Risk perception, risk management and vulnerability to landslides in the hill slopes in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. A preliminary statement

The article begins by describing the difficult living conditions of many people in the hill slopes (laderas) of La Paz, Bolivia, demonstrating that they are exposed to a combination of natural and social hazards.I It shows that residents, community leaders and city planners tend to underestimate or deny risk, with important consequences for risk management, such as a failure to raise risk awareness. The article then proposes some hypotheses to explain risk perceptions in La Paz, discarding the usual single-approach interpretations and suggesting instead more nuanced theoretical explanations to account for why people build their homes in such hazardous environments. Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishers