Refuge Green Space Equity: A Case Study of Third Ring Road on Chengdu

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic and the idea of the study is very interesting and valuable. Generally, the manuscript includes all main stages of the scientific research, however the presentation of selected elements is not clear / rather chaotic – this applies to the part describing the results, discussion and conclusions.

The manuscript is almost identical to another publication by the same Authors related to another area: “Evaluation and Optimization of Refuge Green Space in the Central Area of Tianjin for Geological Disasters” (https://doi.org/10.3390/su142315507). In my opinion, the study for Chengdu requires a more individual and approach, also the characterization of the results than repeating the same formulations, etc.

1. The title needs some better grammar construction (.... on the example of Chengdu.). Abstract is general but include main elements of conducted study. Key words are well selected.

2. Introduction is developed, but mostly related to the approaches and then selected methods on studies of green areas. Some more information must be added related to the most important term Refuge Green Space – it is new, however there is available some more literature related to that type of area, thus the definition should be more deeply presented / developed by Authors and based on more literature items, etc.

3. There is information about the used method and innovation of this study, however the main aim of the study is not presented/formulated - it can be only guessed in some sentences in various parts of the Introduction. This element should be highlighted and easy to find by the readers/scientists, thus must be added.  

4. Material and methods – the presentation of study area is rather clear, however the presentation of stages in 2.3. Calculation Process is a bit too compact – it needs more descriptive form; especially the number of stages which are listed in brackets on the right side of the description (?) should be more integrated with the formal text. The used formula should be clear and easy repeated by other researchers.

5. The presentation of results (calculation) is well divided to main aspects of the study, wat is a good procedure. The data presented in each table could be better described including the differences of each Class before the summarizing the results. The figures are small and should be more clearly presented – the legend can’t be read.    

6. The data presented in the section 4. Discussion is a part of results in my opinion and should be included in previous section.

7. The information included in the section 5. Conclusions, and also information from the section 6. Research Outlook, include both a part of discussion and conclusions. That mix of information makes this part of the manuscript chaotic in my opinion, and must be improved to be understandable for other scientists.

Regarding the above mentioned weaknesses, the sections 5 and 6 need reorganization. The more formal discussion should be also included to highlight the novelty of the study, explain the limitations, but certainly indicate some links with other studies on that topic with adding literature. More methodological approach in presentation of these stages of the manuscript must be introduced to increase the scientific soundness of the study.

Others:

- the way of literature citation should follow the rules of the journal, e.g. the same font size what the text, date in bracket after the name of author cited in the text, etc.

Summing up, I appreciate Authors’ work, however the manuscript needs major revision in my opinion.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions! Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attached. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

It needs minor revision of English. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript titled “Research on the Equity of Refuge Green Space Layout - Taking the Third Ring Road of Chengdu for Example” presents an important issue related to the green spaces' contribution to the city resilience to natural disasters. Comprehensive research was performed and thus, the information presented are of the importance. The structure of the paper is, to some point, well organized and demonstrates understanding of the relevant literature and cites appropriate range of literature sources. I have to point out that I am not commenting methods used as it not my key expertise. 

I want to emphasize that the main limitation of the paper is the quality of communication as is not in accordance with the needed criteria. In some parts, the paper does not clearly express its case and needed attention has not been paid to the clarity of expression and readability. The paper lacks “the consistency” and thus it is difficult to follow. The manuscript needs proof reading in English.

To the authors is suggested to revise the paper very carefully. Some of the aspects of the manuscript need to be improved in order to support publication. Suggestions for author/s:

-          In order to support consistence of the paper within the section of Abstract, Introduction and Conclusions should be more clearly emphasized significance of this paper; thus, within the sections of Abstract, Introduction and Conclusions should be clearly emphasized practical significance of this paper, all together with providing explanation of the value of the manuscript for similar research in related fields. 

-          To the authors is suggested to revise the paper in order to meet standards for publishing, i.e., scientific writing (precise, concise, etc.) as this is the main limitation of the paper and affects adversely the significance of content; in that sense I would like to give following suggestions to the authors:

-Tittle “Research on the Equity of Refuge Green Space Layout - Taking the Third Ring Road of Chengdu for Example is not clear, consider revising it; suggestion for authors: Refuge Green Space Equity: a case study of Third Ring Road of Chengdu.

-Keywords – consider revising, change the order: Equity; Planning Layout; Refuge Green Space; Three Step Floating Catchment Area Method; The Third Ring Road of Chengdu; suggestion: Refuge Green Space, Equity, Planning Layout, Three Step Floating Catchment Area Method, The Third Ring Road of Chengdu

- Referencing: through manuscript the way of referencing is not clear; in some parts of the paper, they are just listed without showing researcher(s) attitude /analytical approach regarding the obtained results within subject area; consider revising throughout the whole manuscript.  

Consider revising the whole manuscript (particularly Section 1.3). I have to stress that, taking into account main limitation of the paper, I assigned major revision.

To the authors is suggested to revise the paper carefully as some of the aspects of the manuscript need to be improved in order to support publication. Please refer to the Journal guidelines for authors.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions! Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript analyzes the accessibility of RGS in Chengdu and proposes optimization strategies, and the research topic and issues is interesting. However, the overall research framework design needs to be optimized.

1. This manuscript only adopts RGS such as disaster prevention park spaces, and the optimization strategy of RGS proposed based on this paper may be biased. Refuge spaces should include multiple types of open public spaces, such as green parks, squares, stadiums, etc. The final RGS planning strategy in this manuscript relies only on construction of  green space, which will face high constraints when land use is tight in metropolitan areas.

2. The choice of research area in this manuscript needs to be optimized. As a super metropolis in western China, it is unreasonable for Chengdu to only evaluate the area within the Third Ring Road, which cannot represent the disaster avoidance ability and urban resilience of Chengdu metropolitan area, especially the large area of open green space around the ring expressway in Chengdu. Therefore, from the research results, the results of this paper seem to be somewhat different from the actual results.

3. The residential population data used in this paper seems to have a lot of misunderstandings, excluding many densely populated areas, such as the Wangjiang campus of Sichuan University, the northeast of Chenghua District and so on. In addition, the use of the centroids of the residential area to evaluate accessibility greatly masks the population heterogeneity within the residential area, especially in the edge of the study area, and the accuracy of the evaluation results is low.

4. The assessment of the capacity of green space is crucial to the results of this manuscript, which seems to use the green space area indicator (Equation 5), is there a deduction of water area? The area of water in many parks cannot be used as an effective shelter.

5. There are no indicators of equity in the manuscript, and it is inappropriate to simply analyze equity using a classing method, because it does not reflect that the authors' class is consistent.

6. How is housing price data used in this article? The introduction in the manuscript is very vague.

7. The figures in the manuscript are not clear and I have difficulty reading the legend.

Minor editing of English language is required.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions! Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

The paper is about an interesting subject that is very well addressed.

The methodology is clearly explained and the results lead to interesting outlook.

We just suggest to improve the way the plans and the tables are presented, as actual layout weakens the very good work. Images in general could be larger, while tables could be more concise.

Also the the research area could be presented with plans, to orient readers not familiar with China regions.

There are some typos due to unnecessary spaces. 

We appreciate the wide view, interconnecting scientific disciplines and skills.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciate all works done by the Authors, some of suggestions has been introduced. Generally, Authors didn’t mark some changed / improved parts of the manuscript with different color, what makes it not easy to find. Main comments and suggestions are below.

1. The title has been modified/improved.

2. Introduction has been also revised towards focus more on aspects related to presented study. The aim of the study is included in the last part of this section.

3. The title of section 4 has been changed from Discussion to Optimization, what fits better to the scope of presented data.

5. The information included in the section 5. Conclusions presents some conclusions which follow the obtained results, while the title of this section suggest that the conclusions of the whole manuscript are included here, thus it is a bit confusing.

6. Discussion (section 6) – the thoughts presented in this section are not linked/related to other literature sources, so it sounds more as Authors' intentions than formal discussion, what is a kind of weakness of the paper. It should be improved in my opinion or this section shouldn’t be called as Discussion.

Summing up, some small improvement is still needed to increase the scientific soundness of the manuscript.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions. Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript titled “Refuge Green Space Equity – A case study of Third Ring Road of Chengdu” has been improved considering given suggestions.

The remarked main limitations of the paper - the quality of communication - has been improved. However, from authors respond it is not clear was it performed English proofreading.

As mentioned within previous review report, the paper presents an important issue related to the green spaces' contribution to the city resilience to natural disasters. In addition, I have to point out once more that I am not commenting methods used as it not my key expertise.

To the authors is suggested to revise, once again, the paper very carefully as some of the (minor) aspects of the manuscript need to be improved in order to support publication.

Suggestions for authors:

 

o   Abstract, line 11:” The research targets….”; suggestion for authors “The presented research targets….” As the paper present the research (study) done.

o   Referencing: in some parts of the paper the references are just listed, especially within Section 1.1; consider revising this Section.  

o   Line 111: it could be considered to list innovations within this sentence as it is not clear/well defined; line 497, also the same style of presentation that could be revised.

 To the authors is suggested to revise the paper carefully as some of the aspects of the manuscript need to be improved in order to support publication. The manuscript needs English proof reading. Please refer to the Journal guidelines for authors.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions. Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you very much to the author for carefully replying my concerns and making some revisons to the manuscript. Overall, problems in the framework of research in the manuscript remain. From the authors' responses, it can be seen that the authors are limited by the incompleteness of the data and the inability to use new data for new analyses, so the authors' research work needs to start over, especially the expansion of the study area, which is unacceptable for the authors at this stage. Peer review as part of the academic discussions, I still need to point out some of my comments on the authors' responses. I appreciate the author's response to points 5 to 7 of my last review comments, which is perfectly fine. However, for 1~4 opinions, the authors are limited by limited time and limited data and cannot make corresponding modifications. Although the authors illustrate these issues, there is still a lack of convincing justification. As Chengdu is a metropolitan area, urban construction has long exceeded the third ring area, and the author's omission to discuss the fairness of the evacuation space in the green space around the city is insufficient. Similarly, more granular population data is available to model the distribution of population in metropolitan areas, and biased population data can also lead to biased estimates. The author's explanation for the use of green space is reasonable, but it contradicts the author's response to the first comment. The author believes that hard ground can be used as a refuge for disasters such as earthquakes, so why not consider open spaces such as squares? The author believes that the water surface can be used as a shelter space for urban fires, so why not consider the river surface? In terms of research topic, this article is interesting and worth publishing; From a methodological perspective, manuscripts can contribute new insights to the academic community; However, from the research results, this article has many loopholes and cannot be closely integrated with urban planning and urban spatial governance.  

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions. Please see the attachment.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx