The paper reports on an experimental study aimed at assessing the usability of five different interactive tools for exploratory analysis of geographically referenced data implemented in CommonGIS. Usability was assessed in terms of tool learnability, memorability, and user satisfaction. The study provided valuable data concerning the usability of each individual tool; we also derived some conclusions relevant to geovisualization techniques in general. We found that users were, in principle, able to understand and adopt the new ideas of map interactivity and manipulability. However, these ideas needed to be appropriately introduced; people could hardly grasp them just from the appearance of the maps and controls. An introductory demonstration was sufficient to understand the purposes of the interactive tools, and a short training session enabled people to use them. The importance of educating users is a particular challenge for geovisualization tools that are intended to be accessed over the Internet.

The literature is inconclusive regarding the relationship between place attachment and risk perception. Place attachment relates to reduced risk perception in some contexts and higher levels in others. Furthermore, longitudinal studies have shown that this relationship can change over time. In order to elucidate this relationship, we explored the multidimensionality of risk perception using the Slovic et al. paradigm with three types of risks: environmental, social and economic. A sample of 157 residents reported both place attachment and perceived risk. The results show that place attachment contributes to amplifying high probability risks and attenuates the perception of low probability ones. The results further show that place attachment is associated with the “control of risk” dimension including “voluntariness” and “controllability”.

Research about place, place identity and attachment supports the idea that bonds with places may differ depending on the place scale. Based on the view that identity is context-dependent, this paper brings to the table the impact of manipulating the salience of place on the intensity of place identity and place attachment reported. A study was designed to examine place identity and place attachment in two groups of residents (permanent and temporary) at three different scales (neighbourhood, city and country), in which the salience of place scale was manipulated. The results showed that place salience could have an impact on the intensity of place identity and place attachment in permanent residents and temporary residents. The salient effects differ depending on the place scale made salient but do not generally differ according to type of residents. These results are in congruence with the predictions of social identity theory and self-categorization theory and show the relevance of exploring the concept of place identity within this theoretical approach.