Structural Stability of Urban Trees Using Visual and Instrumental Techniques: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is interesting and good written.

For a review for mi is not compleat.

We have also other methods for tree assisment

computer tomography (see works Habermehl and Ridder)

tomography with electrical conductivity (see works Rust)

Also the lit about sound propagation is not compleat (missing PhD thesis S. Schubert, ETH Zurich 2007, Paper Maurer et al about correction orthotrpy

also we have mechanical tests from the trees (Wessoly)

I attache some publication and the thesis Schubert. Perhaps you can write a have page about all methods for the testing from trees.

Al lot of works we have also in the reports from Wood NDT symposium (e.g. Symposium 50 years wood NDT (all published presentations)) give a very good overview. See mi comments also in attached file from the paper and the attached publications.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The paper is interesting and good written. For a review for mi is not compleat.

We have also other methods for tree assisment computer tomography (see works Habermehl and Ridder)

tomography with electrical conductivity (see works Rust)

Also the lit about sound propagation is not compleat (missing PhD thesis S. Schubert, ETH Zurich 2007, Paper Maurer et al about correction orthotrpy

also we have mechanical tests from the trees (Wessoly)

I attache some publication and the thesis Schubert. Perhaps you can write a have page about all methods for the testing from trees.

Al lot of works we have also in the reports from Wood NDT symposium (e.g. Symposium 50 years wood NDT (all published presentations)) give a very good overview. See mi comments also in attached file from the paper and the attached publications.

Done. We added some references to static tree tests in Part 2. In relation to Part 2.2 (Acoustic Tomography), we added some information about Computed Tomography (CT) and Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). As suggested, we sought historical information in the Symposium 50 anos madeira NDT and also added other citations from journals.

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript provides readers with useful information on a very interesting topic. However, it needs extended corrections before getting accepted for publication.

Comment 1. Introduction focuses on the importance of trees in the landscape and urban spaces and the role that economic factors play in this regard. However, biotic (fungi and insects) and abiotic destructive (wind, precipitation, forest management, silvicultural practices like thinning, among others) parameters are not discussed.

Comment 2. Some important parameters in visual analysis such as height, diameter, wounds are not discussed in part 2.1. I highly recommend that the authors provide a table to summarize the most important parameters in visual analysis.

Comment 3. This manuscript discussed the advantages of the tomography method well. However, far too little attention has been paid to its disadvantages.

Comment 4. In part 2.3, there is too much explanation regarding increment borer (line 268-297) in three paragraphs. I strongly suggest summarizing these three paragraphs into a single brief paragraph.

Comment 5. In part 3.3., there is no info regarding the decay pattern of fungi which is very important.

Comment 6. Some sentences start with a reference number which does not look correct. Please check them. Lines, 6, 88, 210, 220, 277. I think the sentences should start with the authors’ names.

Comment 7. Subtitle 2.3. is followed by subtitle 3.3, which is incorrect in terms of the numbering. Please correct it.

Comment 8. The following references are suggested for this review paper to boost its quality:

Bari, E., Daryaei, M. G., Karim, M., Bahmani, M., Schmidt, O., Woodward, S., ... & Sistani, A. (2019). Decay of Carpinus betulus wood by Trametes versicolor-An anatomical and chemical study. International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, 137, 68-77.

Azimi, Y., Bahmani, M., Jafari, A., & Riyahi Bakhtyari, H. R. (2020). Anatomical, Chemical and Mechanical Characteristics of Beech Wood Degraded by Two Pleurotus Species. Drvna industrija: Znanstveni časopis za pitanja drvne tehnologije, 71(1), 47-53.

Bari, E., Aghajani, H., Ohno, K. M., Shahi, R., Hale, M. D., & Bahmani, M. (2019). Ecology of wood‐inhabiting fungi in northern forests of Iran. Forest Pathology, 49(2), e12501.

Aghajani, H., Bari, E., Bahmani, M., Humar, M., Ghanbary, M. A. T., Nicholas, D. D., & Zahedian, E. (2018). Influence of relative humidity and temperature on cultivation of Pleurotus species. Maderas. Ciencia y tecnología, 20(4), 571-57

Schmidt, O., Bahmani, M., Koch, G., Potsch, T., & Brandt, K. (2016). Study of the fungal decay of oil palm wood using TEM and UV techniques. International biodeterioration & biodegradation, 111, 37-44.

Author Response

This manuscript provides readers with useful information on a very interesting topic. However, it needs extended corrections before getting accepted for publication.

Comment 1. Introduction focuses on the importance of trees in the landscape and urban spaces and the role that economic factors play in this regard. However, biotic (fungi and insects) and abiotic destructive (wind, precipitation, forest management, silvicultural practices like thinning, among others) parameters are not discussed.

Added.

Comment 2. Some important parameters in visual analysis such as height, diameter, wounds are not discussed in part 2.1. I highly recommend that the authors provide a table to summarize the most important parameters in visual analysis.

Done. We proposed a table to summarize the most important parameters in visual analysis and we added the factors of decline proposed by Manion.

Comment 3. This manuscript discussed the advantages of the tomography method well. However, far too little attention has been paid to its disadvantages.

Done. We tried to describe the disadvantages by describing the challenges but, as it was not clear, we added a paragraph about some disadvantages of the method followed by the challenges.

Comment 4. In part 2.3, there is too much explanation regarding increment borer (line 268-297) in three paragraphs. I strongly suggest summarizing these three paragraphs into a single brief paragraph.

Done. The text was reduced in length as required.

Comment 5. In part 3.3., there is no info regarding the decay pattern of fungi which is very important.

Done. We added some information about fungal strategies to colonize trees and also moved a paragraph that was already in the text trying to improve the flow of information.

Comment 6. Some sentences start with a reference number which does not look correct. Please check them. Lines, 61, 88, 210, 220, 277. I think the sentences should start with the authors’ names.

Done.

Comment 7. Subtitle 2.3. is followed by subtitle 3.3, which is incorrect in terms of the numbering. Please correct it.

Done

Comment 8. The following references are suggested for this review paper to boost its quality:

Bari, E., Daryaei, M. G., Karim, M., Bahmani, M., Schmidt, O., Woodward, S., ... & Sistani, A. (2019). Decay of Carpinus betulus wood by Trametes versicolor-An anatomical and chemical study. International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, 137, 68-77.

Azimi, Y., Bahmani, M., Jafari, A., & Riyahi Bakhtyari, H. R. (2020). Anatomical, Chemical and Mechanical Characteristics of Beech Wood Degraded by Two Pleurotus Species. Drvna industrija: Znanstveni časopis za pitanja drvne tehnologije, 71(1), 47-53.

Bari, E., Aghajani, H., Ohno, K. M., Shahi, R., Hale, M. D., & Bahmani, M. (2019). Ecology of wood‐inhabiting fungi in northern forests of Iran. Forest Pathology, 49(2), e12501.

Aghajani, H., Bari, E., Bahmani, M., Humar, M., Ghanbary, M. A. T., Nicholas, D. D., & Zahedian, E. (2018). Influence of relative humidity and temperature on cultivation of Pleurotus species. Maderas. Ciencia y tecnología, 20(4), 571-57

Schmidt, O., Bahmani, M., Koch, G., Potsch, T., & Brandt, K. (2016). Study of the fungal decay of oil palm wood using TEM and UV techniques. International biodeterioration & biodegradation, 111, 37-44.

Done. All the references were included.

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript is well written, the topic is fit the scopes of this journal. I have short suggestion as follows:

line 194, page 5, understanding the characteristic of wood into deeply its anatomy is important especially to determinate the variety of tree that are planted in urban area, probably author could be more elaborate and give suggestion for the effect of microfibril angle on the characteristic of tree mechanical properties
I wonder about the copyright the picture that been used in this study, do you have permission?
Last section of discussion, why suddenly it is sub section 3.3, it should be better only section 3

Author Response

This manuscript is well written, the topic is fit the scopes of this journal. I have short suggestion as follows:

line 194, page 5, understanding the characteristic of wood into deeply its anatomy is important especially to determinate the variety of tree that are planted in urban area, probably author could be more elaborate and give suggestion for the effect of microfibril angle on the characteristic of tree mechanical properties

Added, with new reference.

I wonder about the copyright the picture that been used in this study, do you have permission?
Concerning the used figures in the submitted manuscript entitled, “Structural stability of urban trees using visual and instrumental techniques: A Review”, the following information is provided based on the data obtained in the respective journals where they were published:

• Figure 1.

The journal provides the following information: © 2013 Timur and Karaca, licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

• Figure 2.

Generated by software (ImageWood) developed by Nondestructive Testing Research Group lead by Professor Raquel Gonçalves, coauthor in this paper.

• Figure 3.

This figure was reproduced from Dissertation developed in Nondestructive Testing Research Group lead by Professor Raquel Gonçalves, supervisor of this research and coauthor in this paper. The Dissertations and Thesis available in library of University of Campinas have Copyright signed by authors and permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

• Figure 4.

Generated by Nondestructive Testing Research Group lead by Professor Raquel Gonçalves, coauthor in this paper.

• Figure 5.

We have chosen to remove figure 5 for copyright reasons.

• Figure 6.

This figure was reproduced from Dissertation developed in Nondestructive Testing Research Group lead by Professor Raquel Gonçalves, supervisor of this research and coauthor in this paper. The Dissertations and Thesis available in library of University of Campinas have Copyright signed by authors and permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

•  Figure 7.

This figure was reproduced from Dissertation developed in Nondestructive Testing Research Group lead by Professor Raquel Gonçalves, supervisor of this research and coauthor in this paper. The Dissertations and Thesis available in library of University of Campinas have Copyright signed by authors and permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Last section of discussion, why suddenly it is sub section 3.3, it should be better only section 3

Done.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

now is ok for mi

Peter

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have attended to the comments and addressed them satisfactorily. Therefore, the revised version of the manuscript meets the requirements for publication.