Mind the Gap: Towards a Typology of Climate Service Usability Gaps

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Journal: Sustainability

Title: Mind the Gap: towards a typology of climate service usability

Manuscript ID: 686774

 

General comments

This is a very interesting paper addressing the need to improve climate services, in order to support more efficient decision-making processes in climate adaptation. The results are significant and have implications for adaptive management measures under future climate changes. The authors seem to have a good data set to examine the topic, including data from two case studies, and interviews to governmental and private stakeholders. Nevertheless, if the authors wish to pursue publication of this material they should plan on some revisions. In particular, the methods and results need improvements, in order to ensure that the manuscript is technically sound. The structure of the text could be improved, facilitating the reading and interpretation of the paper. Finally, English is not my first language, but I think the manuscript is well written. Still, I believe that an editorial review is necessary, in order to correct just some minor grammatical and editorial issues.

 

Abstract

The abstract is well structured, with clear objectives and results. I only suggest further highlighting the conclusions and relevance of the study.

 

Introduction

The introduction provides a good review supported by the literature. The objectives are clear and the authors specify how they intend to achieve them. Nevertheless, several ideas and sentences are very repetitive, and can be restructured.

 

A Template of Climate Information Design

This text section is useful for framing the study and exploring the knowledge gaps, challenges and associated issues. However, I think the text is presented in a very descriptive and extensive way and may be shortened. I suggest restructuring, trying to condense the most relevant information.

 

Materials and methods

I believe that there is a need to further improve this section. Please review the text, trying to resume the most important information, therefore facilitating the reading of the paper.

Data analysis is not clear:

Please explain how exactly was different data collected? Sampling - how? Literature compilation – references and what data? Interviews – what questions and data analysis? Please explain how variables were evaluated, even if using a qualitative approach; Statistical analysis is lacking, influencing the technical soundness of the paper.

 

Results

Results also need clarification and synthesis. Figures may be added to support results interpretation.

 

Discussion and conclusion

The discussion is well grounded and supported by literature, though it could be better supported by the results, if they were more clear and consolidated.

 

References

I believe the paper includes a good review of the available literature, though some references are lacking, especially in the methods section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I congratulate you for your efforts towards making a topology of climate service usability gaps, which will be handy for many stakeholders using Climate services. The analytical framework with 12 usability gap indicator is a good idea.  Following are some of my comments and observations:

Lines 47 to 54: it would be better to separate the uses and characteristics of CS. In your own words the way it is presented now has an Information-readability gap :) 

Lines 55 and 56: The definition of CS in not very apt. I would redefine it as follows " CS are information services that provide information about climate change,climate  impacts, climate adaptation and mitigation measures to stakeholders to create awareness or to take decisions" 

Line 58: Mitigation actions are not mentioned. Was it left out inadvertently or is there a reason for leaving out mitigation.

Line 81: " These observations imply the existence of usability-gap. " What is usability- gap. Where do these usability -gap  exist. Is it at strategic - tactical  - operational level?  The justification should be strong as to where these gaps exist. It would be easy for the user to understand if you had explained it through an example. In my opinion a good CS should be assimilable at tactical level so that it can be convey both was either to strategic or operational level. 

Line 84: " ....Local end user to develop policies?"  I do not fully agree with statement. Do local end users develop policies? I my opinion local end users such as municipalities are usually implement policies through actions and hardly make them. 

Line 98: Remove the words " so called" 

Line 117: Circular adaptation process - define and explain

Line 140 - 141 : Usage of reference in between the sentence is not appropriate.

Line 143-144: The problem mentioned there is not a communication problem rather is a prioritisation problem.

Line 151 - 158: " Where by she makes " and " Moser & Ekstrom"  - Not an appropriate way  of writing.

Table 1 : Good. Did you ever come cross the " Climate change in Australia website" (https://www.climatechangeinaustralia.gov.au/en/). It is worth looking at the contents and see how your analytical framework fits with the CS of the website. It is also worth discussing it in detail in your discussion section as this will demonstrate that you are have looked at CS systems outside NL thereby your framework has a global outreach.

Line 261: Policies? is that policies or action plans.

Line 293: My observation is that Delta programme targets mainly policy and tactical level stakeholders for decision making. The Delta program outreach to operation level at local context to municipalities or general public is mainly informative. 

Line 408: What do you mean by Coding? The word appears of out blue and is not explained in the section that follows the heading.

Table 6: The table is not self-explanatory. How did you get these numbers?  It should explain in a paragraph below the table how you got these numbers?  Explain it with an example. For example Why is Purpose- Validity 36  and why is Visual format - validity 1?  Does 36 means CS is faring well or faring bad with respect to this criteria and few suggestion as to improve the CS score of NAS and Fluvis. 

Line 623: Table 5? is it Table 5 or Table 6 

Discussion and conclusion section: A little bit of discussion as  to how to use the information in Table 5 to improve the Fluvis and NAS CS will help the readers to understand the methodology and how it can be applied to their contexts. May be you could discuss it with the Climate change in Australia CS website to broaden the application of your CS analytical framework to context beyond NL. The discussion section is weak and needs considerable improvement. It is better to separate the discussion and conclusion section.

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I congratulate the authors for their great effort to improve the manuscript. I really appreciate they invested their time addressing all the questions raised during the first revision. All the main issues were improved, detailed and clarified in the text. Furthermore, the authors thoroughly justified the revisions in the cover letter. The English language has been significantly improved, facilitating the readability and interpretation of the text. I only recommend the investment in a small editorial revision to correct some specific aspects.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his/her positive comments, we are glad that the previous points were raised, and now addressed sufficiently.

Reviewer point 1: I only recommend the investment in a small editorial revision to correct some specific aspects.

Authors' response: We have re-checked the text (especially the most recent sections) with the help of a native speaker and improved some of the grammar and syntax throughout. As these corrections were minor, they have not been marked specifically.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

 

Happy to see that you the paper has been improved based on the comments.

Fig.4 contains the text in Nederlands. Please redraw it in English so that readers can understand. Though I am happy with the explanations given for Table 6. However i feel that it is still not very clear and there is a scope for improvement.

Author Response

 

Reviewer point 1: Fig.4 contains the text in Nederlands. Please redraw it in English so that readers can understand.

Authors response point 1: Thank you for making this suggestion. Indeed, to cater to a international audience we have redrawn the figure in English.

Reviewer point 2: Though I am happy with the explanations given for Table 6. However i feel that it is still not very clear and there is a scope for improvement.

Authors' response point 2: We have expanded a bit more on the explanations of table 6 to improve its clarity, and tried to use this section as a clearer setup for the discussion. We hope these additions are satisfactory.