Corridors Construction and Development Strategies for Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Study about the Yangtze River Economic Belt
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Please find attached my comments and observations for your paper. I think it needs some Minor Revisions. See the attached .pdf document. I would like to see the revised version of the manuscript.
Kind regards.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper discusses the spatial distribution characteristics of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, to study the suitability of construction of ICH corridors of the study area. The applied methodology combines the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model and the ArcGIS spatial analysis tool to analyze the location of heritage corridor in the study area.
The need for an integrated approach to ICH protection within the planning and development strategies (at regional and national level) is widely recognized as a priority for policy making. The spatialization of 10 categories of ICH items is a relevant effort, even if well supported by a robust source such as the List of Representative National Intangible Cultural Heritage Items (https://www.ihchina.cn/). The methodologies have been correctly applied to capture the spatial distribution and the resistance factors related to the land use and physical characteristics of the study area.
However, to measure the suitability of heritage leisure and protection activities in a certain area and to design possible thematic corridors and cross-provincial cultural exchanges and communication a more complex approach is needed.
The paper recognize that the intangibility of ICH means that its transmission and development requires human beings as carrier, focusing the analysis to the population distribution and land use. This approach appears limited and unaware of the need for a consistent understanding of the historical stratification and intangible reasons that led to the current ICH distribution and typologies.
The deterministic linear process of spatialization needs to be supported by a robust interpretation of the historically stratified social and cultural environment and can be integrated by qualitative in-dept analysis in order to offer the adequate support to a regional collaborative protection mechanism of ICH into the national major strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
The “collaborative” part has been completely discarded from the research process.
Possible references:
Daldanise, G. (2020). From place-branding to community-branding: A collaborative decision-making process for cultural heritage enhancement. Sustainability, 12(24), 10399.
Li, J., Krishnamurthy, S., Roders, A. P., & Van Wesemael, P. (2020). Community participation in cultural heritage management: A systematic literature review comparing Chinese and international practices. Cities, 96, 102476.
Ott, M., Dagnino, F. M., & Pozzi, F. (2015). Intangible cultural heritage: Towards collaborative planning of educational interventions. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 1314-1319.
Hirsenberger, H., Ranogajec, J., Vucetic, S., Lalic, B., & Gracanin, D. (2019). Collaborative projects in cultural heritage conservation–management challenges and risks. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 37, 215-224.
However, the spatial analysis and the resistance assessment can be useful as a starting point for understanding the suitability of heritage leisure and protection activities from the topography and land use perspective. Nonetheless, it need to be integrated with historical and social analysis to design an effective cultural corridors system.
I suggest to integrate the literature review with historical analysis of the area, in order to better understand the distribution and trends of ICH in the case study area. It needs to be integrated from the history of settlement perspective and from the civic engagement perspective.
The distribution of heritage corridors outlined needs to be supported by a thorough interpretation of the human factors.
I do not detect language issues
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Authors need to address more references related to MCR. Also, they mentioned that Yu et al. proposed this method for heritage corridor construction, are there similar studies?
2. It would be desirable to better explain the different types of ICH that can be found in the region and their importance.
3. Authors should better explain in the discussion section what is the importance of providing such analysis to the conservation, dissemination and protection of ICH.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
the paper has been adequately updated
Reviewer 3 Report
Authors have properly addressed all the comments raised during the first review. I want to thank them for their explaination and for the current version of their manuscript.
