Abstract:

Cyanobacterial bloom has become a global problem.Taihu,fed by the Yangtze River,provides drinking water for more than 2 million people.Cyanobacterial Bloom Incident in Wuxi City in 2007 attracted much public attention.To investigate Chinese people’s ecological risk perception characteristics of cyanobacterial bloom of Taihu Lake and the main factors which influenced these characteristics,489 people from Wuxi city in China were surveyed.The results indicated that the overall characteristic of public perception was“strange”and“controllable”.The outbreak reason was“strange”and“uncontrollable”which was the main factor to cause the public risk awareness.Media,information and individual factors were the main three influence factors.Newspapers,radio and television were the major media.The information factors included the disaster information(DI),the disaster control information(DCI)and the information on preventive measures from government(PMGI),among which,DCI played the greatest role,followed by the DI and the PMGI.Public had the different risk preferences among the different gender,age,educational level,income levels and occupational groups.And they showed a different concern about the different risk information.The results were helpful for decisionmakers to understand the nature of the cyanobacterial bloom risk,provide service for risk communication and choose effective management tools according to the characteristic of the target population.〖