Do Solid Waste Landfills Really Affect Land Use Change? Answers Using the Weighted Environmental Index (WEI)
, María-Elena Rodrigo-Clavero, Claudia P. Romero and Patricio Suárez-RomeroRound 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript proposes using the Weighted Environmental Index (WEI) to analyze the land use change in the surroundings of urban solid waste landfills in a region of Valencia, Spain, during the period 2005-2015. I have the following comments to be considered by the authors.
1. I think the paper enrich the role of landfills in the land use dynamics of the study area excessively. How do the authors know that the land use change in the surroundings of landfills is, in fact, due to the operation of landfills? It may have other regional issues involved, for example, the increase of road network during the period of the study.
2. The most valuable “bullets” in this study is the SIOSE database and the WEI index. In the entire paper, including title, objective, and methods, these two aspects should be the most relevant part of the manuscript. The 10 landfill sites should be considered as study case in the paper.
3. Abstract is too short. Please, add more details about the methods, quantitative results, and the main conclusion of the study.
4. Please, change the name of Section 1, “Introduction and objectives” to “Introduction”. This is a standard format of the Remote Sensing journal. In this section, the authors mention WEI only in the objective. They should portray other environmental indices proposed in literature and present some reasons why they opted for the WEI.
5. The title of Section 2.3 is in Spanish.
6. Figure 4, 5, and 6: Please, identify the titles of X- and Y-axis and increase the size of the fonts (letters and numbers are too small).
7. The manuscript focuses too much on results and little attention is given to the methodology. Please, provide a flowchart with the main steps of the work so that the readers can reproduce the method more easily in other regions or other goals.
Author Response
Dear reviewer #1,
Thanks very much for your comments. We have updated our manuscript accounting for them and the ones made by other reviewers. This updated version takes into account all of them and extends the content included in the previous version. Please find below the answers to each one of your specific comments.
- I think the paper enriches the role of landfills in the land use dynamics of the study area excessively. How do the authors know that the land use change in the surroundings of landfills is, in fact, due to the operation of landfills?
Answer:
The title of the paper remarks that this matter should be addressed as a question and not as a statement. Landfills' effect on the surrounding areas has been obtained as a result of the analysis and was not an “a priori” presupposition. Despite the existing scientific literature about the environmental impacts of landfills, it is always indicated that they suppose a negative effect on the environment, it is never provided a quantitative way to measure their influence over land use change.
In the new version of the manuscript, several paragraphs about this matter have been added in section 1 and new references have been included about it. Besides, the introduction section has been expanded to include more background about the importance of LULC change analysis in environmental problems.
- It may have other regional issues involved, for example, the increase of road network during the period of the study.
Answer:
Certainly, all changes in land use are considered inside the WEI. The only thing in common in the ten sites studied is the existence of the landfill. All detailed results have been included in the Supplementary Materials. This includes all the land use and WEI index evaluation maps for 2005, 2009, and 2015 at all sites.
Therefore, it has been verified that WEI values decrease in all the studied sites between 2005 and 2015. This result reveals the influence of the existence of the landfill
- The most valuable “bullets” in this study are the SIOSE database and the WEI index. In the entire paper, including the title, objective, and methods, these two aspects should be the most relevant part of the manuscript. The 10 landfill sites should be considered as a study case in the paper.
Answer:
The WEI index was developed and described in the following recent publication by the same authors
Rodrigo-Ilarri, J.; Romero-Hernández, C.P.; Rodrigo-Clavero, M.E. Land Use/Land Cover Assessment over Time Using a New Weighted Environmental Index (WEI) Based on an Object-Oriented Model and GIS Data. Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10234, doi.org/10.3390/su122410234.
This publication includes an in-depth description of the WEI index and in this manuscript, a summary has been included, so the manuscript can be read independently.
The research described in this paper focuses on the evolution of LULC over time in the surroundings of solid waste landfills. WEI is a powerful tool to perform this kind of analysis. As reviewer #1 states, the analysis has been performed on Valencia Region as a case study and so it is included in the manuscript.
Therefore, following your suggestion, the structure of the manuscript has been updated so now section 2 (Materials and methods) includes the description of SIOSE and WEI and section 3 (Case study) refers specifically to the analysis performed in the 10 landfills of Valencia Region.
- The abstract is too short. Please, add more details about the methods, quantitative results, and the main conclusion of the study.
Answer:
The abstract has been rewritten and expanded as requested.
- Please, change the name of Section 1, “Introduction and objectives” to “Introduction”. This is a standard format of the Remote Sensing journal.
Answer:
The name of the section has been changed as requested
- In this section, the authors mention WEI only in the objective. They should portray other environmental indices proposed in the literature and present some reasons why they opted for the WEI.
Answer:
As said above, these matters were discussed in a previous publication by the same authors in which the WEI index was developed and described:
Rodrigo-Ilarri, J.; Romero-Hernández, C.P.; Rodrigo-Clavero, M.E. Land Use/Land Cover Assessment over Time Using a New Weighted Environmental Index (WEI) Based on an Object-Oriented Model and GIS Data. Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10234, doi.org/10.3390/su122410234.
This publication includes an in-depth description of the WEI index and the analysis of existing indices, so there is no need to include this again in this manuscript. In this paper, a summary of these matters has been included, so the manuscript can be read independently from the first one.
- The title of Section 2.3 is in Spanish.
Answer:
The manuscript structure has been modified so section 2.3 does not exist anymore (now it is Section 3). The document has been checked throughout so no Spanish words are used.
- Figures 4, 5, and 6: Please, identify the titles of the X- and Y-axis and increase the size of the fonts (letters and numbers are too small).
Answer:
All the figures have been remade and the font size has been increased as requested
- The manuscript focuses too much on results and little attention is given to the methodology. Please, provide a flowchart with the main steps of the work so that the readers can reproduce the method more easily in other regions or other goals.
Answer:
As said above, these matters were discussed in a previous publication by the same authors in which the WEI index was developed and described. However, a new section “2.3 WEI computational methodology” has been included in the manuscript, summarizing the method used to compute the WEI index. The requested flowchart has also been included.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors need to re-consider the manuscript. There are repetitions, text that can be removed for improving readability, English editing is required, parts of methods and material can be moved to introduction. A section on "study area needs to be included.
Author Response
Dear reviewer #2,
Thanks very much for your comments. We have updated our manuscript accounting for them and the ones made by other reviewers. This updated version takes into account all of them and extends the content included in the previous version. Please find below the answers to each one of your specific comments.
- The authors need to reconsider the manuscript. There are repetitions, text that can be removed for improving readability, English editing is required, and parts of methods and material can be moved to the introduction. A section on "study area needs to be included.
Answer:
The manuscript has been fully revised following the recommendations made by all the reviewers.
The introduction section has been fully rewritten and expanded as suggested. Repetitions have been avoided and a new structure of the manuscript is now included.
Besides, the supplementary material has been greatly expanded too, so it now shows the detail of the values of LCM in every location.
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Line 9, SIOSE appears for the first time, so it's better not to abbreviate SIOSE.
2. Lines 74-75, Authors should provide the URL of the Download Center of the National Geographic Information Center (CDIGN).
3. Lines 155-56, Is it scientific and reasonable for the authors use the equal value of the weight of each environmental index? Can the authors further explain the basis for setting the index weight?
Author Response
Dear reviewer #3,
Thanks very much for your comments. We have updated our manuscript accounting for them and the ones made by other reviewers. This updated version takes into account all of them and extends the content included in the previous version. Please find below the answers to each one of your specific comments.
- Line 9, SIOSE appears for the first time, so it's better not to abbreviate SIOSE.
Answer:
The abstract has been rewritten avoiding abbreviations. SIOSE is now properly introduced in section 2.1.
- In lines 74-75, the Authors should provide the URL of the Download Center of the National Geographic Information Center (CDIGN).
Answer:
The URL of the CDIGN is now provided inside the manuscript.
- Lines 155-56, Is it scientific and reasonable for the authors to use the equal value of the weight of each environmental index? Can the authors further explain the basis for setting the index weight?
Answer:
These matters were discussed in a previous publication by the same authors in which the WEI index was developed and described:
Rodrigo-Ilarri, J.; Romero-Hernández, C.P.; Rodrigo-Clavero, M.E. Land Use/Land Cover Assessment over Time Using a New Weighted Environmental Index (WEI) Based on an Object-Oriented Model and GIS Data. Sustainability 2020, 12(24), 10234, doi.org/10.3390/su122410234.
WEI index allows the definition of different weights ( assigned weights to factor i ) for each environmental factor of decided by the user. In this research, the authors decided to provide equal weight to all the factors, so no one prevails over the others. A sensitivity analysis of the parameters is proposed as future research to analyze the robustness of the results found in this research.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This second version of the manuscript is much improved. All my previous concerns were answered properly. The authors did a good job answering my comments in both manuscript and response to the reviewer´s comments.
