Components and Drivers of Long-term Risk Communication: Exploring the Within-Communicator, Relational, and Content Dimensions in the Swedish Forest Context

Abstract

Risk communication is important for a sustainable management of natural resources. Even though risk management is ideally ongoing, studies of long-term risk communication from the perspective of the communicator are lacking. This case study examined the preparation and implementation of forest risk communication in Sweden. Interviews were conducted with advisors at the Swedish Forest Agency, responsible for providing information to forest owners and professional foresters dealing with risks damaging the forest (e.g., storms and forest management damaging ecological values). The communicator’s perspective was analyzed based on a conceptual framework describing risk communication by means of the components: within-communicator, relational, and content. Potential drivers of the preparation and implementation of risk communication in this context, intersecting the three components, included the policy and regulatory framework, the management of the agency, the location of the agency, and the balancing of different interests.