Perspectives from 2037—Can Environmental Impact Assessment be the Solution for an Early Consideration of Climate Change-related Impacts?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors!

In my opinion this manuscript can and might be extremely interesting for the engineering community and not only. However, at this moment it seems that some additional effort is needed.
An actual study case will increase the value of this manuscript.

I want to finally see more applicability for your study.

Best regards!

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

thank you for your feedback - we strongly agree on the importance of case study research. Your comment shows the need to explain the intention and methodological approach of this study better (we also revised section two according to another reviewer's feedback). Hopefully the following note diminishes your concern.

The intial research phase of the project included the survey of a rather high number of case studies - more than 50 EIA from Germany and Austria which was published already (see Jiricka-Purrer, A; Czachs, C; Formayer, H; Wachter, TF; Margelik, E; Leitner, M; Fischer, TB Climate change adaptation and EIA in Austria and Germany - Current consideration and potential future entry points. ENVIRON IMPACT ASSES. 2018; 71:  26-4).

This paper, submitted in "Sustainability" presents and discusses the back casting scenario approach which was based on the analysis of the real-life case studies in Austria and Germany.

Through the integration of a high number of stakeholders from EIA practice the applicability was in the core focus in this transdisciplinary research.

While the authors agree that int he future a properly  designed comparative case study could be useful to further understand the main  challenges and potential solutions of future integration of climate change related aspects in EIA, this lies outside of the scope of this research project.

Some respectable studies (see section two of this paper) in other thematical fields applied a back casting scenario analysis to survey climate change adaptation (key impact factors, barriers and opportunities) in a transdisciplinary approach and published in SCI double-blind reviewed journals. Focusing on this approach should not be a limiting factor.

The integration of all kind of actors of EIA practice in a multi-level process as presented in this paper requires an accurate preparation of the back casting approach, which is resource intensive - particularly as it was based on the two preparatory methodological phases (case study analysis and interviews).

We agree that follow-up research is highly appreciated and relevant in the next years - prefarably applied case study research next to other approaches - in order to accompany and survey the  implementation of climate change related topics in EIA.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please consider the following issues to update the revised manuscript-

Introduction part can be modified. Lines  33-40 were the repetition of the abstract and I do not think you can plot those in the beginning. Rather you can write those lines before your research objectives. You can start with the background study and state why your research is important and then your objectives. Please pay attention to the lines 51-58 as references were missing.

Methods section were described elaborately.It would be nice if you can reduce the length of the methods section and delete the unnecessary things. Readers will lose concentration as there is a lack of coherence in writings. Please give emphasize about the questions that you asked the participants.

Results section can be organized according to your main objectives stated in the lines 78-84.

Discussions are ok.

In conclusion, it would be a good idea if you can write about the limitation of the present study and further research scope based on your findings.

English editing is a must.

Author Response

Authors' feedback in red

Reviewer comment: Introduction part can be modified. Lines  33-40 were the repetition of the abstract and I do not think you can plot those in the beginning. Rather you can write those lines before your research objectives. You can start with the background study and state why your research is important and then your objectives. Please pay attention to the lines 51-58 as references were missing.

Authors’ feedback: We changed the introduction according to your recommendations and added additional references in the paragraph about the EIA Directive.

Reviewer comment: Methods section was described elaborately. It would be nice if you can reduce the length of the methods section and delete the unnecessary things. Readers will lose concentration as there is a lack of coherence in writings. Please give emphasize about the questions that you asked the participants.

Authors’ feedback: Thank you for making us aware of the problem. We shortened section two in order to increase the readability. As additional information a newly added table presents details of the back casting approach for those particularly interested in the methodological approach.

Reviewer comment: Results section can be organized according to your main objectives stated in the lines 78-84.

Authors’ feedback: Thank you very much for the advice. We restructured the discussion section along the major research questions (related to the research objectives). We would like to keep the results section, however, in the three parts as it was before to maintain the orientation along the core topics (steps of the multi-method approach).

Reviewer comment: Discussions are ok.

Authors’ feedback: Thank you – we adaped this part slightly in order to reflect your idea of linking the research objectives with the presentation/ discussion of the results (see comment above).

Reviewer comment: In conclusion, it would be a good idea if you can write about the limitation of the present study and further research scope based on your findings.

Authors’s feedback: We added this information in the conclusion section. Thank you for reminding us to mention it.

Reviewer comment: English editing is a must.

Authors’ feedback: One co-author (Patrick Driscoll) is an English native speaker. He made a final spell check and also proofread the article with regard to English style and grammar.

Reviewer 3 Report

I have read the paper, however, there are several shortcomings that the authors should work on. In particular:

-        Gap in the literature and novel contribution: this is still quite unclear. A throughout review of the literature to which this paper aims to contribute would facilitate to make a case for the gap to which this paper aims at contributing. This should be done more explicitly and clearly stated.

-        Case studies: Austria and Germany. The paper struggles in justifying why these two cases studies have been identified and selected. A stronger justification of the use of these two cases should be done.

-        Conclusion: the paper title is a  question. I would expect to find a clear answer to this question throughout the text, and again in the conclusion. This is not clearly done.

Author Response

Reviewer comment: I have read the paper; however, there are several shortcomings that the authors should work on. In particular:

Gap in the literature and novel contribution: this is still quite unclear. A throughout review of the literature to which this paper aims to contribute would facilitate to make a case for the gap to which this paper aims at contributing. This should be done more explicitly and clearly stated.

Authors’ feedback: Thank you for making us aware of the need to explain the gap better and emphasize the novel aspects of this study. We made changes highlighting this in the introduction and added the respective references.

Reviewer comment: Case studies: Austria and Germany. The paper struggles in justifying why these two cases studies have been identified and selected. A stronger justification of the use of these two cases should be done.

Authors’ feedback: Thank you for making us aware of the need to add this information right at the beginning of the description of the sample (case studies) in the methodological section. We hope this is helpful to clarify why the two case study areas are interesting for the international readers.

Reviewer comment: Conclusion: the paper title is a question. I would expect to find a clear answer to this question throughout the text, and again in the conclusion. This is not clearly done.

Authors’ feedback: We agree that the reader expects a clear answer. The paper shows that there are several approaches to tackle climate change adaptation in EIA. This is the nature of the scenario approach. We added a summary statement at the end of the results section and tried to strengthen the conclusion – particularly adding an initial statement - in order to provide a clearer picture and summarize the key message from the scientific findings.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Please check the grammar!

Best regards!

Author Response

Thank you, our American native speaker checked the grammar again. Kind regards

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is revised and followed all the instructions that were advised. In the conclusion section, it would be nice if you can avoid the reference that you cited.

Author Response

Thank you for the positive feedback, we deleted the references in the conclusion section. Kind regards

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for the revisions. However, I still am not convinced of the novelty of this contribution and of the relevance and justification of the case studies considered. 
It may also be better to consider submitting this paper to a journal with a closer focus to the topic of the manuscript. 

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. We provided a review of prior studies in the field within the article and absent of any substantive empirical evidence that proves the contrary, we are quite confident that our findings are both novel and relevant. Moreover we carefully considered submitting the manuscript to IA specific journals (e.g. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, in which we published several other articles on EIA/SEA and climate change) but decided to choose an open access journal in order to make these results available for a broader community. Kind regards