The Cooling and Humidifying Effects and the Thresholds of Plant Community Structure Parameters in Urban Aggregated Green Infrastructure

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This article focuses on important contributions provided by urban vegetation in creating cooling and humidifying effects in cities. A specific case study site had been chosen, and field measurements had been conducted. The resources used are adequate, and the methodology of the paper looks sound. An in-depth analysis of real data collected on site has led to valuable research outcomes. These outcomes will be beneficial for applications in multiples fields. For example, the threshold values will be able to assist in urban green infrastructure planning policy formulation to mitigate climate change impacts and to guide more resilient development in cities. I have the following comments on this article.

A definition of ‘urban aggregated green infrastructure’ should be included and explained. A combined methodology chart showing all the steps and their sequences will be constructive in understanding the methods more clearly. A survey of eight different vegetation types was conducted, which includes eight individual tree species.  An ‘urban aggregated green infrastructure’ with urban plant communities could contain multiple tree species.  It would be essential to explain further how the calculations for cumulative cooling and humidifying effects of eight different vegetation types as an urban aggregated green infrastructure on the project site. It would be good to add future research directions in the article.

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Reviewer 2 Report

I will write the line I'm referencing and then my comment.

 

14, singular plural agreement

23, units of measure?

28, could some guidelines be included in abstract?

34, urbanization cannot be centers.

42, 372, I'm confused by this citation.  Why isn't the year 1995?

53, I understand that sometimes a threshold is convenient, but the effect of vegetation on temperature and humidity is continuous and will almost always decrease temperatures relative to urban surroundings.  It's not like a forested patch that is 2.5 ha causes warming, which is what you suggest in 52.  See this paper: Ziter 2019, https://www.pnas.org/content/116/15/7575

58-62, nice summary.

62, did it really "prove"

63, what was "significant"  a certain temperature or humidity change?

64, again, what is meant by significant?

66, "Therefore...." this sentence is interesting, but doesn't make sense.

69, "lacked measurements based on plant communities in urban aggregated green infrastructure"  I'm not sure what exactly you mean by this.  Are not trees and grass different communities?  I'm pretty sure there are many studies that have looked at cooling effects of parks, which I would consider aggregated green infrastucture.

70, paid not payed

72, other indicies in interesting.

73, how do you define porosity?

77, how do you define threshold and spatial type?

80-83, there are many issues with this sentence.  What do you mean by optimal?  "proved the estimations" does not make any sense to me.

92.  Your study area is a single large green space. You only measured on sunny, hot, low wind days over a period of a week in 2016.  You only have 9 sampling locations.  But your conclusions suggest you have found optimal/best "plant community structure parameters"?  Your claim is far too bold for the evidence you have gathered.

157 "The canopy density can be generated by calculating the ratio of projected area of pores on vertical plane and that of factors of vegetation."  I don't understand this, could you make it more clear please?

159 "Maintain cameral horizonal and attach fisheye lens to it to take photos of canopy that had 1.5 m distance to the ground of the 9 points for measurement."  ??

155, how do you define porosity?

165.  There are severe problems with this model.  I'm not sure how you managed to fit it.  Equation 1 is very difficult to follow and the notation is sloppy.  You only have 9 somewhat independent points.  There is no way you can fit a model with this many terms.  Where is the error term?

 

187, why make continuous variables discrete?

Figures plotting your data would be immensely helpful.

202, how do you have such significant results?  What is your sample size?

281, "Quoted to Dummy Variable", what does this mean?

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The study is very interesting and well organised. The efficiency of blue-green solutions should be verified interms of organisational deployment, in terms of variety and arrangement. The study results very useful to a wide range of professionals dealing with this issue. Properly, the authors looked at the manin parameters regulation the efficiency of the adaptation strategy indicating, clearly, a new approach to the regeneration of urban green. Obviously, it will be not an easy task considering a huge number of constrains we can find in the city texture, but the indications coming from this manuscript are of high relevance.

The indtroduction is very complete and indicative. The methodology reported is highly credible and innovative. The results are clearly reported along with the very useful Tables. 

In my opinion, the manuscript is of interest to a wide public and reports results of high interest for all the adaptation solutions which can be implemented in the urban environment. I suggest it for publication in the present form.

Author Response

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