) respond to the growing threat from ecological degradation by acting in a reflexive way[3].Thisreflexivitycanmanifest indifferentmanners,andBeckdescribeshowa publicdemandfor regulationcanpushapoliticaldebate, bydrawinguponhistorical cases regarding oil drilling platforms and nuclear power plants [3]. Since the risk perception is thus often a strong driver for regulation, it has received increasing attentionfromstakeholdersandlegislators. InSwedenandNorway,parliamentarians nowdevote about three times asmuchattention to risk issues as theydid in thefirst half of the1960s, as reflected in their submittedprivatebills [1]. In this chapterwefirst describehowthehistoricaldevelopmentof riskperception can be explained within a theoretical framework. After the introduction of these theoretical boundaries, the chapter focuses on risk perception of plastic pollution in ahistoricalperspective, followedbyananalysisof stakeholder’s role indevelopment of public risk perception andpolicymeasures. The last part of the chapter addresses howcitizenscience[4]canbeanimportantmethodtoimprovesocietalriskperception of plastic pollution and finally discusses how the concept of citizen science can be expanded to allow for greater stakeholder involvement and better communication betweenscientistandcitizens.Suchcommunicationcanbevital inregardtoinforming about plastic pollution and thus improve the foundation for development of risk perceptionamongstakeholders – includingcitizens andpolicymakers. For adiscus- sionon the socio-ecological risksofmicroplastics fromaglobalperspective, see [5]. 204 K.Syberg et al.