Terraced Landscapes on Portofino Promontory (Italy): Identification, Geo-Hydrological Hazard and Management

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is focused on an interesting topic, the identification of terraces in a quite unique landscape, by the use of integrated methodologies for the assessment of the potential geo-hydrological hazard. In general, the investigation of the related references is well introduced, and the methodology of the work is clearly shown. The research methodology and the results are convincing.

Following comments might help improve the quality of the manuscript.

Please double check typos and grammar errors over the entire manuscript (e.g. Cultural Heritage is usually used in the singular form) Line 40: please, better specify that “Art of dry-stone walling, knowledge and techniques” is part of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage while some landscapes, such as Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands terraced vineyards” are part of UNESCO Heritage Site Lines 66-71: the entire sentence may be divided in two parts Please cite Table 1 in the text and modify the number of the other tables accordingly Modify Fig. 5 by inserting A and B in the format

Author Response

Rev. 1

AUTHORS’ REPLIES IN ITALICS:

We wish to thank the reviewer for the improvement its suggestions produced to the paper.

Following the suggestion of Rev 3, we partially changed the methodology for terraces detection: shaded relief has been substituted by Sky View Factor, while LUC method, orthophotography interpretation and direct survey did not changed. Terraces detection partially changed and figures 6, 7 and 10 and table 4 have been accordingly modified. Besides, some references changed and some modification in the text occurred.

 

Please double check typos and grammar errors over the entire manuscript (e.g. Cultural Heritage is usually used in the singular form)

The mistakes have been corrected throughout the paper.

Line 40: please, better specify that “Art of dry-stone walling, knowledge and techniques” is part of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage while some landscapes, such as Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands terraced vineyards” are part of UNESCO Heritage Site

The relative lines in the introduction have been rewritten according to the specifications requested.

 

Lines 66-71: the entire sentence may be divided in two parts

The sentence has been divided.

 

Please cite Table 1 in the text and modify the number of the other tables accordingly

Table 1 citation has been added and numbering of tables has been properly corrected throughout the paper

 

Modify Fig. 5 by inserting A and B in the format 

Figure 5 has been modified.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This papers is about an automatic detection method to detect stone walls terraces on Portofino Promontory in Italy.

For the introduction I suggest to improve the references also taking into consideration the paper "Abandonment of traditional terraced landscape: A change detection approach (a case study in Costa Viola, Calabria, Italy)" doi 10.1002/ldr.2824

In research methodology the authors did not explain well the adopted method. Can the authors better explain their proposed method and the software used?

Line 230: the authors did a table with vector and raster data characteristics. Can the authors add the spatial resolution of the orthophotography of Regione Liguria used for the paper issue?

Line 259: the authors combined results from different methods. How? Can the authors better explain what they did?

Line 263: the authors did a schematic profile of a terraced system. I suggest to move this figure back to the introduction maybe spending few words to describe a terraced system.

Line 264: the authors did a figure to show terraces identification test. The legend of figure 'A' is not clear. What means <-0.9? Can the authors better explain and re.draw the figure?

Line 278: "...permitted to obtain an accettable result....". What the authors mean as accettable results?

Lines 286-293: I suggest to move back the lines to study area description sections

The results are presented without a support of number. How many terraces have been detected? How many meters of drystone walls or hectares of terraced surfaces?

I suggest to strongly improve the method description and the results obtained. I also suggest to improve the references about the terraced systems in Italy.

Author Response

REV 2

 

AUTHORS’ REPLIES IN ITALICS:

 

We wish to thank the reviewer for the improvement his suggestions and requests produced to the paper.

Following the suggestion of Rev 3, we partially changed the methodology for terraces detection: shaded relief has been substituted by Sky View Factor, while LUC method, orthophotography interpretation and direct survey did not changed. Terraces detection partially changed and figures 6, 7 and 10 and table 4 have been accordingly modified. Besides, some references changed and some modification in the text occurred.

 

 

This paper is about an automatic detection method to detect stone walls terraces on Portofino Promontory in Italy.

The aim of the paper is about terraces detection through semi-automatic method, direct survey and geo-hydrological risk. The paper has been submitted to Water Special Issue: Terraced Landscapes and Hydrological-Geological Hazards.

 

 

For the introduction I suggest to improve the references also taking into consideration the paper "Abandonment of traditional terraced landscape: A change detection approach (a case study in Costa Viola, Calabria, Italy)" doi 10.1002/ldr.2824

The suggested reference and others have been added to the introduction section that has been consequently expanded.

 

 

In research methodology the authors did not explain well the adopted method. Can the authors better explain their proposed method and the software used?

The Methods section has been improved and references implemented. Actually, the shaded relief method has been substituted by Sky View Factor as suggested by Rev_03. LUC calculation is described at lines 323-332, while the used software are SAGA GIS and Quantum GIS as already stated in Methods section.

 

 

Line 230: the authors did a table with vector and raster data characteristics. Can the authors add the spatial resolution of the orthophotography of Regione Liguria used for the paper issue?

Value has been added in the table.

 

 

Line 259: the authors combined results from different methods. How? Can the authors better explain what they did?

The methodology has been partially changed from the previous version, and the combined result has been explained in the methods section.

 

 

Line 263: the authors did a schematic profile of a terraced system. I suggest to move this figure back to the introduction maybe spending few words to describe a terraced system.

Figure 3 has been moved to the Introduction section as requested.

 

 

Line 264: the authors did a figure to show terraces identification test. The legend of figure 'A' is not clear. What means <-0.9? Can the authors better explain and re.draw the figure?

The figure has been redrawn according to the reviewer’s request. The LUC parameter, which is dimensionless, is drawn with a two colors scale in order to evidence the curvature corresponding to the stone walls base.

 

 

Line 278: "...permitted to obtain an accettable result....". What the authors mean as accettable results?

Shaded relief method has been substituted by Sky View Factor and the sentence consequently erased.

 

 

Lines 286-293: I suggest to move back the lines to study area description sections

We did not move the lines in the study area description as the condition and real extension of the terraced area have been detected after the direct survey performed in the present research.

 

 

The results are presented without a support of number. How many terraces have been detected? How many meters of drystone walls or hectares of terraced surfaces?

Extension of detected terraces both in absolute values and in percentage at catchment’s scale are in table 4, together with the percentage of in use terraces as emerged during the research.

 

 

I suggest to strongly improve the method description and the results obtained. I also suggest to improve the references about the terraced systems in Italy.

Both methods and results sections have been improved and references actually comprise the following new ones:

 

Modica, G.; Praticò, S.; Di Fazio, S. Abandonment of traditional terraced landscape: A change detection approach (a case study in Costa Viola, Calabria, Italy). Land Degradation & Development, 2017, 28.8, 2608-2622. Di Fazio, S.; Modica, G. Historic rural landscapes: Sustainable planning strategies and action criteria. The Italian experience in the global and European context. Sustainability, 2018, 10.11, 3834. Brunori, E.; Salvati, L.; Antogiovanni, A.; Biasi, R. Worrying about ‘Vertical Landscapes’: Terraced olive groves and ecosystem services in Marginal Land in Central Italy. Sustainability, 2018, 10(4), 1164.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I think the authors should improve the part about the Lidar DTM processing and analysis. At this stage, it looks pretty weak to me. 

Given the fact they face some problems with the quality of the data, I would require a further analysis to be performed in addition to those already applied. In particular, the use of arbitrary hill shade visualisation does not appear as the most appropriate visualisation tool for the study area (a sloped and geomorphologically complex region). On the other hand, the different hill shade outputs should be analysed all together with a PCA analysis, which is not mentioned in the paper.

In addition, I suggest to substitute or integrate the hill shade tool with the Sky View-Factor and/or a Local Relief Model. This two visualisation tools will permit to obtain more reliable outcomes for the detection of the terraces. In addition, the authors should explain why they decided not to intervene on the raw data with a new filtering method which should minimise the banding effect.

I would request the authors to cite the basic literature on DTM Lidar analysis (Challis et al., Kokalj, Hesse for example) which is missing. 

 

 

Author Response

Rev 3

AUTHORS’ REPLIES IN ITALICS:

We wish to thank the reviewer for the improvement its suggestions produced to the paper.

Following the suggestion of Rev 3, we partially changed the methodology for terraces detection: shaded relief has been substituted by Sky View Factor, while LUC method, orthophotography interpretation and direct survey did not changed. Terraces detection partially changed and figures 6, 7 and 10 and table 4 have been accordingly modified. Besides, some references changed and some modification in the text occurred.

 

In addition, the authors should explain why they decided not to intervene on the raw data with a new filtering method which should minimise the banding effect.

Despite the efforts spent in trying to opportunely filter the LIDAR DTM, the authors did not succeed in eliminating nor reducing the banding effect.

 

I would request the authors to cite the basic literature on DTM Lidar analysis (Challis et al., Kokalj, Hesse for example) which is missing.

References have been properly implemented, following the reviewer’s request.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have provided a new version and authors' response letter where they reply to the referees' comments.

I believe the manuscript has been significantly improved and now warrants publication in Water.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

thankyou for the effort in taking into consideration the comments.

All points have been adequately addressed.

Reviewer 3 Report

fine for me