The USGS' goals are to produce better hazard maps, to use probabilistic terms to describe risks, and to produce a baseline describing the hazards in a spatial context. He stated that the challenge was to communicate risk information to the generally nonscientific public. This would necessitate parallel, intertwined communications projects to assist in preparing products for the public. He considered completing a multi-hazard risk assessment or vulnerability mapping a huge challenge, because of the need to combine all the resulting risk values into a single grid cell vulnerability index and to ensure that the index is statistically valid. Some people are risk indifferent so there may not be an effect on real estate value.
Risk needs to be communicated down to the individual.
The technical community should present a consensus or the public will not respond. Local involvement in the risk assessment process is important and will encourage use of the results. In summary, there were a number of common themes repeated throughout the session. Effective communications of risk to the public is the crux of the process but is not an easy task when the public seems to be risk indifferent. A transparent risk process will be required so that the public can understand where and how the results were derived, and thereby, trust the results.