Morphodiversity as a Tool in Geoconservation: A Case Study in a Mountain Area (Pieniny Mts, Poland)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for all affords made in the manuscript that help readers to follow the thoughts presented in this research. You as the authors of the manuscript raised an important and hot topic in morphodiversity as an indicator of geoconservation in mountainous areas. I believe that it is one of the interesting topics. However, I have several doubts concerning this manuscript which in details are given as the attached Pdf file.
Regards
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Dear Editor
Some points are important to emphasize: although English is not my native language either, it is notable that there is some verb conjugations and general terms need revision by the authors.
Regards
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, several issues are related to geoconservation and they are not always easy to outline. In its current form, the paper needs substantial re-editing. I consider data analysis interesting, and an inaccurate introduction could belittle the paper. . Here are some suggestions for the re editing.
References present in the introduction part represent a small number compared to the large amount of publications available, some are generic and refer to a broad context as 7 Barrow, C. J. Environmental Management: Principles and Practice; Routledge environmental management series; Routledge: London ; New York, 1999., concerning general concepts on Environmental Management and not on specific concepts of geoconservation. Below you will find a list of basic works.
The geological map, and its description, currently present in the Discussion paragraph, should be moved to the beginning of the text, after or before Fig. 1, to give a more complete background of the study area.
I suggest to move the explanation about the choice of the hexagonal cell model for the determination of statistical zones, in Materials and Methods paragraph; I would suggest to add a short sentence also in the introduction.
A geodiversity map of the studied area is not presented, as in Chrobak A, Novotný J and Struś P (2021) Geodiversity Assessment as a First Step in Designating Areas of Geotourism Potential. Case Study: Western Carpathians. Front. Earth Sci. 9:752669. doi: 10.3389/feart.2021.752669; this paper is not mentioned. I suggest to insert a map of geodiversity, or at least refer to this paper.
In Table 1 the categories of Table 2 are indicated, for ease of reading, I suggest to consider moving Table 2 and its paragraph before Table 1, and re-editing everything in a single paragraph.
In the references the access to the on line papers is indicated as (accessed 2023-06-15/16), I am sure that the papers mentioned have been viewed before, please check the dates.
Some basic concepts are unclear in the text, some sentences are incorrect or unclear. Here are some examples.
Lines 71-74 “Morphology is the result of continuously occurring geological processes, such as tectonics, accumulation, weathering, erosion, and others. Therefore, it depends on geological structure, the character of vegetation cover, water relations, and the prevailing cli matic conditions.”, landforms depend on the geological structures and outcropping lithologies, not on the type of vegetation cover
Lines 77-79 “Recognition of qualitative and quantitative features describing terrain relief is crucial for understanding the processes shaping the landscape.”, do you refer to Florinsky I. 2012. Digital Terrain Analysis in Soil Science and Geology. Elsevier Academic Press: Oxford, UK.? in this case the refrence must be added, otherwise it is necessary to specify what do you mean
Line 84 “When choosing a method for describing morphodiversity, the scale of the study is of secondary importance.”. Is this sentence your consideration (in this case it should be specified) or are you referring to previous papers (in this case they should be mentioned)? Personally, I believe that the study scale is of fundamental importance in the definition and description of the elements that contribute to site's geodiversity and in the definition and description of its morphodiversity.
Lines 87-89 ”Serrano & Ruiz-Flaño [36,37] describe morphodiversity as the presence of appropriate elements of terrain relief, morphogenic systems, processes, erosional and accumulative forms, and microstructures.” The authors describe geodiversity, not morphodiversity.
Line 89-91 “Thomas [38], on the other hand, divides the sources of morphological diversity into those resulting from geological heritage, morphogenetic processes, and the evolution of terrain relief.” Sorry, I didn't understand the meaning of this sentence and I don't find any confirmation in the cited paper. I suggest to rewrite the sentence.
Lines 102-103 “Najwer et al. [43] use a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) to assess the diversity of terrain relief and fragmentation of basic terrain forms.” I suggest reading this work, related to the topic, Siervo V., Pescatore E., Giano S.I. (2023) – Geomorphic analysis and semi‑automated landforms extraction in diferent natural landscapes, Environmental Earth Sciences (2023) 82:128 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-10823-4
line 164 “klippes”, klippe is not an English term, it is a German term, the correct plural term is klippen
Line 220 “Geodiversity, and subsequently morphodiversity, are evaluated at the level of the entire landscape or its parts (statistical zones)”, I don't find references to the evaluation of geodiversity in the text, only to morphometric parameters
line 253 Table 1 “Hipsometry” Hypsometry
line 316- 319 “(2)……(3)…..(4)” the mentioned equations are present in Table 3, please insert the reference to Table 3
• Sharples C. (1993) - A Methodology for the Identification of Significant Landforms and Geological Sites for Geoconservation Purposes. A report to: The Forestry Commission, Tasmania, <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Sharples-2/publication/266617978_A_Methodology_for_the_Identification_of_Significant_Landforms_and_Geological_Sites_for_Geoconservation_Purposes/links/5435db450cf2dc341db2d2a3/A-Methodology-for-the-Identification-of-Significant-Landforms-and-Geological-Sites-for-Geoconservation-Purposes.pdf>
• O’Halloran D., Green C., Harley M., Stanley M. & Knil J. (eds) (1994) - Geological and Landscape Conservation. Proceedings of the Malvern International Conference 1993. Geological Society, London, UK.
• Cleal, C.J., Thomas, B.A., Bevins, R.E. & Wimbledon, W.A.P. (1999). GEOSITES an international geoconservation initiative. Geology Today , 15: 64-68.
• Pescatore, E.; Bentivenga, M.; Giano, S.I. (2023) - Geoheritage and Geoconservation: Some Remarks and Considerations. Sustainability, 15, 5823. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15075823
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper is strong in terms of showing the role of different methods in the assessment of geomorphodiversity in order to delimit spatial forms of nature conservation. The methodology is very well applied and explained, and supports the discussions and conclusions. The paper is well illustrated, with a good use of necessary references, and well written. Overall, it is a good contribution to quantitative discussions on geodiversity.
Two general considerations can be made. First, the title and the text should use the word “geomorphodiversity", in place of “morphodiversity” (morphodiversity can be anything, not necessarily geoforms or relief). Second, the authors should pay attention to the way of editing quote marks.
In addition, there are some other comments, that we ask the authors to pay attention:
Line 39 – Geodiversity, following many authors, also includes hydrodiversity and climadiversity.
Line 142 – Figure 1: it is necessary to show Poland in the European map.
Line 221 – It is not clear what is difficult to conceptualize.
Line 251 - It is not clear what the acronyms want to stand for.
Line 283 – source of the information “azimuth of Carpathian Ridge”?
Line 614 – This is questionable, because geomorphodiversity is linked to abiotic elements. The authors may need to better explain this choice.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors, I find your paper interesting and read it with great pleasure. I will gladly follow your next publications on this topic. Wishing you best regards and all the best.
