Evidence on the Social, Economic, and Environmental Impact of Interventions That Facilitate Bamboo Industry Development for Sustainable Livelihoods: A Systematic Map

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have carried out a systematic review of studies on bamboo. This study fits perfectly in the journal and provides interesting information, not only on the subject of the manuscript, but also on technical aspects of how to carry out a review. However, it needs to be improved in some aspects, which are detailed below:

GENERAL ISSUES

The lack of line numbering makes it difficult to review the manuscript.

Although it is not missing from the article, the Discussion section should be highlighted..

 

MAJOR ISSUES

The concept of 'intervention' needs to be clearly defined in the background section.

I appreciate that grey literature has been included in the review, but it is noticeable that specific databases (e.g. Overton) have not been used.

 Is it possible to create a systematic evidence map without a logical model like the one in Figure 1? Perhaps the authors could explain this.

Is it possible to create a systematic evidence map without a logical model like the one in Figure 1?

On page 4, the term 'protocol' appears. The reader does not know what it refers to.

I don't agree with mixing methodological aspects with the objectives of the manuscript. The explanation of PICO should be moved to the next section.

The authors should explain the differences with another related article [37]. This comparison would be useful in the Discussion section mentioned above.

It would be advisable to explain which 14 benchmark papers are included on page 7.

The work of the reviewers is not well understood. If they were not the authors, who were they? Why is their work not included in Figure 2?

The kappa test should be better justified, even with a bibliographic reference.

Why were projects with only environmental objectives excluded?

I hope I haven't made a mistake, but Table 3 is not included in the manuscript.

As far as the results are concerned, it is not clear to the reader what the difference is between 23 and 28 items. Perhaps the answer is on page 14? In any case, it should have been explained beforehand.

The results show that there are no papers starting after 2020. I don't want to question them, but isn't it strange that no article in the journal (Advances in Bamboo Science) of which an author is editor-in-chief appears as a result in this review?

MINOR ISSUES

Perhaps a bibliographical reference seems incomplete [29].

On page 28 there is the word 'included'. Shouldn't it be 'excluded'?

Author Response

Please see attached document

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The research represents an organized and insightful review of how bamboo related interventions can boost livelihoods, and it highlights just how sparse and patchy the current evidence base really is.

Can you please explain, maybe in the introduction section, why bamboo was chosen over other potential resources for these livelihood development interventions?

If the authors see fit to expand on the logic model presented, please explain how exactly the model links an intervention, like a bamboo management training course, to a measurable social impact, like higher average income or improved environmental quality. Another aspect that can be of interest is to present if the logic model accounts for outside factors or biases that might affect the results?

If we consider the limited evidence about bamboo interventions regarding negative outcomes and confounding variables, can you include in the conclusion, if you see fit, how can researchers and policymakers design future studies or collect data so that the future research can truly understand whether, and how, these interventions are effective?

Please check if all major references are included.

Author Response

Please see attached document

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, I think you have done a very good job of improving the original manuscript. In my opinion, if you polish up a few small details, it could already be published.

1) In some parts of the manuscript this typing error appears: Error! Reference not found.

2) p. 685: included or excluded?

3) L. 707: You should at least put "Discussion and Conclusions".

Best regards

Author Response

Dear reviewer and editing team,

Many thanks for your very fast response. We have highlighted the changes made in the manuscript in yellow. Our answers are here in bold.

Dear authors, I think you have done a very good job of improving the original manuscript. In my opinion, if you polish up a few small details, it could already be published.

Many thanks for this comment about our manuscript.

1) In some parts of the manuscript this typing error appears: Error! Reference not found.

Thank you for catching this. We are not sure what caused the error with cross-references as inserted in Microsoft Word but it has disappeared on our side now. We have made sure all figures and tables are correctly referenced in the text.

2) p. 685: included or excluded?

We found the error and have change "included" to "excluded. Many thanks for coming back to us with that one.

3) L. 707: You should at least put "Discussion and Conclusions".

No problem, we have now changed it to "Discussion and Conclusions".

In addition to making these changes, we have found a couple of small grammar errors and redundancies and fixed them.

Many thanks for these comments and for your support of our work.

Best regards,

Lucy Binfield

Tamara L. Britton

Chunping Dai

John L. Innes