Visual Storytelling of Landscape Change on Rathlin Island, UK

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper is a well polished and more organized version of the former submission, with some evident effort to improve the readability of the writing and the formal presentation of the case study. By adding co-authors, a more "hedge" title, a rewritten abstract, and more clearly marking sections, the authors have clearly responded to previous criticisms with an intention of improving the scholarly quality of the manuscript. However, the main problems that are in its first submission are still unresolved.
Despite structural improvements, the paper is still under-theorised, and light-weight in its methody. Its central theme is visual storytelling and it can be a potent way to understand and communicate landscape change in the realm of the islands, but it is conceptually promising, but not yet fully realised.
The Method that is still vague and descriptive. Although some new technical wording has been introduced (e.g., concerning ArcGIS Field Maps, Google Street View, and Digimap), the use of these tools is not critically framed, or implemented on a systematic basis. The choice of geospatial images, for example, remains seemingly random, and the narrative extracted from these images is not systematically analysed.
The research does not include any qualitative or quantitative data from users or communities, nor does it assess the efficacy of the visual narratives it creates. In short, the paper argues for a toolset without showing how or why it works in practice.
Additionally, the paper still devotes considerable space to explaining the functionalities of widely known digital platforms. These descriptive passages take the place of deeper theoretical engagement with themes such as environmental storytelling, digital heritage, or landscape governance. The result is a manuscript that is technically informative but conceptually underdeveloped.

While the visual materials included are clear and relevant, they are illustrative rather than analytical. The paper would benefit from integrating these visuals more critically — for example, by showing how specific patterns of landscape transformation were revealed, contested, or reframed through these technologies. As it stands, the images do not carry analytical weight.

In conclusion, although the revised version is better organized and more readable, it does not address the most important weaknesses of the original submission. The contribution to scholarly knowledge remains minimal, and the narrative relies too heavily on description rather than critical inquiry. For these reasons, I am unable to recommend this manuscript for publication in its current form.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

land-3687469-peer-review-v1

 

Review of  Visual Storytelling of Landscape Change on Rathlin Island, UK

 

 

This a resubmission of an earlier paper that I reviewed positively. The paper has been somewhat improved and I will restrict my commentary on one issue that was raised but has not been addressed in a meaningful fashion.

 

In  my initial review I wrote:

What about aerial photography? Why is that not mentioned/included? There was a RADAR station on Rathlin Island during WWII, so we can assume that some aerial imagery exists from that period. Plus we  also have more recent imagery that is potent in  digital story telling

would check out these sources :

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303716

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303715

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303719

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303718

 

While the authors now make reference to the radar station (see lines 238ff) they make no real use of the aerial imagery that exists and that would provide a nice time-anchored layer in their  analysis.

 

This need to be more meaningfully addressed and it needs to be explained why these data are not used, but why an 1827 map IS used. Sure they can be ordered in digital form from the UK national archives

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the various improvements to the manuscript.

Author Response

Thanks very much for your comments!

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Whilst I deplore that the authors dod not approach the archives in KEW for the imagery (which would have been digitally delivered) as a missed opportunity, I do not want to stay in the way of the article being published

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper titled "Island Storytelling: A Language of Multifaceted Technology for Sustainable Future Planning" is interesting to read from the abstract and at the beginning because it proposes to use visual storytelling tools to improve sustainable planning of island environments, focusing on Rathlin Island (Northern Ireland) as a case study.   In fact, the paper addresses an important and timely topic such as the use of visual storytelling in sustainable island planning. However, despite the relevance of the theme, the work does not meet the scientific rigor, originality, and theoretical advancement required for publication in Land or similar journals.
The paper is descriptive and not analytical, it does little work to the existing literature, and does not present empirical evidence to support statements, or even explain an innovative contribution to the field. The general idea of applying digital storytelling tool for environmental planning is well-founded.
The manuscript does not develop new theories, propose novel methodologies, or offer any innovative analytical framework. It doesn't even propose a comparison between different islands. It is essentially a simple application of well-known tools without new scholarly advancement. A single case study is also used.
Furthermore, a large portion of the paper is spent on describing existing software (e.g., Google Street View, ArcGIS Field Maps), which does not constitute a scientific contribution. I presume the readers of this journal are familiar with the tools. 
The conversation about fundamental ideas such as *storytelling, *resilience, and *sustainability is superficial. There is little theoretical engagement or critical reflection on the highly contestable discussions around these concepts.
 The main limitation of the article resides in the methodology, which seems imprecise and unsystematic.
For example, the choice of Google Street View points for visual analysis appears to be regulated with little guidance on how these were chosen or any sampling strategy that would ensure the representations are relevant. In addition, by not applying any data triangulation or stakeholder involvement, the validity is not established of how well its proposed visual storytelling framework will work in practice. The exclusive use of secondary sources and the lack of primary data collection using interviews, surveys, or participatory mapping exercises make the research less credible and shallow in terms of results. Without these empirical grounds, these statements about the white paper’s “public engagement” and “sustainable planning” are unfounded.
Given all these factors, I recommend rejecting this article.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

land-3612520-peer-review-v1

 

Review of  Island Storytelling: A Language of Multifaceted Technology  for Sustainable Future Planning

 

The introduction and framing is very well written and comprehensive. This while manuscript a refreshing departure form the other manuscripts I have so far reviewed for Land.  I recommend publication upon  minor revisions.

 

To help the authors I offer the followjng observations

 

What about aerial photography? Why is that not mentioned/included? There was a RADAR station on Rathlin Island during WWII, so we can assume that some aerial imagery exists from that period. Plus we more recent imagery that is potent in  digital story telling

 

I would check out these sources :

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303716

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303715

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303719

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C17303718

 

 

This should have been mentioned:
Andrews MC. Rathlin Island In The Portolan Charts. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 1925 Jun 30;15(1):30-5

 

 

Minor issues

Figure 1. I know this sounds finnicky, but to make things a bit easier for the non UK audience, can you please complete the outline of Ireland? Keep Eire as white fill…that way the British Isles look familiar, while at the same time you shows what the UK is…

Figure 1           indicate the harbor and main settlement area at Church Bay

 

Line 259           Shown is NOT Google street view but Google Maps ! Suggest to change th heading in line  259 to “Google Maps and Google Street View”

 

Line 312           This needs a formal reference…

Line 322           as above

Line 330           as above

Line 349           as above

Line 351           as above

Line 353           as above

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is interesting and possesses potential, but this reviewer missed the human condition (or dimensions) of Rathlin Island from the onset. Technology (and the “language of multifaceted technology”) provides us with new avenues to make sense of existing realities, especially when those are not very accessible because of their peripheral and isolated locations. However, one ought not to forget that, often technology provides mostly static perspectives on dynamic realities, and can even potentially increase the digital divide as argued by Boland et al. (2022) “A ‘planning revolution’ or an ‘attack on planning’ in England: digitization, digitalization, and democratization.” International Planning Studies.

The manuscript would benefit from asking a research question in the introduction, clearly articulating the research gap the study attempts to fill and identifying and making the study’s contribution more forcefully. Then signposting the answer to the research question in the methods, and case study characterization, findings, and discussion, and clearly answering/synthesizing its main thrust in the conclusion.

Chapters 5-9 of Forsythe and McConkey (2012) “Rathlin Island: an archaeological survey of a maritime landscape” document among others, fishing and agriculture, kelp industry, landing places and boat shelters, boats and ships, and the historic settlement. The manuscript would gain renewed interest if a few considerations could be provided on these various dimensions of analysis. Especially because one of the manuscript’s purposes is to “support sustainable planning and environmental awareness.” How can there be sustainable planning if the human aspects of Rathlin Island are not brought to the fold from the start?

Likely, the manuscript would also benefit from providing a succinct overview of the planning regulations and latest planning developments impacting the island, e.g. only terrestrial and spatial planning or increasingly also marine spatial planning? Could this be a new subsection (2.4) of the broader “2. Literature Review” section? This is needed because of the initial paper’s purpose of wanting to help with more sustainable planning.

The link between storytelling and sustainable planning could perhaps be strongly made with recourse to the work of Throgmorton and Throgmorton and Eckstein in “Planning as Persuasive Storytelling in a Global-Scale Web of Relationships” and “Story and sustainability: planning, practice, and possibility for American cities” (2003).

The “integrative visual storytelling” component is nicely put, but weren’t there interactions with residents, business owners, ecologists and conservationists during the February and October 2024 study visits? This “human” side of the paper could be brought forward in the methods and results sections. It would be good to disclose some of the residents’ own thoughts about what they want and aspire for their own island.

One of the potential implications could be the higher involvement of concerned residents with the planning of their future destinies as is proposed by Gouveia (2004) "Promoting the use of environmental data collected by concerned citizens through information and communication technologies." Journal of Environmental Management. Balsas (2021) “GIS buildout analysis and urban planning.” Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies calls attention to the need to do full municipality (island in this case) buildout analysis in the interest of more cohesive and sustainable planning.

Another major omission is the lack of framing of Rathlin Island within the string of other UK and regional islands. There is allusion to other archipelagos far and wide (Marshall Islands, Caribbean, etc.); however, such places as the Shetland, Isle of Man, etc. go unmentioned; do they share commonalities, do they have differences, shared challenges, etc.

It would be helpful to transmit the idea that Rathlin Island is an island administered by a larger island, that “Russian Doll” relationship would bring clarity to the nature and scale of the issues faced by residents as well as administrators and spatial planners.

Additional comments:

Sources of Figures 6-11 are missing.

Other figures (9-11) send readers to a non-existent Appendix – please correct it.

“six random perspectives” – wouldn’t it be wiser to perhaps refer to it as a typology of distinct island scenes in hopes of capturing and conveying a full picture on the islands’ key features?

The discussion seems too short, and likely, the sub-sections “5.1 Implications for Sustainable Future Planning” and “6.2 Implications for Sustainable Future Planning” would be better placed in the conclusion?

lls.204-205 – needs a smoother transition.

l.216 – “holistic method that encompassed all aspects” – rethink this claim and provide more effective transitions between paragraphs.

l.232 – what is a “very good format”? please clarify it.

l.275 “field personnel use every day” – who are those personnel?

l.414 “knowledge can be valuable in helping with guidance towards  island resilient” – it can, but has it been valued adequately in the past, and are there any guarantees that it will be valued in the future?

The idea of “resilient island strategies” is mentioned in passing in the abstract, discussion, and conclusion but not fully discussed, and this reviewer believes that said strategies have merit and could be discussed further within the current manuscript, and not in subsequent studies under the pretense of potential participatory planning.

Introduce a distinction between sandy coastlines and rugged cliffs?

There is no mention of the ‘adorable’ Rathlin Island puffins. Are there any conservation measures required?