Road Landscape Design: Harmonious Relationship Between Ecology and Aesthetics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The relationship between the ecological and aesthetic values ​​of urban greenery along roads is being studied on the example of medium-size city in China. The topic can be of interest to the public. The research is generally well-organized.   However, the article has numerous weaknesses that should be removed.

1. The aim of the study should be clearly formulated in the Abstract and Introduction.

2. The research methodology should be clearler explained.

Chapter 2. mixes the description of the framework and the research purposefulness (lines 113-115);

 Fig. 1 does not explain the research process in sufficient way;

Some formulations are unclear (e.g. lines 126-128, the subtitles are imprecise – part 2.3. is rather about plants, part 2.4. is about sample spots; part 2.5. is about the method of aesthetic evaluation, etc.);

In the part 2.4. there is no assumptions for the selection of the sample areas - only the selection of photographs is mentioned;

The selection of landscape features raises doubts. In the case of perception studies based on photographs, spatial distribution and landscape coorditation seem to be identical. The difference between tchem should be explained. Growing status and leaf characteristic are difficult to assess by non-professionals, especially based on photographs. This can affect the results (lines 283-284).

The description of the methodology should be supplemented with the assumptions for selecting ecological features for correlation analysis.

Equation (7) requires explanation in section 2.7.3.

You calculate the percentage of plant cover (lines175-176) not its area.

Clarity of formulations should be improved. There are carbon sequestration cooling benefit (line 180) and cooling value of carbon sequestration (line 183) – What do you mean: one or two ecological features?

3. The Results section requires corrections.

The consistency of the Results should be improved. Section 3.7. and Table 6 concern carbon sequestration and cooling values, while you examine the correlation between SBI and carbon sequestration or oxygen release.

The titles of Table 2 , Table 6 and Figure 6 should be clarified.

The graphics in Figures 6-10 are illegible. Figure 6 lacks a description of the units and the designation of the levels of values ​​described in the text. Figure 10 should be interpreted in the text.

The content of Appendix J is important and its fragments should belong to Results or Discussion.

4. The Discussion should be imroved.

Discussion content currently seems random or incomprehensible. Some of the statements are too general.

5. The Conclusions should be improved.

It refers to the results too generally. Conclusions part should not introduce new threads (lines 493-496).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Dear authors,

After reading your paper, I find this research quite interesting and scientifically not researched enough. You tried to link ecology, road and aesthetics. You mixed three elements that are not typical to compare. If you are thinking about road landscape, you can think about ecology. It is hard to satisfy ecological standards and high aesthetic standards in good road landscape design. Ecology is not only about carbon dioxide. So, it is not easy, but it is achievable. I think that this research needs some big improvements, and in the following lines, you will see my suggestions.

The Abstract needs improvements to get a better impression of the high line of the paper. In lines 11 and 12, you are using the term „constructing vegetation„. It is more suitable to say designing vegetation. What is the meaning of to inform the landscape design? In which correlations are assimilation methods used for determination the carbon sequestration, oxygen release, and cooling and humidification of the plants and the aesthetic quality of the plants? In the Abstract cluster analysis is mentioned but in the methodology is skipped. Is there any specific reason for that? In the Abstract and throughout the whole text are seen terms that are not typically in use.

Lines 27 to 29 – “Road green space landscape design should consider plants' ecological capacity, physiological characteristics, environmental conditions, and other factors”. The landscape architects actually do that.

Keywords need redevelopment after reshaping the whole text. Ecology, aesthetic and road landscape are the main points of the paper but I don't see them in the keywords.

The introduction needs big improvements as well. Namely, the Introduction chapter emphasizes all terms that are important for understanding the work's issue, but somehow, they are explained separately from each other. They should connect both theoretically and methodologically. That should be the strength of this work.

Lines 41 to 43 – you are mentioning the increasing number of studies but refer only to one. Please be careful related to this.

Lines 58-60 “Scientists concluded that the Scenic Beauty Estimation (SBE- scenic beauty dimension) method can effectively balance the aesthetic and ecological principles in plant landscape design.” This is not true. In this reference is just mentioned the SBE method which measures public “perceptual preference” for various landscape types through a carefully defined system of rating colour slides representative of these landscapes. It is based on the content that scenic beauty judgments result from the interaction of observer perception and observer standards. So, ecology is not mentioned. The authors should be careful in the process of referring.

Lines72 -73 - “Air quality is a strong predictor of perceived aesthetic preferences”. I disagree with this statement. 

Lines 69-70.  “Landscape aesthetic quality can be measured by assessing the preference consistency of a single landscape factor.” Not sure that I can understand this. Maybe the English is an obstacle, but written like this it means that landscape aesthetic quality can be measured by accentuating the dominance of only one landscape factor, which cannot be true.

The chapter Materials and Methods is confusing since there isn't highlighted a link between all methodological steps. Written like this they are put in the separate room each other. Still, I have doubts about how to link landscape aesthetics and ecology in the way you did in your research. The authors have to be clear about this with a strongly defined aim of the research and related to that to choose adequate methodological steps. 

Lines 104 and 105 – it is a huge example of 64 green spaces, did you observe all plants and all individuals in those green spaces? If you do, you have to emphasize that and explain the methodological steps for that.

Lines 108 and 109 – “Thirteen standard sample sites were selected based on road density and landscape composition”. Please give an explanation, what was the amount of density and what kind of landscape composition were the criteria?

Lines 130 and 131 – “This study is based on the classification standard of 'Urban Road Greening Design 130 Standard CJJ/T75-2023' to classify road green spaces”. Please give an explanation.

Line 135 – here is written 64 major roads, above it is mentioned 64 green spaces. You have to be careful with the terminology since road vegetation is one category of green space.

Line 137 – What did you mean by mentioning 115 floristic groups? Please explain this term. The mathematics is strange as well since 44 families and 82 genera are 126? Are there 126 floristic groups? 

Line 138 – What were the criteria for the selection of these 17 plant species?

Lines 143 - Poa annua, Ophiopogon japonicas are in the category of grasses. 

Line 151 – Please list the criteria for those thirteen standard samples. Try to explain more precisely Figures 3 and 4.

Subchapter 2.7.1. – Please explain how did you collect data? Did you take a leaf sample or not? It is not enough just to write a formula without explaining the process of sampling.

Subchapter 2.7.2. – Please explain how this is in correlation with the above-mentioned ecological data observation.

Subchapter 2.7.3. – it is confusing the thing that above mentioned methodological steps you introduced through the SPSS program. I can see the link between the SBE method and SPSS, but other steps usually are not observed through SPSS. You have to explain this part more carefully.

Why are you calling on reference 28 in the Results chapter? If you had some criteria to be called on you should do that in the Methodology chapter. Since the aim of the research is in the fog, it is not clearly emphasized; since the methodology is confusing it is hard to follow the results steps. I kindly ask the authors to link the methodological steps with each other and then link the Methodology chapter with the Results chapter.

Lines 342-368 these are eco-physiological plant characteristics well known for all plants. Please compare with your results. 

Discussion – has to be improved with stronger imputes of previous researches compared with this one.

Conclusion - The significant correlation between the ecological benefits of roadside vegetation and its aesthetic quality is not emphasized in this research paper. After remodelling the whole text, I suggest remodeling the Conclusion chapter as well.

 

Best regards

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Extensive editing of the English language is required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Authors took into account all comments. The text now clearly describes the goals, methods and results.

There are minor flaws that need to be improved:

1. The text should be corrected to remove typos and punctuation errors.

2. Lines 396-400 - the sentence is unclear and requires correction.

3. In the title of section 4.2, „ECO” should be replaced with "ecological benefits".

4. Figure 8 requires correction. The Floristics category has disappeared from the graph and the line colors are illegible.

5. In Figure 11, the sequences SBI, Wc and T should be signed. However, it is worth considering changing the order of the results: not according to the values  SBI, Wc and T of all samples, but according to SBI, Wc, T of individual samples . This would be more reader-friendly.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

after looking at your improved text based on the comments I gave you, I conclude that there are great improvements in the text, but still needs to be developed.

Related to your comment “Therefore, this study focuses on the intrinsic connection between the carbon sequestration and oxygen release, cooling and humidification functions of urban vegetation and the aesthetic value of the landscape, aiming to explore how to optimise and enhance the aesthetic quality of the urban landscape under the premise of ensuring ecological benefits by applying scientific methodology and providing empirical evidence to support the greening strategy in urban planning”, I am not sure that you can control aesthetic values under the premise of ensuring ecological benefits in the way you were researched. Simple it is not matchable.

Could you please try to be more specific in the text related to this issue? You emphasized in the text that not all plants with high ecological value possess aesthetic values (lines 79 and 80). This is more than true since it is hard to have plants in the green area that can bring out both characteristics, harder if you have an approach to ecology in the way it was done in this research. My suggestion is to make much stronger the text in the Introduction to see how these two parables (ecology and aesthetic) are crossed in the previous researches (not yours, but in the others). In this way, it will be visible where the science stopped with the results and how this research is continuing further. Please, this is very important since you still don’t have a clear Introduction chapter and the aim of research. So, I kindly ask the authors to make big improvements in the Introduction and to give a clear background for the scientific issues opened in this research. Please refer more to the other researches.

Materials and Methods chapter is very confusing and not complete compared to the Results chapter, which is reasonably confusing as well. The result chapter should follow methodological lines. So if the methodology is not clear, the results are the same. I kindly ask the authors to not explain the results in the methodology section just explain the methodological steps you did. Please see in the following lines your steps both in the Methodology and Results chapters:

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Research framework

2.2. Overview of the research area

2.3. Botanical Survey Objects

2.4. Measurement of ecological values

2.5. Aesthetic Evaluation Sample Points

2.6. Aesthetic evaluation methods

2.7. Data processing

2.7.1. Ecological data on plant sample points

2.7.2. Standardisation of aesthetics

2.7.3. Scenic Beauty Index (SBI)

2.7.4. Data Processing

2.7.5. Establishment of regression model

 

3. Results

3.1. Plant ecological benefits

3.2. Ecological Values

3.3. SBE Standardization

3.4. Landscape Characteristic Values

3.5. SBE and feature evaluation correlation

3.6. SBI Values

3.7. SBI and Ecological Values

 

The Discussion chapter is improved but still needs development. Compare segment to segment from Results with previous researches (again, not yours, but with the others). When you rearrange the Introduction chapter it would be easier to do a comparison in the Discussion chapter.

In the whole text, there are some visible errors, or the explanation isn’t clear enough. You mentioned that you have identified 13 sample points, but in Figure 5 there are 14. In line 162 you mentioned that your findings showed that there are 115 species of plants in the research area but in line 255 you analyzed 17 plant species during June-September 2023. What does mean that the respondents were aesthetically stable? In Table 6 there are shown only 3 samples from 13, why it is so?

 

Best regards.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Maybe some of the misunderstandings are because English is an obstacle. Please do editing of English language.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I would like to give you credits for the improvements you've made based on my previous comments. It is clear that you have put considerable effort into enhancing the manuscript, and the results are evident. Thank you for your hard work. The paper is now of much higher quality, clearer, and I am confident it will make a valuable contribution to the scientific audience.

I do have a few further minor suggestions for improvement:

• Please try to use shorter sentences, especially in lines 11–14 and particularly in the last part of the Abstract.
• Be careful with terminology. Instead of "planted landscape," I suggest using just “landscape”, and the phrase for the sentence could be "landscape design strategies" (lines 19–21).
• In the Introduction chapter, you refer to reference No. 5 with the phrase “we have analyzed” (line 51). Please ensure that this part does not unintentionally overlap with other works. I recommend rephrasing this section and, if this is part of your own research, please move it to the Results chapter.
• Line 51: Please write this phrase “macro- and microscopic” correct.
• You used an excellent reference (Brady et al., 2020), which discusses the conflict between aesthetic and other environmental values, suggesting that appropriate landscape design can achieve both aesthetic and ecological goals. I recommend rewriting the sentence in lines 71–73 to reflect this context.
• I must admit that you have made significant progress in the text added to the Introduction chapter. Thank you for your work on this. However, I still suggest some small revisions:
• Line 91: "Some scholars" is mentioned, but at the end of the sentence, it refers to just one source. I kindly ask the authors to be more precise with this reference.
• Lines 104–150: This section could be revised. The Introduction should provide background information on the research topic and its issues, and conclude with the aim of the research and the research questions. There is no need to introduce the methodology in this section.
• In my previous review, I asked you to rewrite the text to create a more balanced presentation of the methodological steps and results. I realize now that I wasn't entirely clear, and I do apologize for that. Upon reviewing the manuscript again, I see that the Results section is clear, but it is still somewhat "fighting" with the Methodology chapter, which remains quite confusing. As it is written, it seems like you have methodology in the methodology. I’ll try to offer suggestions, but feel free to adapt them as you see fit.
• I recommend uniting subchapters 2.1 and 2.3, as you are giving a general overview of the research area. You can then draw conclusions based on the field. This will clarify why subchapters 2.4 to 2.6 are separate. However, subchapter 2.7 remains unclear. Could you clarify or possibly link some of the subchapters from Chapter 2 (e.g., 2.4 and 2.7.1)?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf