We investigate the ultraviolet and optical properties and environment of low redshift galaxies detected in the Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey ( H-ATLAS ) science demonstration data .
We use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey seventh release and the Galaxy And Mass Assembly database to select galaxies with r _ { { } _ { Petro } } \leq 19.0 Â mag in the redshift range 0.02 \leq z \leq 0.2 and look for their submillimeter counterparts in H-ATLAS .
Our results show that at low redshift , H-ATLAS detects mainly blue/star-forming galaxies with a minor contribution from red systems which are highly obscured by dust .
In addition we find that the colour of a galaxy rather than the local density of its environment determines whether it is detectable by H-ATLAS .
The average dust temperature of galaxies that are simultaneously detected by both PACS and SPIRE is 25 \pm 4 Â K , independent of environment .
This analysis provides a glimpse of the potential of the H-ATLAS data to investigate the submillimeter properties of galaxies in the local universe .