Is Hazelnut Farming Sustainable? An Analysis in the Specialized Production Area of Viterbo

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article ‘’ How to evaluate the environmental impact of a specialized agricultural system: the case of hazelnut in the province of Viterbo’’ is interested article, however, it require major changes. Moreover the technical, novel side of the paper is very week. Following are the comments for the authors to improve the article. If authors can seriously improve, the article should be considered for evaluation. otherwise it must be rejected. 

Ø  The article title is a general statement, authors are suggested to re-write the title with the research impact and novelty perspective.

Ø  Please remove extra words from the title like ‘How to evaluate’. Also title is very generic.

Ø  The title in the online system and word file is different. It seems authors have not properly proofread the article before submission.

Ø  A lot of research is going on environmental impact of agriculture system. How authors claim the new aspect for the need of this publication?

Ø  Problem statement should be mentioned at the start of the abstract, it is totally missing.

Ø  What is the base of selection of the case of this particular province? Authors should define some specific criteria. Is it the scenario of the whole province? If not, please remove from title.

Ø  Cumulative references should be avoided i.e. [8-11], [12-14], [18-22]. There should be only 1-2 references. Instead of merging references, authors should add more up to date and state of the art literature, if possible.

Ø  Background section should be merged with introduction. It should not be a separate section.

Ø  There is a lot of theory in Materials and Methods section. It should be minimized.

Ø  There are not enough results and also less discussion.

Ø  The whole article including references is only 11 pages, which is less in literature especially up to date literature.

Ø  There should be some statistical figured values in the abstract which can quantify the research / optimization and it can make readership of the journal easy.

Ø  There should be some proper synchronization of the sentences in meaningful way.

Ø  The abstract should also include the solution of the problem based on the problem statement with some particular application/s.

Ø  There are few old references, authors are encouraged to add latest literature.

Ø  Conclusion section should only focus on the conclusion of the research.

Moderate editing of English language

Author Response

Please find our answers to your comments on the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The MS is not a well-structured one. There is no line number. It is very tough to review an article without having any line numbers. Moreover, the article needs considerable revision before getting considered for publication, in my view. The followings are the recommendations:

1. In the abstract, mention the need of the study before stating the aim/ objectives of the study. Why did the authors perform this research ?

2. It is not a correct way to write the abstract. Rewrite this part as follows: mention the need of the study, aim, brief methodology, most significant result and the possible recommendation. 

3. Why Introduction and background are written separately? Both these parts can be merged together.

4.  The authors are advised to delete the >15 years old references. 

5. Such an irrelevant introduction and background illustration! Rewrite this part completely. Try to state the importance of the study and present research gap. What are the novelty of the study? 

6. When the research was taken place? Where? Nothing was mentioned in the methodology part. 

7. How did the authors measure the ecological footprint? The authors must mention the detailed methodology so that future readers can use the methodology after reading this article.

8. Discussion part must be written referencing the results obtained with suitable reference citations.

9. How did the authors compare the data? Was there any methodology adopted or its just a data generation kind of work? 

10. The conclusion part is more elaborative than the discussion part. It is not desirable at all. In the conclusion section, you must mention the most significant result with possible recommendation. 

Author Response

Please find our answers to your comments on the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The study analysed the environmental impact of the hazelnut farming system using Ecological Footprint methodology in the province of Viterbo, Italy. 

Section '2. Background' should be extended and rewritten to provide a short review of relevant literature on the topic.

All hypotheses tested should be added.

The methodology of the study is not new. Conclusions should be extended with policy implications, limitations and future research directions.

The article should be formatted in line with the journal's guidelines.

Author Response

Please find our answers to your comments on the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

comments for the authors to improve the article were given in 1st round with the condition that ''If authors can seriously improve, the article should be considered for evaluation. otherwise it must be rejected''. I do not find the satisfaction in addressing the comments. Also, the paper is not as per research paper structure. Results are not properly analzsed and discussed. The overall length is also very less. Hence, the paper should not be considered for publication in this journal. 

language structure and spell issues 

Author Response

Dear Referee, we thank you for your time and your comments. Many of your suggestions have been implemented in the new version of the manuscript. Indeed, we changed the title, we revised the abstract to better clarify the problem statement, we also try to better described the criteria for the selection of the study area; background and introduction have been merged and deeply revised, results description has been integrated with a table and the discussion section has been amplified. While appreciating your point of view, we cannot modify further in that direction without distorting the content of the paper, so we ask the Editor to take the final decision about the eventual publication.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors revised the article well as per the recommendation given and this article may be accepted now. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestions that certainly helped us improving the manuscript. Kind regards, Barbara Pancino

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the revision. The manuscript improved significantly, therefore, I accept the revised version.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestions that certainly helped us improving the manuscript. Kind regards, Barbara Pancino