Contested boundaries: Delineating the "safe zone" on Montserrat

Abstract This paper documents the evolution of hazard maps on the island of Montserrat, where volcanic activity has continued episodically since 1995. The paper argues that public participation can constitute political empathy, particularly where livelihoods are at stake, and can bring some order to the contested boundary between scientific risk assessment and its uptake by policymakers. This highlights that both bottom-up and top-down approaches to risk assessment are important, but also that the detailed structures within government and within science can be critical in ensuring the safety of populations, and that understanding the intricacies of local realisations of the science–policy interface is crucial to managing future hazard events. Systems that are responsive to public opinion and are transparent are more likely to win public trust. This is an important area for geographical studies combining human and physical methods, not solely in the development of maps but in the framing of their production and use.