Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors investigate how urban cemeteries can provide a specific range of ecosystem services to cities, serve as part of their urban green infrastructure and contribute to the biocultural diversity of cities from a multidimensional perspective. Overall, they find that cemeteries provide opportunities for relaxation, reflection and contemplation in crowded, noisy and polluted urban environments.

I agree that urban cemeteries can play a role as part of ecosystem services and urban green spaces and reflect biocultural diversity in urban environments.  I can also see why the paper may be of interest to readers and different stakeholders. And yet, although I have read the article several times, neither the objectives pursued nor the conclusions reached are at all clear to me. It is also not clear to me how the statistical analysis carried out can help the future development of cemeteries to achieve this multifunctional purpose.

Major revisions are needed in several areas. I list a number of general comments that definitely need to be addressed:

• The objective needs to be much better outlined. The authors state in lines 69-71 that they “want to learn the perceptions of people who visit cemeteries because they can provide everyday observations and perspectives related to those cemeteries”. I would suggest the authors being much more specific. Why do they want to know/learn this? What does the paper add to the literature? Why are these perceptions necessary?
• My main concern is the statistical analysis carried out and shown in Table 1 and its interpretation. In the first place, I am concerned about the questions analyzed. The authors state in the Table´s title that they analyze the “answers to four questions (1-4) in the questionnaire survey”. They do not correspond exactly to questions 1-4 and three of the questions are not analyzed. Why? I would suggest clarifying these points. Moreover, I cannot find the question “What is your opinion about the management of the cemetery?” in the questionnaire survey. Second, there is no information on how the questions are answered. Are the questions closed-ended or open-ended? If they are closed-ended, I would suggest showing the list of answer options in a table. Finally, Table 1 conveys very little information in the absence of the contingency table. I would suggest including the contingency table to see if and how the categorical variables are related.
• The authors state in lines 184-185 that “detailed statistical analysis of the responses to this questionnaire survey is not the purpose of this article and will be presented in other studies”. I would suggest clarifying here what the authors analyse in the present study. If analysing the responses to this questionnaire survey is not the purpose of the study, which is the purpose then?
• The presentation of results and the discussion need to be improved. Both need to be improved both in content and in structure. I would suggest some thoughtful and careful rewriting.

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for careful and thorough reading of our manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. We revised our manuscript accordingly and made additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows (as required ).

 

Point 1: “The authors investigate how urban cemeteries can provide a specific range of ecosystem services to cities, serve as part of their urban green infrastructure and contribute to the biocultural diversity of cities from a multidimensional perspective. Overall, they find that cemeteries provide opportunities for relaxation, reflection and contemplation in crowded, noisy and polluted urban environments.”

 

Response 1: Thank you for your positive feedback.

 

Point 2: “I agree that urban cemeteries can play a role as part of ecosystem services and urban green spaces and reflect biocultural diversity in urban environments. I can also see why the paper may be of interest to readers and different stakeholders. And yet, although I have read the article several times, neither the objectives pursued nor the conclusions reached are at all clear to me. It is also not clear to me how the statistical analysis carried out can help the future development of cemeteries to achieve this multifunctional purpose.”

 

Response 2: We thank you for this valuable comment. We have significantly revised and restructured the manuscript, incl. modifications of the introduction part and references’ citation, better defining the objectives of the research as well as materials and methods used. Results’ section and conclusion were also rewritten and new text paragraphs were added there to interpret the main findings. Thank you for your suggestion to justify the use of questionnaire survey in our studies. We believe that the presented statistical analysis would broaden the issue of future development of cemeteries to achieve this multifunctional purpose of the research, in particular:

1. The opinion of the respondents/cemetery users about the object management can provide a useful information for the cemetery managers on how to change a particular object to a more functional one,
2. Gathering respodents’ feedback about the activities carried out can improve the function of the cemeteries,
3. Through contacting respodents about the availability of cemeteries, it was possible to reveal how well cemeteries are accessible to visitors (the rules/policies, opening hours, infrastructure objects of the cemetery can be adapted to the needs and expectations of the users),
4. The opinion of the respondents allows us to assess whether the cemetery is an important place of rest for the selected group of people (younger, older, educated, people with families, lonely or neglected people), who are looking for a silent space in the city).

All the above points are discussed in the results’ section of the manuscript.

 

Point 3: “Major revisions are needed in several areas. I list a number of general comments that definitely need to be addressed:

The objective needs to be much better outlined. The authors state in lines 69-71 that they “want to learn the perceptions of people who visit cemeteries because they can provide everyday observations and perspectives related to those cemeteries”. I would suggest the authors being much more specific. Why do they want to know/learn this? What does the paper add to the literature? Why are these perceptions necessary?”

Response 3: We appreciate your comment. We revised the Introduction by adding more statements about the current situation in the research field, background information needed to understand our research objections and the reasons why we conducted our pilot study, also by extending the references. The objectives of the research are now better specified and outlined. We also added a sentence before listing the objectives that: “In order to achieve this goal, pilot studies were carried out to ensure the site's observation (determination of the extent of ES and visitor’s activities in given cemeteries) and conducting questionnaire survey among users”. We pointed out that “In this context, the article aims to fill the knowledge gap by examining how the contribution of urban cemetery as neglected green space can supply the demand for UGI and ES. Getting to know the opinions of the cemetery users can provide a useful information in addition to site observations and landscape photography documentation. We also clarifyied that: “… this study also applied the concept of biocultural diversity (BCD) which is called for to give acknowledgement to the diversity of understandings and appreciation of urban nature and to promote alternative ways of living and being within cities [24-25]”.

 

Point 4. “My main concern is the statistical analysis carried out and shown in Table 1 and its interpretation. In the first place, I am concerned about the questions analyzed. The authors state in the Table´s title that they analyze the “answers to four questions (1-4) in the questionnaire survey”. They do not correspond exactly to questions 1-4 and three of the questions are not analyzed. Why? I would suggest clarifying these points. Moreover, I cannot find the question “What is your opinion about the management of the cemetery?” in the questionnaire survey. Second, there is no information on how the questions are answered. Are the questions closed-ended or open-ended? If they are closed-ended, I would suggest showing the list of answer options in a table. Finally, Table 1 conveys very little information in the absence of the contingency table. I would suggest including the contingency table to see if and how the categorical variables are related.”

 

Response 4: As already mentioned, we revised every section of the manuscript, also Materials and methods where we included the new Figure 1 presenting the research framework and provided the explanation to every method used (e.g. literature review, site observation using non-participatory observation, photo documentation and field notes, questionnaire survey and pre-survey). Newly appeared section 2.2.3 Questionnaire survey and pre-survey contains now a detailed description of the process, content, types of questions etc. and a new Figure 4. Questionnaire template. Also Table 1 was revised (currenty it is Table 7) and the questions have been supplemented or corrected (in the previous version of the table one question was missing and some questions have been shortened or modified). Tables 2-6 have been added in the revised version of the manuscript in order to illustrate the previous steps and provide the data analysis to each question. In addition, each question was numbered as Q1-Q5 to allow a better overview. A new synthesis of these issues is now stronger presented, discussed, and summarized in the sections Results and Discussion.

 

Point 5: “The authors state in lines 184-185 that “detailed statistical analysis of the responses to this questionnaire survey is not the purpose of this article and will be presented in other studies”. I would suggest clarifying here what the authors analyse in the present study. If analysing the responses to this questionnaire survey is not the purpose of the study, which is the purpose then?”

 

Response 5: Preliminary, the paper suggested that the selected results of questionaires should be the subject of different studies (it was not/ is not considered in any other paper ealier/now), but after this review, we decided to show them in the present paper (to ensure that all the results discussed are clear). The statistics based on the survey questions with the necessary additional information were added, also the purpose of the research and its methodology were clarified.

The presented research is a pilot study, and we were keen on developing and testing the methodological design we created; we draw conclusions for further more differentiated studies covering also other /divergent types of cemeteries.

The questionnaire presented in the manuscript is therefore one of the selected research methods, which is useful for achieving the research objectives, i. e. viewpoints about utilization of the cemetery space and perception of cemetery among its visitors.

 

Point 6: The presentation of results and the discussion need to be improved. Both need to be improved both in content and in structure. I would suggest some thoughtful and careful rewriting.

 

Response 6: Thank you. As already mentioned, we have completely restructured and revritten the manuscript trying to make it more logical in its flow. Now, Results from pilot studies section has three subsections: 3.1. Ecosystem services provided by urban cemeteries, 3.2. Cemeteries as a place for wildlife, 3.3. Utilization of cemeteries: Visitors’ activities, perception and potential for recreation, 3.3.1. Results from site-observation, 3.3.2. Results from questionnaire survey. Also Discussin section was revised and contains now four subsections (main points): 4.1. Reflection on pilot studies from site observation, 4.2. Cemeteries as places of multiple diversity and mental barriers, 4.3. Synthesis of questionnaires survey.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Historic cemeteries are an important resource for urban dwellers: they provide quiet places for gentle recreation and encounters with a degree of wild nature. This paper confirms this for the chosen case studies and provides useful data on the way the sites examined are used by locals and visitors. However, you have selected case study sites that are quite similar, despite claims to the contrary: located in central European cities, representing Christian and Jewish communities who may be deemed to share quite close affinities culturally if not in religion. A lot of work was put into the analysis (including statistical calculation, chi-square tests etc.), but a lot of it served only to confirm what could have been derived from very simple processes of direct observation. Ultimately it told us nothing surprising or new and while methodologically sound, was rather a time-costly exercise in establishing the obvious. 

It would have been  more interesting exercise to select case studies from widely divergent regions and cultural contexts. To do so would not mean going beyond Europe: there are Islamic cemeteries for instance in a number of European cities and of course especially in Turkey and Greece. A comparison with ancient cemeteries (e.g. the Kerameikos in Athens) might have been enlightening.

I found the maps far too small to be meaningful although the images were useful supports to general findings. 

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for careful and thorough reading of our manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. We revised our manuscript accordingly and made additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows (as required ).

 

Point 1: “Historic cemeteries are an important resource for urban dwellers: they provide quiet places for gentle recreation and encounters with a degree of wild nature. This paper confirms this for the chosen case studies and provides useful data on the way the sites examined are used by locals and visitors. However, you have selected case study sites that are quite similar, despite claims to the contrary: located in central European cities, representing Christian and Jewish communities who may be deemed to share quite close affinities culturally if not in religion. A lot of work was put into the analysis (including statistical calculation, chi-square tests etc.), but a lot of it served only to confirm what could have been derived from very simple processes of direct observation. Ultimately it told us nothing surprising or new and while methodologically sound, was rather a time-costly exercise in establishing the obvious.”

Response 1: Thank you for your feedback. We have significantly revised and restructured the manuscript, incl. modifications of the introduction part and references’ citation, better defining the objectives of the research as well as materials and methods used. Results’ section and conclusion were also rewritten and new text paragraphs were added there to interpret the main findings. Thank you for your suggestion to justify the use of questionnaire survey in our studies. In the presented manuscript, we argue more strongly why we focused on selected group of cemeteries from both cities. Our decision for the selection of the study sites / cemeteries in two cities also included practical aspects such as a good accessibility for authors who live in these cities, as well as respective openning hours to test the methods. Moreover, for each city we selected two cemeteries which are different in terms of their form and size, canopy cover (high/low) and thus show here a maximum variability. We believe that the conducted questionnaire survey and presented statistical analysis can greatly extend the site observation and thus broaden the issue of future development of cemeteries to achieve this multifunctional purpose of the research, in particular:

1. The opinion of the respondents/cemetery users about the object management can provide a useful information for the cemetery managers on how to change a particular object to a more functional one,
2. Gathering respodents’ feedback about the activities carried out can improve the function of the cemeteries,
3. Through contacting respodents about the availability of cemeteries, it was possible to reveal how well cemeteries are accessible to visitors (the rules/policies, opening hours, infrastructure objects of the cemetery can be adapted to the needs and expectations of the users),
4. The opinion of the respondents allows us to assess whether the cemetery is an important place of rest for the selected group of people (younger, older, educated, people with families, lonely or neglected people), who are looking for a silent space in the city).

All the above points are discussed in the results’ section of the manuscript.

 

Point 2: “It would have been more interesting exercise to select case studies from widely divergent regions and cultural contexts. To do so would not mean going beyond Europe: there are Islamic cemeteries for instance in a number of European cities and of course especially in Turkey and Greece. A comparison with ancient cemeteries (e.g. the Kerameikos in Athens) might have been enlightening.”

 

Response 2: Of course, we agree that comparing such a widely divergent (in its regional and cultural contexts) group of cemeterieswould be interesting and may provide more heterogenious results. However, as already explained, in the current research we focused on those cemeteries which were available for pilot study. But your valuable suggestion will be be for sure considered in our further research. Thank you.

 

Point 3: I found the maps far too small to be meaningful although the images were useful supports to general findings.

Response 3: Thank you for this advice. In the revised manuscript, we decribed and added figures and tables which are more clearly for a better presence of specific findings.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

In general, the article is written correctly, but it is very concise. However, I recommend short comments based on graphics and figures. 

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for careful and thorough reading of our manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. We revised our manuscript accordingly and made additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows (as required ).

 

Point 1: “In general, the article is written correctly, but it is very concise. However, I recommend short comments based on graphics and figures.”

 

Response 1: We thank you for your positive feedback. We have significantly revised and restructured the manuscript, incl. modifications of the introduction part and references’ citation, better defining the objectives of the research as well as materials and methods used. Results’ section and conclusion were also rewritten and new text paragraphs were added there to interpret the main findings.

Following your advice, we decribed both, figures and tables, in more detail. We also provided more explanation to the key arguments in the paper. Now, each figure and each table is comprehensively described in the text and discussed.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for the opportunity of reading and reviewing your manuscript. The paper addresses a topic which is not usual as research topic and therefore could bring interesting new insights. However, the manuscript is underdeveloped and needs further work to become a publishable article in a journal. More specifically, I suggest the following:

1.perform a statistical analysis of your data. This is the main issue that can bring new insights, otherwise the paper is just a presentation of some sites

2.present and discuss the findings derived from the statistical analysis of the survey data

3.try to integrate the conclusions of your study in a more general model that could be able to advance the knowledge on the topic.

Good luck!

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for careful and thorough reading of our manuscript and for the thoughtful comments and constructive suggestions, which help to improve the quality of this manuscript. We revised our manuscript accordingly and made additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows (as required ).

 

Point 1: “Thank you for the opportunity of reading and reviewing your manuscript. The paper addresses a topic which is not usual as research topic and therefore could bring interesting new insights. However, the manuscript is underdeveloped and needs further work to become a publishable article in a journal. More specifically, I suggest the following:

 

1.perform a statistical analysis of your data. This is the main issue that can bring new insights, otherwise the paper is just a presentation of some sites

 

Response 1: Thank you for your positive feedback. We have significantly revised and restructured the manuscript, incl. modifications of the introduction part and references’ citation, better defining the objectives of the research as well as materials and methods used. Results’ section and conclusions were also rewritten and new text paragraphs were added there to interpret the main findings. We also decribed both figures and tables in more detail, and provided more explanation to the key arguments in the paper. Now, each figure and each table is wider described in the text and discussed. Following your advice, we also added more statistical analysis in relation to the answers given by the cemetery visitors and author's own assessment from site observation conducted during the pilot studies.

 

Point 2: “ 2.present and discuss the findings derived from the statistical analysis of the survey data”

 

Response 2: In the revised manuscript, we decribed the figures/ tables in more detail. As already mentioned, we have completely restructured and revritten the manuscript trying to make it more logical in its flow. Now, Results from pilot studies section has three subsections: 3.1. Ecosystem services provided by urban cemeteries, 3.2. Cemeteries as a place for wildlife, 3.3. Utilization of cemeteries: Visitors’ activities, perception and potential for recreation, 3.3.1. Results from site-observation, 3.3.2. Results from questionnaire survey (where we provided results of statistical analysis). Also Discussin section was revised and contains now four subsections (main points): 4.1. Reflection on pilot studies from site observation, 4.2. Cemeteries as places of multiple diversity and mental barriers, 4.3. Synthesis of questionnaires survey.

 

Point 3: “3.try to integrate the conclusions of your study in a more general model that could be able to advance the knowledge on the topic.

 

Response 3: Thank you. Following your advice, we revised the conlusions trying to describe them in a more general model which now provides a better overview of the research findings. We also underlined that the manuscript presents a pilot study: We developed and tested the mixed methodology (presented in new Figure 1) in order to draft a first conceptual model for research on urban cemeteries. We were keen on developing and testing the methodological design we created . By drawing conclusions, we planed that these could be the starting points for further more differentiated studies covering also other/divergent types of cemeteries with more heterogenious local contexts.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the authors' replies have addressed my comments and concerns quite satisfactorily. I think the article has improved significantly. The objectives are much better outlined, and the presentation of results and discussion have been very much improved. I find the discussion is now thoughtful and compelling. The inclusion of Figure 1 is very much appreciated. Regarding the statistical analysis, the part on the survey questions is now much clearer. I like the fact that the authors have included tables 2-6, I think they are useful to interpret the article´s results.
However, I still miss the contingency tables of the chi-square analysis. Maybe the authors could include them in an Appendix.
Finally, I still think that some thoughtful and careful rewriting is still needed (in terms of form rather than content).
I include below some very minor additional comments which need to be addressed:
1.  Line 417 (end): I think the numbers “9 visitors, 11.5%” are not correct (either here or in Table
3). I would suggest checking and correcting it if necessary.
2.  Lines 467-468: I would suggest being clearer when describing the categorization of the variable
age. It is not sufficiently clear. Is it complete or are some age ranges missing?
3.  Line 472: Above? Where “above” can we conclude this?
4.  Line 494: It is Table 7 (not Table 8).
5.  Lines 479-480: Question 3 is also statistically significant.
6. Sections are not numbered correctly.

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for providing the feedback and valuable suggestions / comments to our revised manuscript, which we considered and hopefully improved the quality of our manuscript. We accepted all the revisions made in the 1^st round of revisions and made new edits / additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows:

 

Point 1: Overall, the authors' replies have addressed my comments and concerns quite satisfactorily. I think the article has improved significantly. The objectives are much better outlined, and the presentation of results and discussion have been very much improved. I find the discussion is now thoughtful and compelling. The inclusion of Figure 1 is very much appreciated. Regarding the statistical analysis, the part on the survey questions is now much clearer. I like the fact that the authors have included tables 2-6, I think they are useful to interpret the article´s results.

 

Response 1: Thank you for your positive feedback.

 

Point 2: However, I still miss the contingency tables of the chi-square analysis. Maybe the authors could include them in an Appendix. Finally, I still think that some thoughtful and careful rewriting is still needed (in terms of form rather than content).

 

Response 2: Thank you for your feedback and suggestion. The summary contingency table of the chi-square analysis is now included in an Appendix of the revised manuscript (Table A1). The statistical analysis is unified and re-organised, narrowing it down to the comparison of response rates between respondents by nationality (chi square test). We careful revised the last version of the manuscript and corrected the text it if necessary. We added these changes directly to the text of the manuscript.

 

 

Point 3: I include below some very minor additional comments which need to be addressed:

1. Line 417 (end): I think the numbers “9 visitors, 11.5%” are not correct (either here or in Table

3). I would suggest checking and correcting it if necessary.

2. Lines 467-468: I would suggest being clearer when describing the categorization of the variable

age. It is not sufficiently clear. Is it complete or are some age ranges missing?

3. Line 472: Above? Where “above” can we conclude this?
4. Line 494: It is Table 7 (not Table 8).
5. Lines 479-480: Question 3 is also statistically significant.
6. Sections are not numbered correctly.

 

Response 3: Thank you for your valuable comments. We made the following changes to the manuscript:

 

1: Line 417 (end): The text contains an incorrect indication of the number and ratio for answer No E in question 2 (Q2): “integration with other organizations or communities of interest”. The text now has the following content: “Some of the Poles also paid attention to: lack of organization (9 visitors, 11.5%), integration with other organizations or communities of interest (5 visitors, 6.4%).”

2-5: A correction of the text (related to lines: 467-468, 472, 494, 479-480) is added to the revised manuscript. It includes statistically significant values to the conducted statistical analyses and questions (Q1-Q5) used in the questionnaire survey. These corrections are now presented in the revised manuscript (lines: 465-479) and in an Appendix 1.

 

6: The sections are corrected directly in the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I note the changes the authors have made to the article but my overall objections remain the same. The article tells us nothing at all new about urban cemeteries as public resources. Mere convenience of site location is not a justification for case study choice. To publish work of his kind in a major peer reviewed journal with a global readership would require more than a pilot study: we would expect the full results of the final completed project which presumably goes further than the locality of residences of the authors. The authors would do better to submit this paper to a journal with a more focused readership (maybe a regional journal) and wait until the project is fully complete before offering it to an international readership.

As an exercise in practising method the project is fine but that is all it is: an exercise (and I would not award a PhD on its basis). It is not saying anything important enough to excite a global readership. Presumably a larger project for which this is the pilot would aim to achieve that. Sorry I cannot be more positive at this stage.

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for providing the feedback and valuable suggestions / comments to our revised manuscript, which we considered and hopefully improved the quality of our manuscript. We accepted all the revisions made in the 1^st round of revisions and made new edits / additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows:

 

Point 1: I note the changes the authors have made to the article but my overall objections remain the same. The article tells us nothing at all new about urban cemeteries as public resources. More convenience of site location is not a justification for case study choice.

 

Response 1: Thank you for your feedback. In the newly revised manuscript, we argue more strongly why we focused on selected group of cemeteries from both cities. As already mentioned, our decision for the selection of the study sites / cemeteries in two cities not only included practical aspects such as a good accessibility for authors who live in these cities, as well as an experience of working in the study area. Moreover, for each city we highlighted in more detail the importance of choosing our two case studies and selected cities as well.

• We know the cities and thus the cemeteries very well and thus the discussion benefits from this embedding knowledge.
• Cultural background of the researchers with the religions of the cemeteries enabled us to run a sensitive field study acknowledging Dos and Don'ts at the sacred places.
• Tacit behavioural rules could be acknowledged, too.
• Size and shape of the areas made them well comparable.
• Same annual seasons and comparable bio-regions provided important constants which are key in such a comparison.
• Practical issues: easy access, no language problems, no costs when doing field study, ...

Now the selection of case tudy sites looks as follow:

„Two different cemeteries in Leipzig – South Cemetery (Südfriedhof) and Old Jewish Cemetery (Der alte jüdische Friedhof) – were chosen for pilot studies to compare them with Ogrodowa Street cemetery (Stary Cmentarz) and Jewish Cemetery (Cmentarz Żydowski) situated in Łódź (Figure 3). The rational for case sites selection relates to the several reasons. Firstly, these cemeteries have different similar confessions (Christianity and Judaism), the highest recreational and tourist potential, and the most representative function of the existing cemeteries in both cities. Secondly, they have different strong tradi-tions derived from other cultures and different genius loci (the spirit of the place). Third, size and shape of the areas as well as the same annual seasons and comparable bio-regions provided important constants which are key in such a comparison. For each city, two cemeteries were selected which are different in terms of their form and size, canopy cover (high/low) and thus show here a maximum. Moreover, thevariability. The selected cemeteries are unique, have multicultural characteristics, and are places of memory or remembrance of important people who were directly involved and have contributed to the creation of these two similar cities in Central-Eastern Europe in their time. Moreover, the selection of the study sites included practical aspects such as a good accessibility for researchers as well as the experience of working in this study area, thus the discussion benefits from this embedding knowledge. Cultural background of the researchers with the religions of the cemeteries enabled us to run a sensitive field study acknowledging all ethical aspects and tacit behavioral rules at the sacred places”.

 

What refers to

 

Point 2: To publish work of his kind in a major peer reviewed journal with a global readership would require more than a pilot study: we would expect the full results of the final completed project which presumably goes further than the locality of residences of the authors. The authors would do better to submit this paper to a journal with a more focused readership (maybe a regional journal) and wait until the project is fully complete before offering it to an international readership.

As an exercise in practising method the project is fine but that is all it is: an exercise (and I would not award a PhD on its basis). It is not saying anything important enough to excite a global readership. Presumably a larger project for which this is the pilot would aim to achieve that. Sorry I cannot be more positive at this stage.

Response 2: The presented paper provides not only the results of the pilot study using questionnaire survey but also suggest a research framework (Figure 1) which was derived from the literature review (which results also presented in the paper) and which aimed to help to explore and better conceptualize the cemeteries as elements of UGI, reveal a set of ES provided by cemeteries as well as investigate different ways of us-ing cemeteries in daily life and visitors’ activities to understand people’s opinions about these activities. The suggested research framework can help to bring together academia, city governance, and civil society aiming at co-production of usable knowledge in the form of a transferable framework that can guide managers through the processes of evaluating sociocultural and biophysical conditions, determining desired future conditions, and assessing how to progress from the present to the desired future conditions through collaborative creation and implementation of a management plan for future cemetery use. Moreover, results of site observation are also presented as well. Thus, this study can be used as a background and essential element for elaboration of the guidelines to inform urban management and decision makers from the field of urban cemeteries on how to best integrate the natural environment and human needs by applying the methodical approach from the concepts of UGI, ES and BCD, which was tested during the presented study. The paper also reflects on conducted pilot studies and discussed different perspectives in cemetery research, such as cemeteries as places of multiple diversity and mental barriers, possibilities for the future development and challenges in research on cemeteries. It also describes the directions / next steps (e.g. to broaden the research uncovering other categories of ES provided by cemeteries and identify further trends in cemetery use, by analyzing the preferences among users (local residents and touristic visitors) in terms of the perception, use practices and management of UGI). Thus, the paper contributes to the fundamental knowledge on the interrelations of ES provided by cemeteries and the identification of particular types of cemetery use practices, to reveal ecological and cultural properties and performance of ES of urban cemeteries for cities as well as to explore how these types are allocated and distributed in urban space and if the differences within city are more that between the studied cities. It is important that cemeteries can be considered not only as memorial sites with their historical significance, but also as areas with recreational and natural potential that serve benefits for citizen. During our conducted trips to Scandinavian countries (like Sweden) or the US, the recreational aspect of urban cemeteries becomes very clear. Thus, this is interesting for us to find these aspects also in another cases.

Considering the all above mentioned, we believe that by providing an international perspective and cross-disciplinary approach, the presented paper is relevant for such a peer reviewed journal with a global readership as Land and is in line with its aims Land (in particular, land system science and social–ecological system research and frameworks for ecosystem services, multifunctionality and sustainability, etc.).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

hank you for providing the revised version of your manuscript. I really appreciate your efforts to incorporate my suggestions and those of the others reviewers and I consider the paper looks better now. However I have 2 more suggestions for improving the article. Firstly, I consider the theoretical background could be more solid by referencing more very recent articles on the topic or related, and here are my suggestions (but not limitative): Ilieș, D.C.; Hodor, N.; Indrie, L.; Dejeu, P.; Ilieș, A.; Albu, A.;Caciora, T.; Ilieș, M.; Barbu-Tudoran, L.; Grama, V. Investigations of theSurface of Heritage Objects and Green Bioremediation: Case Study of Artefactsfrom Maramureş, Romania. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11,6643. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11146643; Sallay, Á.; Mikházi, Z.; Gecséné Tar, I.; Takács, K. Cemeteries as a Part of Green Infrastructure and Tourism. Sustainability 2022, 14, 2918. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052918.

Secondly, the paper would benefit by integrating the findings in a more general context of urban cemeteries, going beyond the two study cases proposed, and thus the citability potential would also be enhanced. Good luck! 

Author Response

We would like to thank the Reviewer for providing the feedback and valuable suggestions / comments to our revised manuscript, which we considered and hopefully improved the quality of our manuscript. We accepted all the revisions made in the 1^st round of revisions and made new edits / additions in track-changes. Our response to each point follows:

 

Point 1: Thank you for providing the revised version of your manuscript. I really appreciate your efforts to incorporate my suggestions and those of the others reviewers and I consider the paper looks better now. However I have 2 more suggestions for improving the article. Firstly, I consider the theoretical background could be more solid by referencing more very recent articles on the topic or related, and here are my suggestions (but not limitative): Ilieș, D.C.; Hodor, N.; Indrie, L.; Dejeu, P.; Ilieș, A.; Albu, A.;Caciora, T.; Ilieș, M.; Barbu-Tudoran, L.; Grama, V. Investigations of theSurface of Heritage Objects and Green Bioremediation: Case Study of Artefactsfrom Maramureş, Romania. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11,6643. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11146643; Sallay, Á.; Mikházi, Z.; Gecséné Tar, I.; Takács, K. Cemeteries as a Part of Green Infrastructure and Tourism. Sustainability 2022, 14, 2918. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14052918.

 

Response 1:       Thank you for your positive feedback to the revised version of our manuscript. The mentioned references are now considered in the introductionary and discussion parts of the manuscript sowie involved in the literature review.

 

Point 2: Secondly, the paper would benefit by integrating the findings in a more general context of urban cemeteries, going beyond the two study cases proposed, and thus the citability potential would also be enhanced. Good luck!

Response 2: In the revised manuscript (Discussion), we extended the description of direction of future steps. In particular, we pointed out that:

“The results of this study can be used as a background and essential element for elaboration of the framework / guidelines to inform urban management and decision makers from the field of urban cemeteries on how to best integrate the natural environment and human needs by applying the methodical approach from the concepts of UGI, ES and BCD. For this purpose, next step will be to broaden the in research including more cemeteries in the two cities to repeat the study and to make the findings more robust, e.g. on selected cemeteries is to uncover other categories of ES provided by cemeteries and identify further trends in cemetery use, by analyzing the preferences among users (local residents and touristic visitors) in terms of the perception, use practices and management of UGI. Based on this fundamental knowledge on the interrelations of ES provided by cemeteries and the identification of particular types of cemetery use practices, we can involve a more indepth study to reveal determine ecological and cultural properties and performance of ES of urban cemeteries for cities as well as explore how these types are allocated and dis-tributed in urban space and if the differences within city are more that between the studied cities. Another direction for future research can be seen in broadening the choice and sample of test sites including other cities and other religions (as we already started with one Orthodox and one Muslim cemetery in Berlin some years ago for a test).”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx