Data-Driven Optimization of Forestry and Wood Procurement toward Carbon-Neutral Logistics of Forest Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, the author analyze how wood flow in northern Finland may change depending on different logistic scenarios. I find it to be a relevant and interesting topic and although it focuses on northern Finland, I see that the paper has contributions that should be of interest also to international readers. Overall, the paper is very well written and has a good structure. The introduction is comprehensive and provide a good understanding of the topic. Methods and results are clearly presented, and the conclusions are supported by the results. Thus, I only have minor suggestions for improvements (in my specific comments).   

Specific comments

Several abbreviations are used without definition. They may be self-evident for readers within the field but since the journal may have a broad audience, I would recommend that they be defined the first time they are used.

L60-61:  The aim of the study presented here could potentially be clarified as I see some discrepancies with the objectives and research questions presented in section 1.4. The latter I find to be a bit broader. Since you have a specific section for your aims, maybe you could also consider to remove this sentence from here.        

Table 1: The maximum sustainable harvesting volumes could potentially be included in the table, together with a column showing the differences between this and the realized volumes.

Figure 1: Why is Lapland divided in grey and dark blue? What does the red cross represent in this figure?

Figure 2: Very similar to Figure 1 in your earlier paper (Palander & Vesa 2011). Would it be fair to say that this figure is a modification of that one?

Figure 4: Wrong figure description (same as Fig 3).

L203-212: Can be deleted or moved to the methods section.

L402: Not clear to me which figures in Tables 2 and 3 you are comparing.

Author Response

Reviewer #1

Comment: Several abbreviations are used without definition. They may be self-evident for readers within the field but since the journal may have a broad audience, I would recommend that they be defined the first time they are used.

Answer: We define abbreviations.

Comment: L60-61:  The aim of the study presented here could potentially be clarified as I see some discrepancies with the objectives and research questions presented in section 1.4. The latter I find to be a bit broader. Since you have a specific section for your aims, maybe you could also consider to remove this sentence from here.   

Answer: We removed sentence: “This study aims at identifying contributions of information systems and DDDSS integration for the enhancement of WSCM”.

Comment: Table 1: The maximum sustainable harvesting volumes could potentially be included in the table, together with a column showing the differences between this and the realized volumes.

Answer: We edited Table 1. The percentage differences between the maximum sustainable harvesting volumes and the realized volumes are in brackets.

Comment: Figure 1: Why is Lapland divided in grey and dark blue? What does the red cross represent in this figure?

Answer: We added this sentence: “Timber is exported from dark blue area to Sweden and the red crosses represent forest industry integrates.”

Comment: Figure 2: Very similar to Figure 1 in your earlier paper (Palander & Vesa 2011). Would it be fair to say that this figure is a modification of that one?

Answer: We added following text. “Modified from [38].”

Comment: Figure 4: Wrong figure description (same as Fig 3).

Answer:  We changed figure description.

Comment: L203-212: Can be deleted or moved to the methods section.

Answer: We moved to the methods section.

Comment: L402: Not clear to me which figures in Tables 2 and 3 you are comparing.

Answer: We added text: “Tables 2 and 3 provides the information of different transports amounts per wood assortments for comparison of optimized and actual experiment.” Then we changed “(Tables 2 and 3)” to “(Table 3)”.

Reviewer 2 Report

It is a carefully prepared manuscript (study design and methodology are appropriate) that fits the Forests. The article presents an innovative analysis of the very important issue of timber transport logistics. The conclusions contained in the article are also of significant practical importance.

The reviewer has no substantive comments.

Figure 3 is unnecessary. Verify description of drawing 4

Author Response

Reviewer #2

Comment: It is a carefully prepared manuscript (study design and methodology are appropriate) that fits the Forests. The article presents an innovative analysis of the very important issue of timber transport logistics. The conclusions contained in the article are also of significant practical importance.

Answer: Thank you for positive comments.

Comment: Figure 3 is unnecessary. Answer:  We deleted it.

Comment: Verify description of drawing 4. Answer: We corrected it.