Towards Adaptive Governance of Urban Nature-Based Solutions in Europe and Latin America—A Qualitative Exploratory Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have several general recommendations.

The abstract can be written more effectively by dividing long sentences into small sentences. (i) and (ii) must be separate by a '';''. 

 In the introduction section, objectives and issues are not so clear, I suggest some a separate Table with all abbreviations used in the text. 

I feel that section 2 must be part of the Introduction. Also a short paragraph about the content of the Sections, started with ,,The paper is organized as follows'' should be add

 A chart of methodology should be added and explained in the methodology section. The Research phases could be improved.

Figure 2 is difficult to read, I suggest to increase the font of the description.

I also suggest slightly deeply explanation of the differences between Figure 3 and Figure 4, and Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively.

The Conclusion section is well written but I recommend to stress on the novelties and the future work. Conclusion can be written more effectively and adequately summarize the whole work.

Check the whole manuscript for punctuation and style errors, for example there is a strange dot before 5.1 Common pathway. Also Section 4.1 start with 16 it is better to start with ''There are 16 factors...''

Serious drawback of the literature is that there are only a few references from 2022. For example when you talk about environment and air quality on line 2 of page 2 and environmental planning on line 10, I suggest to add some  works from 2022:

Todorov, V.; Dimov, I. Innovative Digital Stochastic Methods for Multidimensional Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. Mathematics 2022, 10, 2146. https://doi.org/10.3390/math10122146

Todorov, V., Dimov, I., Ostromsky, T., Zlatev, Z., Georgieva, R., Poryazov, S. (2022). Optimized Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods Based on Van der Corput Sequence for Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. In: Fidanova, S. (eds) Recent Advances in Computational Optimization. WCO 2020. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 986. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82397-9_20

Vojvodíková, B.; Tichá, I.; Starzewska-Sikorska, A. Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Spaces in the Context of the Sense of Danger That Citizens May Feel. Land 2022, 11, 1712. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101712

Kasinathan, P.; Pugazhendhi, R.; Elavarasan, R.M.; Ramachandaramurthy, V.K.; Ramanathan, V.; Subramanian, S.; Kumar, S.; Nandhagopal, K.; Raghavan, R.R.V.; Rangasamy, S.; Devendiran, R.; Alsharif, M.H. Realization of Sustainable Development Goals with Disruptive Technologies by Integrating Industry 5.0, Society 5.0, Smart Cities and Villages. Sustainability 2022, 14, 15258. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142215258

I recommend addressing all the issues, updating the manuscript and accepting after this.

Author Response

REVIEWER COMMENTS with ANSWERS

I have several general recommendations.

C1: The abstract can be written more effectively by dividing long sentences into small sentences. (i) and (ii) must be separated by a '';''. 

A1: Thank you for your suggestion. We have corrected the abstract accordingly.

C2: In the introduction section, objectives and issues are not so clear, I suggest some separate Table with all abbreviations used in the text. 

A2: Thank you for your suggestion. We have reviewed the introduction and the objectives to make them clearer. We also reviewed the manuscript for abbreviations and reduced them for clarity. For instance, EU and LA are now always Europe and Latin America. ES are now always written in its long form: ecosystem services, and so on.

C3: I feel that section 2 must be part of the Introduction. Also a short paragraph about the content of the Sections, started with ,,The paper is organized as follows'' should be add

A3: A section at the end of the introduction stating how the paper was organised was added. However, we still decided to keep the Introduction and the section 2 on Adaptive Governance of NBS separately. We found that in this way the manuscript is more balanced, in particular after other reviewers' comments asking for some additional text in both sections. 

C4: A chart of methodology should be added and explained in the methodology section. The Research phases could be improved.

A4: Thank you for your suggestion. We have ameliorated the methodology section adding information to clarify the content and we have added a chart of methodology. 

C5: Figure 2 is difficult to read, I suggest to increase the font of the description.

A5: Thank you for your suggestion. We have changed the font accordingly. 

C6: I also suggest slightly deeply explanation of the differences between Figure 3 and Figure 4, and Figure 5 and Figure 6 respectively.

A6: A comparison of the results are made throughout that section, and it is further discussed in the discussion section. This was improved with the texts and a clarification was added in the beginning of the results Section. See the first paragraph of the results section.

C7: The Conclusion section is well written but I recommend to stress on the novelties and the future work. Conclusion can be written more effectively and adequately summarize the whole work.

A7: Thank you for highlighting this. We have reviewed and adapted the conclusion accordingly.

C8: Check the whole manuscript for punctuation and style errors, for example there is a strange dot before 5.1 Common pathway. Also Section 4.1 start with 16 it is better to start with ''There are 16 factors...''

A8: Thank you for your comment. We have reviewed the text ourselves and then submitted the manuscript through an English editing for final check and correction.  

C9: Serious drawback of the literature is that there are only a few references from 2022. For example when you talk about environment and air quality on line 2 of page 2 and environmental planning on line 10, I suggest to add some works from 2022:

"Todorov, V.; Dimov, I. Innovative Digital Stochastic Methods for Multidimensional Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. Mathematics 2022, 10, 2146. https://doi.org/10.3390/math10122146

Todorov, V., Dimov, I., Ostromsky, T., Zlatev, Z., Georgieva, R., Poryazov, S. (2022). Optimized Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods Based on Van der Corput Sequence for Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. In: Fidanova, S. (eds) Recent Advances in Computational Optimization. WCO 2020. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 986. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82397-9_20

Vojvodíková, B.; Tichá, I.; Starzewska-Sikorska, A. Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Spaces in the Context of the Sense of Danger That Citizens May Feel. Land 2022, 11, 1712. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101712

Kasinathan, P.; Pugazhendhi, R.; Elavarasan, R.M.; Ramachandaramurthy, V.K.; Ramanathan, V.; Subramanian, S.; Kumar, S.; Nandhagopal, K.; Raghavan, R.R.V.; Rangasamy, S.; Devendiran, R.; Alsharif, M.H. Realization of Sustainable Development Goals with Disruptive Technologies by Integrating Industry 5.0, Society 5.0, Smart Cities and Villages. Sustainability 2022, 14, 15258. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142215258"

A9: Dear Reviewer, we have reviewed our entire references and added more and newer literature to the manuscript, in particular when we discuss environment and air quality as you suggested. They are distributed throughout the text. Please refer to the references sections to see the updated list of references.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors!

 

You have studied a very important issue in your research. 

The research is well structured. 

The methods used are appropriate. 

Adaptive governance using Nature-based Solutions could be one of the solutions to combat climate change.  

 

The conditions for this and the conditions for its application are well illustrated by your studies.

Congratulations!

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thank you for your revision, we are happy to have received your feedback. Just regarding your general comments which state that the arguments and discussion of findings can be improved, we would like to inform you that we have revised this throughout the manuscript. We have rephrased our arguments and objectives for more clarity, added further discussion on the adaptive governance section and rephrased some sections of our discussion while increasing references. Please refer to the 1. Introduction, 2. Adaptive governance and its role in the integration of NBS in the planning process, 5. Discussion sections for the modifications. Thank you again.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is to explore and analyze the operationalization of NBS adaptive governance in the two regions, through seven case studies: Barcelona, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, Santiago de Chile, São Paulo, and Turin, part of the project EU-H2020, CONEXUS.

Due to unclear of how to opertionalise the governance processes for NBS. The work can fill the gap.

One suggestion to authors, maybe they can use qualitative method to do the research to find out the differences amongst them.

 

This manuscript is good for the publication.

Author Response

REVIEWER COMMENT with ANSWER

C1: One suggestion to authors, maybe they can use qualitative method to do the research to find out the differences amongst them.

A1: Thank you for your feedback and consideration. The paper does use a mix of qualitative methods. As this may not have been clear we have reviewed the Materials and Methods sections for clarification and also added a methodology chart for a better visualisation of the methods used. We also would like to add that the manuscript has now undergone an English check and review for the improvement of the text.

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for an interesting contribution to this important field. You will find my detailed comments directly in the attached file, and I recommend you to give your full attention to each point raised in these comments.

Please also note that although certain parts of the manuscript are well written, many of the issues in the comments are likely caused by poor translations from other languages. I therefore recommend you to get support from native English speakers who are sufficiently familiar with the topic and academic perspectives on the questions, since I have not been able to comment on every problem connected to English syntax, terminology and style.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

REVIEWER COMMENTS with ANSWERS

General Comment: Thank you for an interesting contribution to this important field. You will find my detailed comments directly in the attached file, and I recommend you to give your full attention to each point raised in these comments. Please also note that although certain parts of the manuscript are well written, many of the issues in the comments are likely caused by poor translations from other languages. I therefore recommend you to get support from native English speakers who are sufficiently familiar with the topic and academic perspectives on the questions, since I have not been able to comment on every problem connected to English syntax, terminology and style.

General Answer: Dear reviewer, first of all thank you for the very detailed and constructive comments. We agree that in the rush and long period of time working on the manuscript it contained several English mistakes and sentences hard to understand. Therefore we have fully reviewed the text and got support from the MDPI English Editing Service. Those issues should now have been solved and the paper improved. We also would like to highlight that in particular the Materials and Methods and Results sections were deeply reviewed to improve their clarity as you recommended. The Introduction and Adaptive Governance section was reviewed according to your comments to better contextualise the issue addressed and the paper argument. References were reviewed and also added for clarification and better support of the results encountered. All comments referring to the improvement of English were accepted, as well as the large majority of your other comments. We found them quite pertinent and to the point. You can find the detailed answers for your major detailed comments extracted from the PDF below: 

 

Abstract

C1: I recommend not using these abbreviations in the abstract. However, considering that the research is EU-funded and concerns EU member countries (rather than Europe as a continent) you could use… progressing in the European Union (EU) and in Latin America

A1: Thank you for this comment and we agreed not to use the abbreviations. However, we decided for Europe and Latin America, as the European Union refers to a political and economic block while Latin America does not. The equivalent in that cultural region would be CELAC - Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, but since 2020 Brazil is no longer a member this was not an option. That said, we decided to keep Europe and Latin America to better refer to the regional context studied. 

 

C2: Pls replace by: in Europe and Latin America (the term region is used with different meanings).

A2: Agreed. The text has been reviewed to no longer refer to them as a region. 

 

C3: You can paraphrase the objectives for the abstract, to improve clarity and readability.

A3: Agreed, reviewed accordingly. 

 

C4: Before the sentence starting: Findings can … I suggest inserting: XXX, YYY, and ZZZ were notably found to be significant factors. (where you choose what you want to highlight in the abstract).

A4: We would love that, however given the small limit of words allowed in the abstract (maximum of 200), we found that stating our problem addresses, paper objectives, overall approach and relevance was a larger priority than specific results. 

 

C4: Please use more specific and informative keywords, to help interested readers find your publication.

A4: Agreed. Keywords have been updated to: Nature-based Solutions; Prospective Analysis; Urban Planning; Adaptive Governance; Climate-resilient cities; Latin America; Europe.

 

1. Introduction

C5: After these paragraphs outlining benefits of NBS, please add a short section on barriers to adopting NBS in urban settings, together with supporting references. This might include the fact that although NBS deliver multiple benefits to the urban environment as a whole, these benefits cannot necessarily be commercialised to translate into profits for land owners. However, increased liveability and reduced risk of damages through disasters can in certain contexts lead to increased property value, and I think that the insurance sector has also shown interest in NBS, to address the challenges of disaster risks.

A5: Indeed this was a gap in our manuscript. Thank you. The paragraph reflecting this was added. Please see paragraph 3 of the Introduction. 

 

2. Adaptive governance and its role in the integration of NBS in the planning process

C6: After presenting theoretical arguments for adaptive governance and co-management processes offering agency to the private sector, please also present critiques of the approach, since while - depending on the context - public actors may not be acting in the public interest, it is equally obvious that private sector actors seldom have the common good and the interests of urban and semi-urban populations as their core mission. There is substantial evidence over the past decades of how private sector actors, in particular the larger corporations, have blocked environmental regulation and climate action. There also tend to be differences between locally owned business and transnationals, SMEs and large corporations, different industry sectors, etc, while dynamics between private and public actors will depend on power balances, laws and regulations, and the extent to which the personal interests of elected representatives are linked to private sector interests. Private sector interests can also drive corruption, regardless of whether "co-management" practices are formalised or not.

A6: Agreed. A paragraph regarding adaptive governance criticism and shortcomings in practice was added with focus on the dominance of power and lack of a just process that often occurs when powerful actors such as the private sector is involved. Please see paragraph 4, 5 and 6 of this section for the full text.  

 

C7: again, empirically, "power sharing" has over the past decades tended to block environmental regulation and climate action, where additionally strong private interests are able to fund political campaigns and put their preferred representatives in office, to effectively prevent adaptation.

A7: Indeed, there is empirical evidence not only of the power imbalance caused from the private sector but also from other institutions as dominant civil society organisations. However,  there are ways that this can be mitigated and a more fair and democratic adaptive governance enabled. We have added a passage about this issue and what it entails. Please see paragraph 4, 5, and 6 of this section.

 

C8: As remarked above, these statements present a particular representation of particular types of "collective action", which may in certain cases take the form of a "learning environment", but for the reasons outlined above there is a likelihood that many strong private sector actors will above all be motivated to lobby for their own interests, rather than being motivated by learning aimed at improving the urban environment. If certain neighbourhoods may be equipped with NBS to serve gentrification and property prices, private interests are not interested in improving the safety, livability and climate resilience of industrial areas or low-income neighbourhoods.

A8: Please refer to the answer above. The added passage mentioned above addresses this issue. 

 

C9: Please reword the paragraph so that a) it is clear that there are major differences between types of governance models that are "community-based" and those that are based on partnerships between local authorities and powerful industry actors b) since very different perspectives exist within the field, and many standpoints are contested, make it clear which statements concern precisely what, and either add wording such as "certain studies conclude that" or else provide the names of the authors to each of the components in the statements. The synthesis as it stands is misleading, by omitting such significant details.

A9: Thank you for your in depth analysis and arguments. Indeed, there are significant differences between those types of governance. We have added a paragraph in this section elucidating what is meant by adaptive governance within our study and appropriate references have been made. We further agree that the synthesis could have been misleading. Therefore we have decided to exclude this paragraph and conclude the section in a more clear manner. Please see paragraph last paragraph of this section.

 

3. Materials and Methods

C10: This entire section needs substantial development to provide readers with a clear picture of the methodology used and how the various methods of data collection were combined and implemented concretely. I would additionally recommend adding a figure showing the elements and how they interrelate, as well tables to clarify how the different types of data collection were applied across the city case studies.

Please also provide detailed information on the dates and time periods for the different steps of the data collection period. 

A10: Thank you for highlighting this. The section was re-written and substantial information added that 1) better explain the methodology and methods used; 2) allow for the replication of the study. A visual chart summarising the research methodology, methods and procedures was added at the end of the section. In addition further information on dates and periods of data collection as well as the typology of actors involved and selection criteria were added. Please see the first paragraph of subsection 3.1 Data collection. 

 

C11: it is not clear how using standardised questionnaires delivered and collected via email constitutes "participatory workshops" - do you mean consultations or (an iterative sequence of) surveys?

A11: Agreed. It meant an iterative sequence of surveys. This was corrected alongside the addition of more information regarding the method applied. 

 

C12: please note that the terminology and categories used in this part of the methods section do not correspond to the terminology and categories used in section 4.2 and its subsections.

A12: Yes! Thank you for highlighting this and apologies for the confusion. The categories can have two different names depending on which reference was consulted. This was sorted out. One nomenclature for each category was defined and their meaning was also further clarified. The nomenclature was double checked throughout the manuscript for no further mismatches. 

 

4. Results 

C13: NBS are in fact a low cost option in climate adaptation, requiring comparatively low maintenance and operational costs, reducing heating and cooling costs in buildings, preventing several types of disasters, improving water availability and quality, reducing air pollution and ensuing costs for human health etc.

I recommend adding some lines on these aspects in the introductory section where advantages of NBS are mentioned, together with some references.

A13: We agree, and there is indeed substantial evidence regarding this. However here in the results section it was reported the perspective of the actors interviewed, not what was present in the literature. We have clarified this within this section , and added further content regarding this in the Introduction. 

 

C14: I do not understand this sentence at all. What do you mean by incoming scientific knowledge? What do you mean by generation and legislation for the generation?? What is facing privatisation processes? knowledge transfer between which actors or institutions?

A14: Agreed.This sentence was lost in translation. It was re-written and clarified.

 

C15: please review English syntax and grammar in all the figures throughout the manuscript. 

A15: Agreed. Done. 

 

C16: For this section, please revise and reword so that it is consistent with the terminology and categories described in your methodology. Please also revise the section for clarity, readability, syntax and logical coherence.

A16: Agreed. The terminology was revised as mentioned in the detailed answer A12. The section was also further revised for clarity, readability, syntax and logical coherence as suggested. 

 

5. Discussion

C17: What do you mean by emergency??? Do you mean: 

the planetary crisis recognised in global agendas, ...

the planetary emergency recognised ...

the planetary urgency recognised … ??

A17: Apologies, it was a typo. It was now corrected. Please see first paragraph subsection 5.1.1. Legal and institutional framework related factors .

 

6. Conclusion

C18: Here you could use the term local authorities or if you intend to talk about the geographical entity (including the residents), then better to keep cities for all the sections where you describe your own study (and only use municipality or municipalities if you are summarising results from other studies in the literature that do not concern large cities).

A18: Agreed. This was changed accordingly throughout the manuscript. 

 

C19: a) this does not clearly appear in your presentation of results b) in the introduction, it was not clear which type of "power sharing" you are considering, and who is involved (community-based with residents, NGOs, associations and SMEs, or "public and private sector", giving a privileged position to strong industry interests and agendas, or other types that may include the entire catchment or peri-urban areas) - if this conclusion is based on answers to one of the questions in the questionnaires, then it may also not have been clear to respondents which type or model they were being asked about.

A19: Thank you for highlighting this. a) We decided to take out this statement as it was not clear in the results section. b) The meaning of power sharing used was clarified in the Adaptive Governance Section. Please refer to answer A6. 

Reviewer 5 Report

Dear authors,

The paper addresses an important issue, which can be summarized as follows: how can we manage our relations with the natural world, or the other species, in a sustainable mode? In my opinion, the main problem of the paper is related with the 'des-contextualization' of the cases. That is, if we are dealing with nature-based solutions, and if nature-human-societies relations are specific, how can we address the issue in a founded base if we are considering the countries globally, that is, in a continental approach (LA, EU)? This is an structural problem of the paper.  It is too broad and general; it is impossible to conclude anything specific on the territories and their natural base/solutions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thank you for your comment. Yes, nature-based solutions and nature-human-societies relations are context specific. The paper is not looking into comparing two continents but in fact comparing city specific case studies within those two contexts. We do not refer to the regional context as a proxy, we just added a cultural geographical reference to ease the reading of the text. In any case we have updated the introduction and abstract to better explain this approach. Please refer to the Introduction and Methodology sections.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, the comments are given with the best intentions, but the major revision means that you can totally reorganize your paper. The Conclusion is well now, but in the Discussion you should compare your results with other studies and other papers  already published in this field, so you should improve the discussion and import some references concerning the same subject. Although you add more references to the work, none of my suggested references have been cited in your new version, I strongly recommend to cite them in the final version of the manuscript.

Author Response

REVIEWER COMMENTS with ANSWERS

C: Dear authors, the comments are given with the best intentions, but the major revision means that you can totally reorganize your paper. 

A: Dear Reviewer, thank you for your comment. Indeed we did a major revision of our paper in the last revision round. We would like to highlight the list of changes made in the latest version of the manuscript to check if they are adequate to your perspective of reorganisation. 

• Abstract was completely updated and also shortened to fit the required 200 words of the Journal. Also Keywords were changed.

• In the introduction an entire paragraph was added, and the last two paragraphs were largely re-organized and re-written with the addition of a section stating how the paper is structured.

• In the Adaptive Governance section, we indeed decided to keep separately from the introduction given both of their length, we added 2 new paragraphs and completely restructured the last paragraph.

• The methodology was re-structured, with additional information and a methodology chart added as suggested. Figure 2 font was also increased. In this section it is also explained further the chart that resulted in Fig 5 and 6.

• The results were reviewed and the prospect analysis re-written for better clarity, and uniformity of nomenclature throughout the manuscript,

• The Discussion section was reviewed in the first and second round of revisions (please refer to the next answer), with its improvement of references, and comparison of the manuscript results with the literature.

• The conclusion was rewritten to better summarise the study undertaken, its conclusion, relevance and gaps. 

To conclude, the entire manuscript has undergone English Editing provided by MDPI and references were added throughout its sections, to better align our research with the literature.

C: The Conclusion is well now, but in the Discussion you should compare your results with other studies and other papers  already published in this field, so you should improve the discussion and import some references concerning the same subject. 

A: Dear Reviewer, thank you for highlighting this need. We have revised the discussion section to make the comparison of our results with the literature more clear and direct. Please refer to this section. You will see the updates in track change.

C: Although you add more references to the work, none of my suggested references have been cited in your new version, I strongly recommend to cite them in the final version of the manuscript.

A: Dear Reviewer, thank you for your feedback. Indeed we have not added any of the references suggested by you previously, apologies for that. We have now added Vojvodíková, B.; Tichá, I.; Starzewska-Sikorska, A. Implementing Nature-Based Solutions in Urban Spaces in the Context of the Sense of Danger That Citizens May Feel (https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101712), that very interestingly also found the NIMBY phenomena surrounding NBS and the need for more communication and local participation. However the other papers, although interesting papers and state of the art in their fields, were not necessarily found to be pertinent to our current study. More in detail:

1. Todorov, V.; Dimov, I. Innovative Digital Stochastic Methods for Multidimensional Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. Mathematics 2022, 10, 2146. https://doi.org/10.3390/math10122146 

Upon review of this study, we found it interesting, and sensitivity analysis is definitely highly important to the accuracy of large-scale air pollution computational models, but we fail to see how the results and data emerging from this paper fits with the issues of NBS adaptive governance discussed in our study.

1. Todorov, V., Dimov, I., Ostromsky, T., Zlatev, Z., Georgieva, R., Poryazov, S. (2022). Optimized Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods Based on Van der Corput Sequence for Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. In: Fidanova, S. (eds) Recent Advances in Computational Optimization. WCO 2020. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 986. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82397-9_20 - 

Again, although a pioneer and interesting paper, we fail to see how the comparison of the van der Corput sequence and the low discrepancy of Sobol, in air pollution modeling sensitivity analysis relates to NBS adaptive governance issues, and the argument made in our study. Although the reference suggested is a study conducted in several European cities, it is quite technical and encompasses a very specific field. There was no connection (or mentioned) with Nature-based Solutions (in any format) nor with adaptive governance and their issues. 

1. Kasinathan, P.; Pugazhendhi, R.; Elavarasan, R.M.; Ramachandaramurthy, V.K.; Ramanathan, V.; Subramanian, S.; Kumar, S.; Nandhagopal, K.; Raghavan, R.R.V.; Rangasamy, S.; Devendiran, R.; Alsharif, M.H. Realization of Sustainable Development Goals with Disruptive Technologies by Integrating Industry 5.0, Society 5.0, Smart Cities and Villages. Sustainability 2022, 14, 15258. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142215258

Interesting paper, and relevant discussion about the role of disruptive technologies in achieving the SDGs. The paper does highlight the importance of nature-inclusive business models for achieving SDG8 and SDG11, but not necessarily fitting to our study. 

Reviewer 4 Report

I wish to congratulate the authors on an excellent paper, that makes a significant contribution to the field.

You will find some minor edits for clarity, style and correction directly in the attached pdf. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, we would like to thank you for your constructive feedback and comments. Your in depth contribution has definitely led us to the improvement of our manuscript, and to achieve a much better version of our work. We have accepted all your minor revisions, please refer to the track change document for verification. We also have quickly reviewed the discussion section for a more direct comparison of our results with the literature.

Reviewer 5 Report

Dear authors,

The paper was improved and it is now more clear and readable. 

Congratulations.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thank you for your feedback. We are pleased to hear that you approve the changes undertaken. We now have done some minor touches for the improvement of the English, and a more direct comparison of our results with the literature in the discussion section.