The Improvement of User Satisfaction for Two Urban Parks in Dubai, UAE: Bay Avenue Park and Al Ittihad Park

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I congratulate the authors for selecting a high interest topic. for practitioners, researchers in the field but also for the local administration.

Please find below some suggestions for improving the clarity and quality of the paper.

1. The abstract should have at most 250 words (293 currently)
2. The first lines of Matherials and Methods (lines 76-106) are more related to the motivation of the study, maybe they should be moved or considered as a sub-section of the Introduction.
3. Methods must be more clearly described. For instance, the selection criteria for the 20, then 10, then 2 parks.  Why these 2 parks are the only one selected? For me Table 1. List of neighbourhoods parks in Dubai, Figures 3 and 5 do not bring value to the paper. In addition, there are not details provided in relation with the discussion process with professors and practioners (line 183). How many meetings? How many professors and practitioners? Where are they coming from? Are they experts in the field? Why these people are selected to draft the questionnaire structure? Moreover, the Analysis Method (lines 194-207) should be more detaled. Further, the methods are spread all over the paper and should be included in this section: line 238 – using the demographic characteristics, especially gender distribution; line 245 – usage patterns; line 251 – means of transportation; factor analysis – line 310; use of multiple regression analysis – line 359, 404. GIS analysis is mentioned at Discussions and conclusions sections – line 441 but it was not clearly indicated and explained its use in the method, nor results. A graphical summary of the methodology would be useful to improve overall clarity.
4. Better explain sentences in lines 135-137 – is the highest ratios but how much? How is this affecting the research?
5. Pay attention to some sentences/phrases which have to be more clear. E.g.Lines 467-469

Author Response

Dear respectful reviewer,

Thank you very much for your feedback.

We did our best to reflect your recomendation on our revisions.

Best regards,

CJ

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have reviewed the manuscript entitled “The improvement of user satisfaction for two urban parks in Dubai, UAE_Bay Avenue park and AI Ittihad Park”. The paper has a potential, if the following comments are properly addressed in the revised version.

• I think the paper offers an interesting analysis and topic is suitable for Sustainability. However, in its current form, it is insufficient in terms of addressing new theoretical arguments, containing sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge from the international perspective, and discussing implications for urban policies beyond the local case. Accordingly, I think the authors could re-structure to highlight the contribution and the motivation of the paper.
• The authors should add more literature review on theoretical and methodological approaches of the park users’ behavior and satisfaction (both qualitative and quantitative approaches). Also, please address what is the gap in the literature found by the authors.
• In terms of theoretical background, there is a stimulus-response theory which is an environmental psychological theory of the process of perception and cognition by which humans respond to environmental stimuli. Please refer to the following references. With theoretical concepts, the paper can be restructured to highlight its academic contributions in the literature.

Russell, J. A., & Lanius, U. F. (1984). Adaptation level and the affective appraisal of environments. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 4(2), 119-135.

Rapoport, A. (2016). Human aspects of urban form: towards a man—environment approach to urban form and design. Elsevier.

• Another issue that may be controversial is that the authors use inconsistent PCAs to compare Bay Avenue park and AI Ittihad Park. For example, Factor 1(Access environment) for Bay Avenue Park includes ‘safe environment’ and ‘level of slopes’ items, whereas those items are included in the different PCA Factor1(Park facilities) and Factor5(Safe Access) for AI Ittihad Park. This further complicates the explanation.
• The authors may use Factor analysis for combined data both for Bay Avenu park and AI Itthad Park, and thus they can have the same structure of PCA. Otherwise, PCA should be named differently and it’s not comparable as the same factors.
• I think the users (respondents) of both parks (Bay Avenue park and AI Itthad Park) are different. To compare the Multiple regression analysis results, the models should include demographic variables of respondents in both parks such as the variables of occupation, gender, age, purpose of trip, and their preferences of walking attitude things.
• Another main issue is the transferability of results; that is, whether the findings are applicable beyond those two parks in Dubai, UAE? The authors should make clear whether or not the results are expected to be transferable. The authors should be clear which of their findings they expect to be specific to two parks in Dubai, versus which they expect to be transferable to other cities (if so, how similar to Dubai does a city have to be for the findings to apply)?

Author Response

Dear respectful reviewer,

Thank you very much for your feedback.

We did our best to reflect your recomendation on our revisions.

Best regards,

CJ

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper is well composed, the structure is correct, and the basic argument is very interesting. My recommendation is to discuss more the problems of the method and directions in previous relative studies (in the introduction part). I also recommend adding a literature review part, adequate and current, where authors could discuss examples in other places or other parks, and references focused on urban parks morphology characteristics.

I indicate three articles to be considered as incorporation to the text:

1. Ayala-Azcárraga, C., Diaz, D., & Zambrano, L. (2019). Characteristics of urban parks and their relation to user well-being. Landscape and urban planning, 189, 27-35.
2. Anastasiou, E., & Manika, S. (2020). Perceptions, Determinants and Residential Satisfaction from Urban Open Spaces. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8(06), 1.
3. Liu, R., & Xiao, J. (2021). Factors affecting users’ satisfaction with urban parks through online comments data: evidence from Shenzhen, China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(1), 253.

I think that the authors could explain more the limitations of this research.

Kind regards

Author Response

Dear respectful reviewer,

Thank you very much for your feedback.

We did our best to reflect your recomendation on our revisions.

Best regards,

CJ

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Good luck with your research!

Author Response

Dear respectful reviewer,

Thank you very much for your productive feedback.

We really appreciate it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

You have addressed the issues raised to  some  extend.

Author Response

Dear respectful reviewer,

Thank you very much for your productive feedback.

We really appreciate it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, 

I appreciate most of your changes and they lead to a now complete and significant contribution.

Kind regards,

Author Response

Dear respectful reviewer,

Thank you very much for your productive feedback.

We really appreciate it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf