Influence and Sustainability of the Concept of Landscape Seen in Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong Valley Restoration Projects

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments

I have read the manuscript title " Influence and Sustainability of the Notion of Landscape seen from a Viewpoint of Humanity in Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong Valley Restoration Projects".  The article explores the reasons and motivations behind the riparian rehabilitation projects in Korea. The authors made a recopilation of the historic and philosophical of the Korean definition of landscape and how this concept is represented in the current rehabilitation projects in the city. The subject is interesting because explore the social and cultural aspects (e.g. motivation) of rehabilitation and the meaning that the project has for the city inhabitants. However, there are several issues to address.  One issue it is the use of the use concept of restoration in a rehabilitation context. The authors need to define what they understand by restoration, in that sense I suggest the authors read the Society for Ecological Restoration primer. Despite the fact, that it is true that defining the historic and philosophical background are important to understand the vision imprinted in the rehabilitation projects and how the concept of landscape has been integrated in these types of projects; I believe that the article is quite disjointed and unbalanced towards the historic and philosophical aspect of the concept of landscape. I believe that the link between the historic and philosophical concepts need to be better link with the current projects in the city and how those concepts can be applied in other cities around the world. I suggest to summarize all the long introductory sections dealing with historic and philosophical concepts and focus in the case of study. Also, the title of the article reference influence and sustainability but sustainability is barely mentioned in the article except for the study case. I missed some details of the project such as costs, problems during the construction, affected area, original prospected area and how people are using the newly created space (e.g. number of visitors, caring for the infrastructure, etc.).  Also, I missed some information regarding the difficulties on designing and building this kind of project. All this information is important is one is going to try to replicate, design or carry out a project of this magnitude.

Author Response

Reviewer  1

Thank you for your second comment.

But we can not understand it.

Firstly, the restoration projects of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong valley are not just the projects of rehabilitation. Because the city of Seoul officially used the word of restoration for the projects. And these projects were aimed to make Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong valley be in original state, where ancestors enjoyed nature, even that the project of Cheoggye is differently realized with the ancient Stream. Koreans considered these streams as restored. In my opinion, it is not necessary to narrowly define the notion of restoration in certain viewpoints. Furthermore, I think the definition isn’t much important among a lot of historic explanations on Korean culture in the paper. So we deleted the explanation of the notion of restoration to diminish the quantity of the introduction. Because the other reviewer requested the paper more thin, especially in the introduction.

Secondly, you qualified that the paper is the disjointed and unbalanced towards the historic and philosophical aspect of the concept of landscape. But you don’t make any logical explanation about your judgment. So I can not understand it. We informed you that we referred to the theory of Augustin Berque, who is a cultural geographer and a representative theorist of landscape in France. I can more explain on the evolution of the notion of landscape in the historic and philosophical dimension, but I diminished that, because of the other reviewer’s request.

Thirdly, I think the details you requested (costs, problems during the construction, affected area, original prospected area and how people are using the newly created space (e.g. number of visitors, caring for the infrastructure, etc.)) don’t concern our paper (You said all the details are important. But you also didn’t explain why they could be important in the paper).

In my opinion, they are not in the main flow of the logics in the paper. These details could be useful for several papers on other subjects. I can not make our paper redundant with all the details. Our paper is to emphasize that the motivation, the notion of landscape, and Korean traditional culture on landscape influence and sustain the restoration projects of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong valley. And the paper is to say not to forget these human and original reasons in the projects of environment. For that, we developed the logics in the historic and cultural dimension with using the contents of philosophy, poems, paintings, and etc. Is this an interdisciplinary research between humanity and environment? Data for the positive methods in sociology doesn’t much concern our paper which is discussed in the existential dimension in humanity.

There are various directions in research.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a good paper. The abstract summarises well what it is about. The references are in an adequate number and in adequate publications. The conclusions are well supported by the discussion of the results. The method of analysing landscape in connection to drawings is original and well made. The topic is relevant for the journal and for readers today, given the importance of river ecologic rehabilitation, which, in this case, is enriched by landscape design. The paper also provides a valuable insight into Asian garden design less known than the Chinese and Japanese ones which reached Western culture.

Compared to the previous version there is now Fig. 7 showing the location of the river. The figure as it is does not help much, as is doesn't show the relationship to the city, which is however mentioned in the paper. This should be corrected.

Author Response

Thank you for your review.

Authors want to show Figure 7 as the location of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong valley in Seoul, Korea. Because some readers want to know the real location of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong valley in Seoul.

Also authors want to show real plan of Sites as ‘Figure 14. Restored Cheonggye Stream’ and ‘Figure 17. Planning of Restored Suseongdong Valley’.

So ‘Figure 7. Location of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong Valley’ had changed to ‘Figure 7. Location of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong Valley in Seoul’.

And the river is toned down the color to make it unnoticeable in Figure 7.

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has been improved and is now satisfactory 

Author Response

Thank you for your review.

Round  2

Reviewer 1 Report

Taking in consideration that this article is a research article and it is addressed to the scientific community I believe that using the word restoration is not appropriate. You need to incorporate in the text a statement saying that despite the government named a restoration project, it is a rehabilitation project.  Remember that this article is going to be of interest of people that works in sustainability and restoration and using technical terminology that is not appropriate is misleading.

The paper is disjointed and unbalanced for several reasons although the most important one is that this is not a review article. As I highlighted in my previous comments you are focusing the article mostly in philosophical and historical concepts that one can easily find in several available literature. Taking this into consideration your article is not novel and only of interest to a limited group of people.  In this regard, I recommended you focus your article in how the philosophical and historical concept of landscape is reflected in you case study and how this can influence sustainability in big cities around the world.

All recommendations that I suggested to be added are important for one reason. This is a sustainability journal but in your article this topic is barely discuss. if we understand sustainability science by an multisystemic approximation that integrates an ecological, economic and social dimension to search for solutions to socioecological problems (see Clark and Dickson 2003, Kates 2011), all the information that you could provide is important to understand the process and help other people understand the peculiarities of the project.  The readers cannot relate to what you are proposing in your article if you do not give them any information to relate to their own realities.

Complementing you article will not make it redundant in any case, on the contrary it will make it more interesting to a broader audience. To emphasize that the motivation, the notion of landscape, and Korean traditional culture on landscape can be summarized in one page. Remember that this is not a review article. Then you link each of these motivations to your case study and how these motivations lead to a successful rehabilitation project.  Then you can indicate that the idiosyncrasy of each culture must be added in any sustainable project design to help to ensure participation of the community and make people feel part of it.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments

I have read the manuscript title " Influence and Sustainability of the Notion of Landscape seen from a Viewpoint of Humanity in Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong Valley Restoration Projects".  The article explores the reasons and motivations behind the riparian rehabilitation projects in Korea. The subject is quite interesting because tries to explore the social and cultural aspects rehabilitation and the meaning that the project has for the city inhabitants. However, I believe that there is room for improvement specially in terms of structure and defining some restoration concepts.  I think that authors need to give more emphasis to the case study itself than a long introductory set of paragraphs.  In addition, I missed some details of the project such as costs, problems during the construction, affected area and original prospected area.

Specific comments

Title

Concept of landscape instead of notion?

Introduction

You need to add in this section something regarding the concept of restoration used here. I believe that some parts of this project fit in the reclamation or rehabilitation category. Hence it is important to define what do you mean by restoration in your article.

Lines 33-36 I suggest moving this paragraph to the last part of the introduction where you specify the study objectives.

Line 35 Move figure 1 out of the introduction

Lines 37-40. I would add a paragraph about contrasting the concept of landscape ecology developed by Forman (e.g. Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions)

Lines 74-84 Please order the objectives and how you will accomplish that objective. At the moment there is too much text and makes quite difficult to follow.

Study area

I would add a new section describing the study area.  Figure 1 should be added in this section.

2.1 Discovery of the notion of Landscape and Evolution of Garden, and Korea’s Landscape and 2.2 Gardens and Evolution of the notion of Landscape and Garden Culture in South Korea

I would join these two sections and add them to the introduction. The main objective is presenting the case study and link it to the cultural and philosophical reason behind the project.

3.1. Discussions on History and Restoration Process of Cheonggye Stream

Lines 397-407 I would move this to supplementary material. It is enough to mention that the site was recognized as cultural heritage.

Lines 424-437 Same as the previous point.

Lines 445-452 Same as the previous point.

Conclusion

I missed some information regarding the difficulties on designing and building this kind of project.

Author Response

Thank you for your specific comments.

However, when we have considered the comments and requests made by the reviewers,
the reviewer’s viewpoints and methods considerably differ from those of this paper.

This paper aims to verify that the reasons on the restoration of Cheonggye stream and Suseongdong Valley go along with those that humans discovered the concept of landscape, and that Korean historical and cultural landscape concepts have influenced the motivation and planning for the restoration of the rivers.

Therefore, this study does not just focus on the river restoration project itself. It is an interdisciplinary study to examine the meaning of the projects and the citizens’ experiences on nature from the socio-cultural viewpoint. In our arguments, cultural activities and experiences on landscape, which Korean societies have developed, should be significantly and concretely considered, because that they are engaged in the projects. They also should be considered as socio-cultural aspects’ influence on sustainability. Therefore, they cannot be reduced to background descriptions or omitted in the introduction.

In addition, the explanation of project costs, problems in construction, affected areas, etc. is supplements in the context of this paper. We did not consider it necessary to discuss these things. For them, another paper would be necessary.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting paper about a current theme in landscape Architecture. While during post-war time many rivers were transformed in chanels through employment of concrete to better deal with traffic, now there is a return to the ecologic approach. This proved to be even better for flood prevention. The introduction comes to short on These references. Approaches from Europe (such as along the Danube or the Rhine) are not properly mentioned.

The methods are good in themselves, an analysis of architecture with philosophical means (Heidegger, spirit of the place). Maybe references to similar uses of the method in architecture would be welcome.

Also section 2.1 is fuzzy. There is a mix there between Oriental and European landscape and garden architecture. It would be very helpful to split into that in the Orient, and that in Europe. For example the important Italian Gardens are not mentioned at all (apart of English and French Gardens).

Section 2.2 is well written, but not with a clear structure. It would be helpful to have for example a table on the Elements in the gardens which reflect the different religious thoughts. This way the differences between Chinese, Japanese and Korean Gardens can be understood better.

The two projects presented are very beautiful (the Images present it well) and a good example to make it known and spread better practice. Knowledge from history was employed in an optimal way to build better in the future. So the conclusions are sound and build well on the results.

The abstract summarises well what the article wants to communicate.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your good evaluation.
We have added a description about the Rhine in the introduction.
In the section 2.1., we have divided the text in two parts, parts of Asia and Europe, and added the explanation on the Italian Renaissance garden.
Then, about the comparison of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese gardens added figures.

Because that Korean garden is the main subject in the text and the explanation on three countries’ garden could make a longer argument.
Thank you very much again for your comments.
If there's anything for revision, please point out again.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper aims to investigate the influence and sustainability of historical and cultural backgrounds in the planning features of nature in the restoration projects of Cheonggye Stream and Suseongdong valley. The introduction is very pedantic and full of repetitions. Paragraph 2 Discovery of the concept of Landscape and Evolution of Garden, and Korea’s is very general and the poor bibliography denotes an equally superficial knowledge of the subject. In recent years, the studies on the garden and on the landscape have carved out a growing space in the internal debate in various disciplines. There are numerous websites useful to the research instead of Wikipedia. I suggest also to add a reference to the Charter of Florence for the protection of historic gardens and to the 2002 European Landscape Convention. The theme is extremely interesting but the work should be a little thinner with repeated and unnecessary phrase.

Round  2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the improved version. I particularly appreciate the Images of Chinese, Japanese and Korean gardens, especially as they show the different use of mineral elements, which are also relevant for this intervention on rivers.

The addition on the Rhine and the Italian gardens are correct and suitable. However, for the reference on Italian garden the authors should not use wikipedia, but a proper reference. If this is corrected, it is OK. I am saying this also because some European botanical Gardens or also in North America have Japanese or Chinese garden, but some have Italian gardens. I don't know about Korean Gardens though.