Assessing Urban Resilience with Geodesign: A Case Study of Urban Landscape Planning in Belgrade, Serbia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the paper represents an exciting and timely study of urban resiliency in the context of Belgrade. The authors have attempted to merge various concepts related to landscape planning, Geodesign, and urban resilience, which is commendable. However, several major revisions are required to improve the study's clarity, rigour, and contribution.

Major Revisions:

1. Theory and Conceptualization of Urban Resiliency: There is a need for a more explicit articulation of the theoretical background and the conceptualization of urban resilience. The concept of resilience, as applied to urban landscapes, is multifaceted, and this paper would benefit from a more thorough exploration of this concept. The paper could better define what is meant by 'resilience' in the context of urban planning and how this definition fits into the broader scholarly discourse on the subject.
2. Methodology: The authors need to provide more detail about the methodological approach and the development of the resiliency index. The authors should describe how the parameters (area, redundancy, diversity, porosity, carbon sequestration, edge type, edge length, etc.) were selected and justified and how they were operationalized into the resiliency index.
3. Case Study Selection: The reasons for choosing Belgrade as a case study must be more clearly articulated. The authors should justify why Belgrade's urban landscape is representative or unique and how the results of this study might be applicable or informative to other urban landscapes.
4. Data Analysis and Results: The analysis section needs more clarity. For instance, it needs to be clarified how the data collected from the Geodesign tool has been analyzed and how it contributes to developing the resiliency index. The authors should provide more detailed information about the data analysis process and describe how they interpreted their results. Moreover, they should report more explicitly on the outcomes of the resiliency index.
5. Discussion and Implications: The discussion section could benefit from more explicitly linking the results to the research question. It is also recommended to discuss the study's practical implications more extensively. What are the practical implications of these findings for urban planners or policy-makers in Belgrade or other similar cities?
6. Conclusion: The conclusion section could be improved by summarizing the study's key findings and contributions more clearly. The authors should also point out their study's limitations and suggest future research.

Your manuscript currently requires substantial improvements in English language usage. Specifically, the manuscript suffers from numerous grammar and syntax errors that obscure meaning, a lack of clarity and precision in sentences that can be overly complex or vague, inconsistencies in the usage of specific terms and phrases, improper usage of some technical terms, numerous punctuation errors, and complex sentence structures that can make the manuscript difficult to read. It is strongly recommended that the manuscript be reviewed and edited by a professional language editing service to ensure the text is clear, correct, and comprehensible.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to resubmit our revised manuscript, titled "Urban Resiliency Assessment with Geodesign: Case Study of Belgrade Urban Landscape Planning, Serbia," to the Land Journal by MDPI.

We genuinely appreciate the time and effort you devoted in reviewing our manuscript and providing valuable feedback. We have taken your comments seriously and thoroughly worked to address each of them, as evidenced by the tracked changes in the manuscript.

In response to your feedback:

Comment 1. “Theory and Conceptualization of Urban Resiliency:

There is a need for a more explicit articulation of the theoretical background and the conceptualization of urban resilience. The concept of resilience, as applied to urban landscapes, is multifaceted, and this paper would benefit from a more thorough exploration of this concept. The paper could better define what is meant by 'resilience' in the context of urban planning and how this definition fits into the broader scholarly discourse on the subject.

• Response: We have improved the methodological clarity of our urban landscape analysis by providing a detailed explanation of our metric parameter selection and justification. This is informed by the research findings and approaches of notable scholars, including Ahern (2012), Leitao et al. (2012), Mc Garigal (1995), and Gharai et al. (2018). We have clarified how these parameters were operationalized into the resiliency index, providing a more detailed explanation of our approach. The specific changes you can find in the corresponding line counters, lines 277 to 284 and in the Table 1. Resilience indicators, metric parameter description and calculation.

Comment 3. “Case Study Selection: The reasons for choosing Belgrade as a case study must be more clearly articulated. The authors should justify why Belgrade's urban landscape is representative or unique and how the results of this study might be applicable or informative to other urban landscapes.”

• Response: Accepted. We have further explained our decision to choose Belgrade as a case study, highlighting its unique context with the recent Master Plan and the city's accelerated urban transformation and degradation. This clarifies how our study is representative and informative of other urban landscapes.

Comment 4.  “Data Analysis and Results: The analysis section needs more clarity. For instance, it needs to be clarified how the data collected from the Geodesign tool has been analyzed and how it contributes to developing the resiliency index. The authors should provide more detailed information about the data analysis process and describe how they interpreted their results. Moreover, they should report more explicitly on the outcomes of the resiliency index. “

• Response: Accepted. We have improved the clarity of the analysis section, describing in greater detail how data collected from the Geodesign tool contributed to the development of the resiliency index. We have also provided more explicit reporting of the outcomes of the resiliency index. At the end we added paragraph 3.3 Resilience index operationalisation where we presented the the overall resilience of the landscape across different scenarios (Figure 13). We have segmented the 'Results' chapter into multiple sections to enhance clarity and facilitate a more organized presentation of our findings. (Results / 3.1. Scenario proposals description / 3.2. Results of scenario evaluation /3.2.1.  Results of the measurement of multifunctionality, redundancy and modularization, and diversity / 3.2.2. Results of measurement of indicators of diversity and multi-scale network and connectivity / 3.2.3. Results of the measurement of indicators of multi-scale networks and connectivity / 3.2.4 . Results of the measurement of the Indicator of adaptability / 3.3. Resilience index operationalisation)

Comment 5. “Discussion and Implications: The discussion section could benefit from more explicitly linking the results to the research question. It is also recommended to discuss the study's practical implications more extensively. What are the practical implications of these findings for urban planners or policy-makers in Belgrade or other similar cities?”

• Response: Accepted. Thank you for this suggestion. We have revised the discussion section to explicitly link the results to the research question and expanded on the practical implications of our findings for urban planners and policymakers in Belgrade and similar cities. The practical implications of these research findings for urban planners and policymakers are stated in Discussion and Conclusion together.

Comment 6. “Conclusion: The conclusion section could be improved by summarizing the study's key findings and contributions more clearly. The authors should also point out their study's limitations and suggest future research?”

• Response: Accepted. Thank you for this suggestion. The conclusion provides a clear summary of the study's key findings and contributions. We have also acknowledged the limitations of our research and suggested directions for future research in the closing paragraph.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article titled “Urban resiliency assessment with Geodesign: Case study of Belgrade urban landscape planning, Serbia” it is contributes to the interpretation and assessment of the Geodesign scenario’s resiliency by quantifying the impacts on the components of the natural and built environment. The study was carried out meticulously.

However;

(1) Indicators of multifunctionality, redundancy and modularisation and diversity,

(2) Indicators of diversity and multi-scale network and connectivity,

(3) Indicators of Multi-scale networks and connectivity,

(4) If the information given under the main headings such as Indicator of adaptability is classified a little, it will be more understandable.

However, the maps and graphics provided in figures such as Figure 5 and Figure 6a and 6b are not readable, you should enlarge if necessary, because in this case they are not understandable.

Also, some Figures and Tables are not cited in the text. After these corrections, the article can be published.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity to resubmit our revised manuscript, titled "Urban Resiliency Assessment with Geodesign: Case Study of Belgrade Urban Landscape Planning, Serbia," to the Land Journal by MDPI.

We genuinely appreciate the time and effort you devoted to reviewing our manuscript and providing valuable feedback. We have taken your comments seriously and thoroughly worked to address each of them, as evidenced by the tracked changes in the manuscript.

In response to your feedback, we have improved the clarity of the analysis section, describing in greater detail how data collected from the Geodesign tool contributed to the development of the resiliency index. We have also provided more explicit reporting of the outcomes of the resiliency index. At the end, we added paragraph 3.3 Resilience index operationalisation where we presented the overall resilience of the landscape across different scenarios (Figure 13). We have segmented the 'Results' chapter into multiple sections to enhance clarity and facilitate a more organized presentation of our findings. (Results / 3.1. Scenario proposals description / 3.2. Results of scenario evaluation /3.2.1.  Results of the measurement of multifunctionality, redundancy and modularization, and diversity / 3.2.2. Results of measurement of indicators of diversity and multi-scale network and connectivity / 3.2.3. Results of the measurement of indicators of multi-scale networks and connectivity / 3.2.4. Results of the measurement of the Indicator of adaptability / 3.3. Resilience index operationalisation).

Also, we appreciate your feedback concerning the citation of figures and tables. We have ensured that the relevant figures and tables are appropriately cited in the text.