Estimating the Public’s Preferences for Sustainable Aquaculture: A Country Comparison

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper addresses an important topic and is well justified. Overall the paper was well presented and easy to read, however I would note the following issues for consideration/clarification by the authors:

·         Why were specific countries selected – were differences expected?

·         Line 43/44 IMTA has been implemented in Canada, Israel and the Netherlands – so only Israel of the countries covered in this research. So was this reflected in knowledge of IMTA or results? Has any research justified the selection of the 10%, 20% 30% improved sustainability as used in the experiment?

·         The para from line 55 to 65 starts with IMTA then switches to ‘environmentally friendly…in Scotland’ but previous discussion suggested there is no IMTA in Scotland. This suggest the research re Scotland has been done on monoculture and yet the theme throughout the paper classes monoculture as one group/level in terms of environmental sustainability (and not a range of sustainability throughout monoculture). How was this addressed? Ie Sustainability level D was Monoculture yet this para seems to indicate that there are different levels of sustainability even within monoculture.

·         Can the sampling method be clarified. It appears an online panel was used and the para at lines 121 to 132 suggests the panel provider stratified and then sent invitations to randomly selected members of the panel within each strata. This approach seems unusual given my experience with panels where quotas are set for relevant groups – but then the invitation is sent to all panel members who are then screened to fill quotas (ie not randomly selected individuals).

·         I am not an expert in CE so cannot comment on the more detailed elements of the discussion and decisions made around this technique. However lines 156 to 159 suggest Ireland, Norway and the UK were presented with Salmon options while Italy and Israel were presented with Sea bream options. Are there differences in results when combining the salmon data verses the seabream data?

·         The limitation that respondents were briefed about IMTA before completing their choice needs to be acknowledged.

Author Response

Response attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very interesting paper. It is very clearly explained and the analysis is powerful. 

Authors should conduct minor corrections:

- In the abstract, authors should specify what WTP is: willingness-to-pay (WTP). Just in case reader doesn't know the term. 

- Page 7, lines 287-296, where does this information come from? I don't find it in Table 2. Authors should explain better this. 

That's all. Good job! 

Author Response

Response attached 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf