Assessing Urban Resilience in Complex and Dynamic Systems: The RESCCUE Project Approach in Lisbon Research Site

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper stress the urban resilience and presents the EU H2020 RESCCUE project approach in Lisbon research site. I would suggest authors the following remarks: End of the introduction: explain how the paper is divided Section 2.1: I would better introduce the project Line 73: which categories of stakeholders? Line 95-109: to implement your references about this topic I would suggest you to consider Capolongo S, Lemaire N, Oppio A, Buffoli M, Roue Le Gall A. Action planning for healthy cities: the role of multi-criteria analysis, developed in Italy and France, for assessing health performances in land-use plans and urban development projects. Epidemiologia & Prevenzione. 2016; 40(3-4): 257-64. doi: 10.19191/EP16.3-4.P257.093.  Capasso L, Faggioli A, Rebecchi A, Capolongo S, Gaeta M, Appolloni L, De Martino A,  D'Alessandro D. Hygienic and sanitary aspects in urban planning: Contradiction in national and local urban legislation regarding public health. Epidemiologia e Prevenzione. 2018; 42(1): 60-64. doi: 10.19191/EP18.1.P060.016. Line 195: how the stakeholders have been recognised? consider this paper Dell’Ovo, M., Torrieri, F., & Oppio, A. (2018, May). How to model stakeholder participation for flood management. In International Conference on Decision Support System Technology (pp. 67-75). Springer, Cham. Line 231: who is in charge of assigning the interpendencies level? according to wich characteristics? not clear Figure 6: it shows a dual (entry and exit) or univocal interaction? Section 5: I would suggest you to better underline the policy implication and to stress the to role of the city concerning the topic of the resiliance. 

Author Response

Authors would like to thank the revisions made by the reviewer.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1) This paper seems apparently to rely heavily on the results obtained under the “EU H2020 RESCCUE project” and that appears to give it a scientific and academic value that should not be overlooked (see, for instance, lines 21-22, 28-30 and 60-63).

 

2) However, the paper seems to do nothing more than report on the “implementation” of the “HAZUR® resilience assessment methodology” “in Lisbon research site” carried out under that project (see also, for instance, lines 21-22 and 60-63).

 

3) Besides the previous comments, there are still some minor spell checking, formatting and writing issues, such as some of the following listed below, that should be addressed by the authors:

 

• Abstract, lines 17-18: Check English “Urban environments are challenged with unprecedent/ unprecedented??? anthropogenic and natural pressures,”;

• line 66: Check English “The RESCCUE project (initiated in May 2016 and ending in November 2020) aims/ed?? at helping” (Note: As the project has already finished???);
• line 80: “project management)” (Remove the symbol “)”;
• line 110:       Pay attention to the number of the subsection “3.2????. Hazur® Methodology”;

• lines 124-125: Check English “The main goal is to better understand were/where??? to act and how to better operate the city as a whole,”;

• line 127: Pay attention to the section number “3.3??? Lisbon Research Site”;

• line 140: Check English “level rise; and the increase of extreme events?? frequency”;

• lines 154-156: Check English/wording??? : Apparently it seems that something is missing??? “At a local level, the Municipal Strategy for Climate Change Adaptation [16], in 2017, and the Metropolitan Plan for Climate Change Adaptation [26], in 2019, are the highlighted”;

• line 194: Check English “considered in the Hazur ® assessment, orienting the stakeholders?? engagement needs.”;

• lines 211-212: Check English “The analysed infrastructures are the ones considered critical or fundamental to the respective services?? provision or the ones that better represent the services??? operation”;

• Figure 5: note: The authors are kindly invited to improve the graphic quality of this figure, if possible??? It seems to be very hard to read its content???;

• lines 270-271: Check the reference to “Section 3.2??????”, made in the next sentence regarding to “the interdependencies matrix”???? ”; (“The characterisation of the impacts of a given disruptive event is made by the indication of the failure status, as in the interdependencies matrix (Section 3.2),)”;

• lines 279-280: Check English “on the register keeper (social media, fire-fighters???, civil protection, municipal departments, universities, etc.), making it difficult to systematically analyse past events??? impacts.”;

• lines 287-288: Check English “the recovery times presented are only indicative based on average simulation results and past events??? records and intent to be representative of the impact degree of different flooding events.”;

• line 291: Check English “was also considered that, in/on???? average, the areas stayed flooded during 1 to 3 hours”;

• line 305: Check sentence/wording as appears that something is missing????? “summarises the main direct impacts due to flooding events considered in the current analysis.”;

• Table 4: Check English and pay attention to Abbreviation and its Formatting Rules       “this substation will be??? no longer be??? affected in this scenario.”; and “WWTP”????;      

• line 312: Check Wording “leading to short cascading effects, as presented in Error! Reference source not found.???”;

• lines 337-340: Check English “Although when comparing the current situation (CS) with the climate change scenario (BAU) there is an increase on?? the prone to flooding area and on?? the height of the water at the surface, in this particular case, the increase on?? the flooded area does not bare an impact on the number of infrastructures affected.”;

line 390: Check English “that the services, and the city, will maintain its/their essential function, identity and structure, whilst”.

Author Response

Authors would like to thank the revisions made by the reviewer.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper "Assessing urban resilience in complex and dynamic systems: the RESCCUE Project approach in Lisbon Research Site " presents a novel study regarding urban resilience taking into account climate change. The paper is of interest for the readers of the journal Sustainability, but it could be improved with the following comments:

• Keywords could be improved
• Introduction must be improved, as it is currently too short, and does not show the novelty of the paper. It should should the scientific background in which the paper is based.
• Each statement must be backed up by references
• Line 55: RESCCUE project should have its own reference
• Figure 1 could be easier to read
• Line 110: 2.2 Hazur methodology
• Figure2: Two lines missing for the final "zoom" on Lisboa
• Figure 2 source should be added as a reference
• Line 149: UNISDR?
• Figure 3: Scale and compass are missing
• Figure 3: KJL is not mentioned in the paper
• Figure 3: Source?
• Figure 4: Scale and compass are missing
• Fgure 4: Source should be a reference
• Table 1: http://geodados.cm-185 lisboa.pt/ should be a reference
• Table 2: If it is adapted from 28, 28 should be briefly explained in the main text
• Table 3: How were does services selected?
• Figures 5 and 6 are quite difficult to read, text should be bigger
• Figure 5: Symbols should be explained
• Line 305: (Table 4?) summarises... I think  "Table 4" is missing
• Table 4 is quite long. If it is an adpatation from [14], maybe it could be reduced, or provided as supplementary materials instead of in the main text
• Line 312: Error! Reference source not found.
• Figure 7 text should be bigger
• Limitations of the study should be clearly stated

Author Response

Authors would like to thank the revisions made by the reviewer.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf