Climate Change Impacts on the Road Transport Infrastructure: A Systematic Review on Adaptation Measures

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for your article with the extensive literature review.

My major concerns relate to the relevance and logic of the work.

1) In your introduction you exemplify how costs for infrastrutcure maintentance will multiply until 2050 (page 2). The apparent problem, which you do not highlight clearly is the problem of financing risk reduction in the future - finding the money for the adaptation. You mention risk reduction practices and management initiatives to increase reslience. In your literature search  focus is on technical innovation. You have not shown that this is the problem.

The results summarised in Table 3 deal mainly with technical solutions. 

2) From research results to recommendations. ON page 15 there is a section starting: "As a first step, decision-makers should develop ... "

There is no logical link from your research findings to your recommendations. The method you have used to go from your review to analysing data leading to recommendations is missing. I cannot see that you based on the work done can do the recommenations you propose. Try to clarify and modify.

3) You use many figures (2-15) to present your results which basically is good for describing the current status of research on road transport infrastructure adaptation measures. For me it is not clear what all of the figures can be used for. How could other researchers benefit from the results. When presenting the figures it would be good if you could clarify how the results could contribute to our knowledge and to further research. There is a certain techno-warning here using data-presentation programs for the sake of using the programs.

4) You might want to review conclusions to be more specific on the contributions you have made and suggestions for future research

In the attached manuscript I made som further comments and marked some minor issues

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We would like to thank the editor for the handling of the paper and the reviewer for the careful reading and valuable comments and suggestions. The changes implemented in the paper to respond to the evaluators' comments are in blue and the answers to each question are presented in file in attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Only one of these two keywords "systematic review" and "bibliometric approach" should be remained, as these keywords almost share the same meaning.

There many databases in WOS, and which databases have been choosen in this research. In most relevant researches, WOS core collections have been choosen as the main data sources, the authors should also clarified the data sources.

The current data has been got in January 2 this year, which should be updated.

Figure 1 is not clear.

The data used in table 2 is confusing. "3,251' means 3 thounsand 2 hundred and 51. The right one should be 3.251.

Figure 5 is not clear and contains little information which shou be deleted or replaced by one or two sentences of introduction.

Each sub-figures should have names.

Serious errors which must be revised! Taiwan province of China has not been contained in China. It's a commen sence that Taiwan is a part of China.

Table 3 should be clarified. The current version is not reader-friendly.

Supplementary Materials and Author Contributions sections should be added.

Author Response

We would like to thank the editor for the handling of the paper and the reviewer for the careful reading and valuable comments and suggestions. The changes implemented in the paper to respond to the evaluators' comments are in blue and the answers to each question are presented in file in attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the revisions and improvements.

I find that the paper reads well and have no major comments. I have two minor ones:

1) Check language in Abstract once more. This is what will be mostly read and needs to be very good. I have made some comments in the attached manuscript.

2) Pictures should be readable in paper format. The text in pictures should not be much smaller than what the main text is. I am particularly thinking about figures 8, 9, 10, 13 (the dot points), 14?, 15.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We would like to thank the editor for the handling of the paper and the reviewer for the careful reading and valuable comments and suggestions. The answers are in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

All my suggestions have been well tackled, and the serious errors have been revised.

Author Response

We would like to thank the editor for the handling of the paper and the reviewer for the careful reading and valuable comments and suggestions. The answers are in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx