This communication presents one aim of a starting PhD on pollution risk analysis. Here, we pay attention on one specific component of the pollution risk system related to the perceptions and representations of the tourists and local inhabitants in a French alpine valley. A general state of the art is presented, notably on pollutants representations as well as the need to integrate them in the overall risk assessment conceptual framework. More precisely, a specific focus is led on fundamental parameter of vulnerability and resilience. Then, study area is presented: it concerns specific threatened areas close to a major road, to draw a typology of inhabitants to survey.