Early Warnings and Perceived Climate Change Preparedness among Smallholder Farmers in the Upper West Region of Ghana

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper used a cross-sectional survey involving smallholder farmer households to investigates the relationship between early warnings and perceived climate preparedness in Ghana's semi-arid Upper West Region. From ordered logistic regression, factors that influenced climate preparedness in the past 12 months before the study include exposure to early warnings and prior climate events experience such as drought, floods, and erratic rain. This paper provides a new perspective on climate change, but there are also some problems that I would like to discuss with the author.

1. For the introduction, it is suggested the author clear the highlights of this study. How is the representativeness of the climate risks in Sub-Saharan Africa? This may affect the reproducibility of the results

2. For the Theoretical Framework, what is symbiotic link between social systems and their complexities—their natural environments —and their natural environments?

3. Why this study only focuses on the first phase of resilience?

4.  My concern is that this paper has nothing to do with land.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I hope this response finds you well. I am writing on behalf of my co-authors to submit the response to your constructive comments. Honestly, your comments are beneficial and have improved our manuscript. Thank you so much for your time and patience. Kindly see the attached PDF version for a detailed response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Abstract: Line 19: what is low adaptation? Please describe its rank in the method section. What is OR? Give the full form first, and then you can abbreviate.

Introduction: Theoretical Framework: Socio-ecologic resiliency. In this section, the description matches here? It looks more like a methodological framework than a theoretical one. I suggest following the journal guidelines.

Figure 1. The layer should be made readable, and the text and legend. Can you map/plot the household-surveyed villages in Figure 1?

How about the study area's climatic records and the country's average?

Line 215 to 232: please describe these variables their description and categorize them in tabular form.

Line 238: Ordered logistic regression: please describe more and give some previous related research that adopted the regression.

Discussion part: please describe your results with previous related studies conducted in your part, country, or neighboring countries rather than other far countries.

Conclusion: I suggest removing citations in this part. You can conclude your study without citing previous studies.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

On behalf of my co-authors, I highly appreciate the constructive feedback, which has significantly helped refine our work. Herein, we offer a concise overview of the revisions made in response to your comments raised.

Kindly find the attached PDF version for our response. Once again, thank you for your time and patience.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

despite the relevant research, I have provided several remarks and recommendations for improving the article:

1. The purpose of the study should be more precisely defined in the introduction.

2. The research is basically focused on perceived climate change preparedness and its factors, but too little attention is paid to the household reaction to early warnings. Therefore, conclusions and recommendations emphasizing the impact of early warning systems on climate change preparedness do not seem fully justified.

3. Preparedness to climate change should be evaluated also by objective indicators. Can households who do not have the necessary resources and ability to use early warning systems objectively assess resilience, vulnerability, and effectiveness of their activities?

4. It is suggested to give some logical research scheme. Also, not a very clear concrete sample of the research-we see 517 households, but how many people – how do they represent the selected area? Was there used some questionnaire even in the mentioned 2017/18 Census of Agriculture, because the instrument is not described.

5. The second and third recommendations seem unrelated to the results of the study.

6. It is suggested to give some summarizing insights before the discussion part – because now it finishes just with Table 3.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I must acknowledge that your constructive comments have improved our manuscript. On behalf of my co-authors, thank you for your time and patience. 

Kindly find the attached PDF for our response to your comments.

Thank you very much.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have no other opinions about the paper. The paper has met the requirements of journals.

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. We appreciate your feedback and are pleased that the paper meets the journal's requirements. If further suggestions or clarifications are needed, we are more than willing to address them.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors revised it appropriately. However, there are still minor things to be corrected.

Line 26: Keep "OR" in the bracket, not the "Odds Ratio" word.

Line 46: What is SSA? Give full form first.

Line 69 to 73 is a very short paragraph, and I do not think it is linked to previous or below paragraphs or sentences. Move to any suitable place. Maybe it is suitable after line 92.

Line 129-132: very short paragraph. I strongly suggest to move up or down the paragraph. A good paragraph needs at least 3 sentences or 7 lines of writing.

What is the meaning of the sky blue dot in Figure 1? Does it have a different symbol? If yes, symbolize in legend. Otherwise, make all the dots in black color.

Line 204: use prepared word instead of created.

Why did you not keep a continuous number for age and residing years? Is it model limitation? Did you find other studies following the same methods? 

Can you shorten/ reduce Tables 2, 3, and 4? If you can make it short. 

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. We are grateful for your valuable feedback which has helped us to improve our work.

Please find attached a detailed response in PDF format which addresses all of your comments and concerns. If you require any further clarifications or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are always willing to address any additional queries that you may have.

Thank you once again for your time and consideration. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf