Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting study examining the temperature differences created by Living Walls. It describes a three year long experiment to ascertain the cooling effect of LWs, the kind of plants to be used and how to measure temperature elaborately. However, there are serious issues.

1. The paper is too long.

2. It is written in the first person using 'we did this' and 'we did that'. This makes the experiment and its findings very personal. Given the fact that scientific experiments are expected to reveal objective truths, this personalization of the experimentation and its presentation is very problematic. It is understood that people are involved in setting up and recording measurements in experiments. However, in positivistic science, personal involvements and biases must be eliminated as much as possible. The language used in this paper works in the opposite direction. It is suggested that the paper is written in passive voice. 

To give you an example from what I am doing here, although this review is written by a person, it will not be written as 'I  do not like what you are doing', I have a problem with your paper' and so on. If it is written in that manner, that will bring me in conflict with you instead of my ideas scrutinizing the ideas expressed in the paper.   

This personalization in fact has affected the conclusions drawn and explanations of the findings. That is why it is really problematic.

3. Often, the results are explained with apological tones and with apologizing reasons.

We had only a small number of temperature sensors available and could only measure a certain number of plants and positions. (lines 300-301). This is apologetic. In a massive study spanning 3 years, such an explanation is unacceptable.

It says "We strongly recommend using appropriate TA sensors to minimize such errors, particularly those placed at a distance from LWs". This shows that the experiment did not use appropriate sensors. Any justification why? it is obvious that an experiment must use the appropriate sensors to begin with.

It also says "It is possible that our setups and the chosen measurement period in which we compared the exposures were not well chosen. In future experiments, all experimental walls should be compared at the same time and over a longer time. These indicate that the experiment has not been well set up.

It says "We could only measure a small number of plant species or variants simultaneously. Our results do not provide a conclusive explanation for the different temperatures observed. It is not clear why they are reported here in such a long article. Many such issues can be raised in this paper which questions the very foundation of this experiment.

4. There is also a lack of consistency.  The paper had a very clear objective which is stated at the introduction. However, it is apologetic why this was not achievable.

This article is about the cooling effect of LW in an urban space, i.e., an urban environment or street space (line 45-46).

Then it goes on to say

"In general, it should be noted that our experimental walls are not situated in an urban environment. They are located in research areas where several plants and trees are present. There are plastic panels in front of the experimental walls, and in front of the south wall is mypex foil, which heats up. 

As a scientific experiment, this is unacceptable. If the experiment was intended to measure the cooling effect in an urban space and then set the experiment up in a non-urban space, it cannot be considered a serious scientific experiment. To give you an example, if an experiment was supposed to be set up to examine the effect of a drug on elderly people, and then it was administered to young people, instead of the elderly, then no serious conclusion can be made about the reactions of the elderly from such an experiment. This is the same.

5. Conclusions are inconclusive. 

It starts with the following statement.

The main aim of our study, started in 2017, was to describe how we could measure temperature in LWs, to determine which factors influence temperature and its measurement, what conditions plants have to deal with in an LW, and which cooling effect an LW could provide. (Lines 114-116).

Strangely, it says in the discussion "After analyzing all our results, we aimed to determine if a LW has a cooling effect" (Line 454). This does not make any sense. If the aim was to determine if a LW had a cooling effect, then its is assumed that the analysis should have been to determine this. However, only after analyzing the results, the authors decided to determine if there is a cooling effect. There is a question as to what the analysis was about.

In the discussion, it says "Our findings did not achieve the temperature cooling effects described in previous studies [6]. Generally, we could only detect the cooling effect on a microclimatic scale. We observed several differences between the variants, exposures, plant species, and distances  from the wall. (lines 469-471)

This is in the context of the introduction discussing a number of studies that have recorded and confirmed cooling effects of LWs. It thus suggests that it is more useful to rely on the research that have been conducted by others reported in this paper itself.

It says "While some studies describe the cooling potential of vertical greenery, it is not yet clear how an LW needs to be configured to achieve a great cooling effect. This is after a 3 year sophisticated study reported here.

6. Conclusions are trivial.

Conclusion No. 1 says "Temperature categories and calculation of Tdiffs based on TA are useful when seasonal variations are not too far apart (Line 482)

Conclusion No 2 says "We recommend using radiation-protected TA sensors to minimize radiation errors". This is obvious and does not need a 3 year study to decide that using radiation-protected TA sensors minimize radiation errors.

Others are similar. 

There are no conclusions about the cooling effect of LWS at all. The objective of the experiment was, as mentioned "This article is about the cooling effect of LW in an urban space, i.e., an urban environment or street space (line 45-46) and "The main aim of our study, started in 2017, was to describe how we could measure temperature in LWs, to determine which factors influence temperature and its measurement, what conditions plants have to deal with in an LW, and which cooling effect an LW could provide. (Lines 114-116).

This review shows clearly that, despite an expensive 3-year long experiment written in such a lengthy manner, the paper does not contribute much to our understanding of the cooling effects of Living Walls.

 

 

This point has already been raised in the previous section 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Living walls  - very interesting topic worth of continuation especially due to results which have been obtained. The disscussed conclussions  show that further research is needed. The authors correctly indicate the areas of further research (longer term research which is needed to investigate the temperature effects of individual plant species and the impact of irrigation and substrat selection) .
The work is properly prepared but also is very rich in results and very extensive, which may be difficult to read the article, which is usually a more compact form.

Author Response

Thank you very much for the feedback and the positive evaluation of our article. 
We know that the article is very extensive, but it is difficult for us to shorten it. If you see the need for us to shorten the article - could you give us some tips on what is not important?

Reviewer 3 Report

This study chosen a textile-based LW system with high water demand and plants from a wet/fresh habitat. The experimental setup included four experimental walls and the plant choice was divided into three plant mix variants. This study measured the temperature with sensors and a thermal imaging (IR) camera in different setups. The results of this study may contribute to determine which factors influence temperature in LWs. However, there are some concerns that the authors should address before it can be considered for publication.

(1) I suggest the authors clarify the significance of this study in the abstract.

(2) I suggest the authors carefully check the content of the entire text, such as line 128 " Error! Reference source not found)".

(3) In order to improve logic and readability, it is recommended to further refine the classification in the discussion section, such as 4.1, 4.2, etc.

(4) In order to further highlight the innovation of this article, it is better to compare the results of this study with the differences between other studies.

(5) A paragraph of limitation discussion should be added to clarify the limitation or uncertainty of methods and data including NDVI data (e.g., Kong et al., 2021; Shen et al., 2022) in this current study.

(6) The conclusion is not a simple restatement of the results. The authors should further clarify the contribution of the research results to the research field.

(7) In page 5, the order of Figure 2 and 3.

Evaluation of four image fusion NDVI products against in-situ spectral-measurements over a heterogeneous rice paddy landscape. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2021, 297, 108255.

Vegetation greening, extended growing seasons, and temperature feedbacks in warming temperate grasslands of China. Journal of Climate, 2022, 35, 5103-5117.

Author Response

Thank you for your review! 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has cleverly redefined what it was about; by dropping the earlier claim to urban space. However, one of the fundamental issues still remain. It says that "the main aim of our study, started in 2017, was to describe how we could measure temperature in LWs, to determine which factors influence temperature  and its measurement (only one factor discovered- that is the distance to the  vegetation !!!; no big discovery), what conditions plants have to deal with in an LW (nothing said about this in the conclusion), and which cooling effect an LW could provide (Nothing said about this in the conclusion).  

There are only 2 conclusions that relate vaguely to this aim. They are:

TA had the greatest influence on TV. We could rarely detect the effect of evaporative cooling. It is likely that the temperature effect described for building insulation consists mainly of shading that protects the facade from direct solar radiation. Even if this is the case, the redirection of radiation also affects the climate in urban areas.

Another important factor influencing the TV was the measurement position (distance to the vegetation). The amount of biomass or the plant species had less influence. The exposure showed almost no effect. (This somehow explains one factor: from how far you measure!!!, but this is common sense).

Both these are very insignificant conclusions for such a sophisticated study with charts, graphs and diagrams and years of observing a living wall. The fact that temperature of the air influenced the temperature of the vegetation is no great discovery.   

 

 

English language need improvements.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Issues have been addressed.