An Innovative Approach for Subnational Climate Adaptation of Biodiversity and Ecosystems: The Case Study of a Regional Strategy in Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, thanks for the article. The article is well structured and well-organized.  Below are my comments that the authors can take into consideration in order to improve the manuscript. 

1. Figure 2: Please, kindly change the background color.
2. Figure 3: Same comment as for figure 2.
3. The authors claim that the approach could be used internationally by subnational authorities as a model, also for other sectors. How can the said approach be integrated into climate change adaptation and mitigation in the energy sector? Especially with regards to the last section Figure 1, what nations are required to do. The authors might want to make reference to this article (https://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2413-3051/2022/v33i1a8362), so that they can clearly highlight how their approach can be applied in the energy sector. 
4. It is also very important for the authors to clearly indicated the policy implications of the proposed approach. This should be addressed!
5. Section 5.5. Limitations of the proposed approach: This section must be extended and should include the question that this reviewer has raised in the above comment at #4. 
6. What could be the institutional/governance challenges of the proposed approach?
7. The authors must also highlight the research gap in the article.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript outlines an approach to developing biodiversity related climate adaptation actions.  The manuscript is well presented and clear, but needs further work to position the work more clearly to the reader. Firstly, I question in what way the work is “new” and stated in the title in many time in the text – new to the authors, new to Piedmont, new to EU – I consider the expert elicitation and steps of the methodology to be a standard generic process widely applied across the globe – if the authors wish to maintain the “new” then it needs to be justified. Secondly, the efficient, effective etc advantages of the approach are rather superficially defined – to what extent has the process led to action, are responsible authorities identified for actions and have they ratified it, has the actions been costed and budgeted by responsible parties…or is it just a way to create wish list of actions which is only the first stage of the “urgent adaptive actions” you note?. Thirdly, participation and inclusion are important, yet this is a expert-elicited process with dissemination at the end, to what extent does this conform to, for example, the EU Aarhus Convention on public participation in environmental decision making, and there are the private sector which have my expertise and down the line much power in delivering resilience outcomes. These points need to be addressed within the manuscript, which I think they can be, with a significant but not massive revision.

Line 63 – 64: EU and national plans do not preclude provincial or local level approaches, in fact they accept and promote the importance of local level action such as through the Covenant of Majors. I think the sense should read more that local-level plans approaches and action are required in combination, or complementary, to national and regional approaches.

Line 65 – 68. This is complex and does not make sense especially…”..mitigation is based on global considerations to be declined…”. Separate into two clearer sentences.

Line 108 – 111 – there are claims of “innovative”, “effective and efficient” used for the Piedmont approach which have no justification. Unless these terms reflect published work then they cannot be used.

Line 118 – and the manuscript title – use the word “new” – I do not see what it is new – this needs to be explained and justified at this point. Is it new to Italy only, or to the EU  – as the structure of the approach and definition of risk has been widely used from my understanding and experience. What are other countries / regions doing with regard to biodiversity at the regional level – how do they compare to the Piedmont approach – this needs to made clear in the Introduction in section 1, to allow the reader to make judgment on the “newness” of the approach? I also question the use of “new” in line 133 – this seems to be a standard approach to impact assessment?

Fig 4 – This is a nice way to present the information. Are your “freelancers” being that they are defined on an economic contradicting basis as private sector rather than public sector? And in general, why have the broader private sector been excluded from the “experts” as  they have substantial expertise and you risk creating a non-inclusive process?

Line 457 – the “limited cost” was to you, but clearly the institutional cost was higher due to the staff time, travel costs bourne by the expert's institutions – and also loss of fees for the freelancers. It may not be expensive but to say it is cheap when not including all costs is biased.

Table 1. There are number 357 – 359 in the table under governance – which are line numbers – make sure these are removed prior to publication.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I enjoyed reading this paper. It is well written and apart from a few linguistic points, it has few elements that require change. I have picked up a number of English/grammar/tenses points which I hope are useful (see below), but I would suggest a further read through will highlight others I have not included. I would also suggest a review of all illustrative material, as the quality provided in this proof was not high, and it has rendered some of the material unreadable.

More generally I have just three comments about issues which are not major but may be usefully considered in a further read through of the work:

1. The work you outline in the paper is a very specific approach to defining the biodiversity and ecosystems issues and potential adaptation measures within a bounded area, and then incorporating these into a strategy document (?). Reading through the paper it is sometimes slightly confusing as you appear, in places, to use policy, strategy and the process of defining issues and adaptation measures interchangeably. They are quite separate, although obviously highly interlinked process actions.
2. I have not looked at the Piedmont Region plans, and it may be that this has defined your ‘sectors’, but I would normally expect biodiversity and ecosystems to be cross cutting themes – rather than defined as sectors in a similar vein to ‘agriculture’?
3. A minor point but the phrase ‘working tables’ feels a little clumsy in this context. It is of course visually very clear but I wonder if work groups, or similar, may be more relevant, especially as some contributions were made online.

 

And just one final thought – and not one for the paper! I am impressed that you achieved such a high number of online participants. I would be interested to know if you attempted to gain feedback through online voting or comment. It’s something I feel is difficult to make meaningful but could be used to expand community input rather than just disseminating ‘an outcome’.

General points

Ln 30-31:  would it be helpful to note you are working on the Piedmont ‘biodiversity and ecosystems Adaptation’ Strategy

Ln 118-119- policy or strategy?! Here you note you are focused on policy (underpinning principles) rather than strategy – is this correct – or are you doing both?

Ln 162 – suggest Differently replaced with ‘Unlike some EU’

Ln173 – are these sectors? See note above

Ln 176 – dangerous industries is an unusual phrase – do you  mean ‘ highly polluting’ or ?

Ln 178 – check if comma required after ‘analyzed’

Ln 178 – in order to achieve adaptation is a not correct – are you suggesting in order to recommend adaptation measures? Do you need comma after this phrases

Ln 183  - comma after altitude

Ln 185 – On the other hand is rather a colloquial phase for the paper

Ln 193 – missing ‘and’ between the ibexs

Ln 193 – suggest full stop after refs 45,46.  – Analyses have also been carried out

Ln 203- start of sentence ‘we involved’ worth reviewing

Ln 207 start of line  - review English

Ln 209-10- review English

Ln 214 – tense used  - have been or were?

Ln – 222-224 – you state you have split experts into two groups based on topic – you note efficiency – is that the only reason?

Ln 239 – not sure I understand what formed in a ‘heterogeneous way’ means

Ln 241 – again question tense used – have been or were?

Ln 234 – billboard is generally used in English to describe a large advertising hoarding. I don’t think this is what you are referring to? – see also ln 274

Ln 321 – 331 – was there any evaluation by the experts of the macro-categories selected?

Ln 356 – top of table, line numbering appears  - could just be a proof issue?

Ln 360  - graph – helpful if the key could be in the same order as the earlier list of macro-categories provided in the table

Ln 380 – you could make clearer to whom the  78% and 22% refer to

Ln 439-440 – please clarity/check English  for ‘three times the suggestions’.

Ln 464 – ‘complex decision problems’ is an odd phrase and not quite clear what it means?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the well targeted review which has fully addressed the points made previously.