Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made the necessary corrections and added appropriate clarifications in other cases. The manuscript is of appropriate scientific quality and may be further processed for publication.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

The manuscript addresses a timely and interdisciplinary topic connecting urban resilience, smart-city interoperability, and environmental monitoring. It is well structured and scientifically relevant. However, it would benefit from a stronger statement of novelty, quantitative validation, and critical reflection on implementation challenges before being considered for publication. I outline specific issues below:

1. The introduction and related-work sections provide an extensive background on interoperability and smart-city frameworks but do not clearly identify what specific scientific or technological gap this study fills. Please sharpen the articulation of novelty, whether the innovation lies in the data-integration architecture, the cross-domain inclusion of health data, or the real-time validation at Camerino. A short paragraph explicitly stating, what previous studies lacked and what this paper adds would improve clarity.
2. The Methodology section is very descriptive but lacks quantitative or procedural details. How were interoperability parameters validated, what metrics were used to measure system performance, and how were thresholds in the UrbanDataset schema decided? Including a schematic of data flow or pseudocode (in addition to Figure 1) could strengthen methodological reproducibility.
3. Lines 657–716): The Camerino pilot is described well, but its validation remains mostly qualitative. Consider adding a concise quantitative performance evaluation; latency in data exchange, rate of data loss, or user feedback from municipal operators to demonstrate operational robustness and scalability. Without empirical metrics, the results section reads as a conceptual showcase rather than a tested framework.
4. Lines 801–848): The study claims to integrate physiological and microclimate data, yet the dataset used for demonstration was collected under controlled conditions, not during an actual hazard event. This weakens the claim of “resilience enhancement.” It would be beneficial to clarify that this is a proof-of-concept and to discuss how such monitoring could realistically operate during emergencies (maybe, connectivity, data privacy, battery life). Include a future-work note on field-deployment strategies.
5. (Lines 128–133, 232–236): Although references to EIF4SCC and IES-City are made, the manuscript does not benchmark the proposed MULTICLIMACT approach against existing frameworks. A short comparative table or paragraph summarizing how the present approach differs or improves (e.g., inclusion of indoor comfort, RESTful API implementation, or semantic ontology extensions) would add scientific value and contextual positioning.
6. The discussion and conclusion sections do not sufficiently address potential limitations such as data interoperability challenges (API incompatibility across municipal systems), long-term maintenance cost, or cybersecurity. Including a reflective paragraph on these limitations and possibly proposing mitigation strategies would balance the paper and align with Sustainability’s expectations for critical assessment.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The submitted article focused on the “data isolated island” problem, the lack of interoperability among multiple platforms and data sources, inconsistent data formats and protocols, and barriers to cross-departmental and cross-domain information sharing and collaborative decision-making. This is indeed a critical challenge. The co-authors’ attempt to integrate natural disaster monitoring, infrastructure resilience assessment, and health and comfort data to support both emergency response and long-term urban resilience planning within the EU framework is meaningful. However, despite substantial revisions since the earlier submission, several major issues remain:

1. The research adopts the 2016 Camerino earthquake(debate event for the duty of forecasting) as a case study. Although this moderate earthquake caused significant casualties, most building collapses in the epicentral area resulted from the predominance of masonry structures (over 70%), which are inherently vulnerable to seismic damage. Moreover, the epicentral area is characterized by dispersed rural settlements, which do not align with the “Smart City” context proposed in this paper. This presents a serious issue regarding the representativeness of the case study. Additional literature or field data—such as the 2016 Camerino Building Damage Survey Report—should be provided to justify the threshold settings and demonstrate that the vulnerability curve parameters are adaptable to local building types, thereby enhancing the credibility of the assessment results.

2. The indoor health and comfort data are derived from a pre-deployment experiment conducted in 2025 involving only three volunteers. This minimal sample size, combined with the absence of temporal relevance to the 2016 Event, undermines the data’s representativeness. Consequently, it fails to verify the core scenario of “the impact of indoor environmental conditions on human health after an earthquake.” To strengthen this component, the authors should: 1) Expand the sample size to include a broader range of age and occupational groups and provide information on ethical approval of the experimental design, 2) If historical data from 2016 are unavailable, clarify the relevance of the experimental data to the earthquake scenario—for example, by simulating extreme conditions such as indoor power outages or deteriorating air quality following an earthquake—to avoid disconnect between the dataset and the case study.

3. Although the study focuses on earthquake hazards, it briefly mentions the potential integration of heatwave and flood data without explaining how monitoring indicators (e.g., flood levels, temperature thresholds) or data processing methods would be adapted for these hazards. The paper also omits a discussion of whether interoperability protocols (e.g., the UrbanDataset format) require modification for different types of hazards. These omissions raise concerns about the scalability and generalizability of the proposed framework. Since flooding was not an issue in the Camerino region, the case study fails to demonstrate the integration of multi-hazards in practice.

4. The current “Discussion section" lacks a comparative evaluation of the proposed approach against existing frameworks. Although the EIF4SCC and IES City frameworks are mentioned, the paper does not clearly articulate how SCP-MULTICLIMACT surpasses these models in multidimensional data integration (e.g., health–environment coupling). Furthermore, performance comparisons with similar interoperability platforms from other cities are absent. In the Future Work section, the co-authors state an intention to expand to new geographic and hazard scenarios; however, they do not address core limitations, such as the small sample size and insufficient real-time performance. To make this section more substantive, it should include: 1)Specific plans for data scale expansion, such as collaboration with local medical institutions or agencies to access relevant health data.
2)Technical strategies to enhance real-time performance, such as deploying edge computing nodes or incorporating data preprocessing algorithms. These refinements would improve the feasibility and technical depth of the proposed future work.

5. The overall writing lacks coherence and could benefit from improved structure and clarity. It is recommended that the authors streamline the text for conciseness and consistency of terminology.

The interoperability framework and platform proposed in this paper present an innovative approach to urban resilience management. The case study is potentially valuable; however, the paper requires further enhancement in data validity, scenario scalability, and technical rigor. The authors are encouraged to revise the manuscript with a focus on enhancing methodological credibility, scenario universality, and the integrity of the conclusion. These revisions would significantly strengthen both the academic and practical contributions of the work.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All my comments have been addressed well. I have no further concerns. Therefore, I recommend acceptance in present form.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am very grateful to the author team for their careful responses to the reviewers' previous concerns. The paper has been significantly improved, but I still have two suggestions for revisions:

1. I suggest that the authors modify the figures provided in response to the reviewers and combine them into a single figure within the main text, supporting the core content of the paper.

2. I also suggest simplifying the conclusion section and moving the perspective and description sections into the discussion section.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The sustainable methodologies and tools that can predict well natural threats and their impacts in advance are very necessary. However, the innovation of this manuscript is confusing. 
And the content of this manuscript is too extensive. Each module of the earthquake events, earthquake-damaged buildings, health monitoring, and microclimate monitoring can be used to write a paper.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors present interesting results of the project in the article. These are important results, but I have some comments regarding the style of the article and its scientific presentation.

 

1. Where does the assumption (knowledge) that there is a lack of integrated tools for analysing natural hazards in cities come from (second paragraph in the Introduction)? Is this statement scientifically based? This is important because it forms the basis for undertaking research. Are integrated tools lacking in a given city (country?), or is this an actual gap indicating that there are no cities in the world that use tools that integrate data on natural hazards?
2. The article lacks systematicity and consistency, especially in the first phase of the article. What is city resilience? Why did the authors immediately move on to resilient buildings? Especially since in Chapter 3, the authors focus on critical infrastructure. Buildings are only one element of city resilience. If the emphasis is actually on monitoring residents and resilient buildings (which is not indicated in the rest of the article), then the title of the article should be reworded accordingly.
3. Theoretical research does not sufficiently outline the research gap. There is a lack of research on critical infrastructure. How do the authors understand ‘smart city’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘resilient city’? What are the relationships between these concepts? Are the authors really studying city resilience? What types of natural hazards are monitored and how, and how is this data currently combined and communicated to cities? What are the differences in the relevant tools around the world? These are examples of research questions that the authors should ask themselves when writing the theoretical background.
4. It is very difficult to conclude from the introduction and literature review what the authors want to address, what gap their research fills, and what its scientific basis is. The article is a report on the implementation of the project. It has a clearly outlined section related to the pilot project, but it does not sufficiently present the scientific investigation leading to the developed solution. This should be supplemented in the content of the article.
5. Figures 1 and 2 are inserted after the text and are not explained.
6. What is the connection between section 3.4.1. and the review in point 2?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript concerns the case study of Camerino in Marche region in Italy, which examined support for city resilience through interoperable platforms and tools for monitoring natural threats and evaluating their impacts. It has been carefully prepared and contains extensive information based on research. It requires a few corrections, which are discussed below.

Comment #1: The abstract could be improved. It should focus more on the research methodology, rather than limiting itself to a summary of the content.

Comment #2: In accordance with the publisher's guidelines, the structure of the paper should include an Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions (optional) sections. The manuscript should be brought to this layout. Currently, there are no chapter titles with the words "Materials and Methods", "Results", and "Discussion". In practice, the content of the missing chapters is generally contained in other sections. The goal is to ensure that the chapter layout, and particularly their titles, correspond to the mandatory ones.

Comment #3: The work lacks a more precise indication of the study's limitations, apart from the territorial ones, which are defined quite clearly.

Comment #4: Several terms in the manuscript are ambiguous. They require either clarification or replacement with more understandable ones. These include words:

• "siloed approach" in line 33,
• "such as 7" in line 346,
• "granularity" in line 494,
• "WS" in Figure 4.

Comment #5: There are a few typos noted in the text. It is worth checking the manuscript for this purpose, for instance:

• "hereafter", not "here after" in line 175,
• "C" or "c" in word "Collaborations" (in lines 507 and 517),
• "in the" - twice in lines 536-537,
• "example,the" - no space between in line 561,
• "thethird" - no space between in caption of Figure 11.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript addresses a relevant and timely topic within the scope of sustainability, offering a structured approach to the research problem and providing results that could be of interest to both academics and practitioners. The introduction adequately frames the study within the existing literature, although a deeper engagement with the most recent scholarship could strengthen the theoretical grounding. The research design, questions, and methodology are generally clear and appropriate for the objectives stated. However, in some sections, the link between the methodology and the results could be explained in greater detail to enhance transparency and replicability.

The presentation of results is generally clear, but additional tables or figures summarizing key findings could help readers grasp the main contributions more effectively. The conclusions are consistent with the results presented and provide relevant insights, although the practical implications for policymakers and stakeholders could be expanded.

Overall, the manuscript is well-structured, coherent, and academically sound. The English language is of good quality and does not require major revisions, though minor stylistic adjustments could further improve clarity. With the inclusion of the suggested enhancements—particularly in strengthening the methodological explanation and visual representation of results—the paper would be ready for publication.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper presents an approach to enhance urban smartness and sustainability, contributing 8

to adaptive capacity and disaster risk reduction in line with global sustainability objectives. This work is interesting. There are some comments.

1)In Introduction, compare the proposed framework with existing smart city interoperability initiatives (e.g., EIF4SCC, IES-City Framework) introduced later in Section 2.

2)Clarifying how the Camerino case study specifically addresses gaps in prior research (e.g., integrating health/comfort data), which is only briefly mentioned in Introduction.

3)Page 3, the significance of research gap could be reinforced with empirical examples (e.g., past disasters where health data gaps hindered response).

4)The link between indoor comfort/health monitoring and urban resilience is somewhat unclear.

5)Section 3, the customization of the MULTICLIMACT Interoperability Reference Model from ENEA’s SCP lacks technical details.

6)Add detailed explanation of role of APIs in enabling interoperability.

7)Section 4, the reliance on simulated data for indoor comfort and health monitoring should be clarify. How to validate these results?

8)The paper should justify why 2025 test data (with 3 participants) is a valid proxy for 2016 conditions, including similarities in building characteristics or environmental stressors.

9)A lack of comparison with the simulated building damage results and actual damage reports from the 2016 earthquake in Camerino. Clarify it.

10)The building damage estimates show 303 buildings with D1 damage, but the paper does not explain spatial patterns.

11)In conclusion, it does not address scalability challenges, such as how the framework would adapt to larger cities with more complex infrastructure networks than Camerino.

12)Future work needs to be enhanced. Specifying plans to integrate other hazards (e.g., floods, heatwaves, ) or expand to more diverse urban contexts would strengthen the paper’s impact.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx