Living with the River: The Role of Bridges in Shaping Valencia’s Urban Form Until 1957

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presents a unique and contextually rich historical investigation of Valencia's bridges and their influence on the city's morphological evolution until the 1957 flood. The framing of "bridge stages" is particularly insightful and helps trace urban development in a clear chronological framework.

However, a few aspects could be improved for greater clarity and rigor:

• The introduction provides a strong conceptual rationale but could benefit from more references to prior international urban morphology studies using GIS or similar longitudinal approaches. This would help to better position the current study in broader academic discourse.

• While the methodology is innovative and combines qualitative and quantitative techniques, the specific application of GIS analysis is not described in sufficient technical detail. It would be helpful to elaborate on the exact procedures used to quantify spatial growth or overlay bridge impact zones.

• The English language, although understandable, contains awkward phrasings and occasional verbosity. Rewriting for clarity and conciseness would enhance readability and professional tone.

• The concept of bridge functionality (connection, urbanizing, flow) is well-conceived but could be clarified with more explicit spatial or morphological criteria, possibly supported with visual overlays or metrics.

• References related to urban morphology, spatial analysis, and comparative case studies seem underrepresented. Adding more scholarly citations would enhance the academic depth of the paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.      Overview

Very interesting analysis of the urban development morphology of the city of Valencia due to the river.

Major recommendation

Keywords: Bridges stages; Bridge functionality; Urban morphological

 

Proposed:

 

Keywords: Bridge functionality; Urban development; Urban morphological

 

On page 3, line 136: please consider Fourth Stage.

 

On page 7, line 250: Al-Quantara Bridge (?) – it is mentioned for the first time and not in the Figures.

 

On the page 7, line 256: “The five bridges built during this period were more durable, as they still exist today”. With this sentence, the five bridges are compared to?

 

On page 8, line 260: “some of them remain in use today.” Which are they?

 

On page 15 – Please refer in the text to the figures where the railway stations mentioned are located. Ex.

Pag. 15 line 430: “The first railway station was the Del Norte old Station (1852) (E1)”

Consider:

The first railway station was the Del Norte old Station (1852) (E1 – Figure 4);

“…… by the current Del Norte 433 Station (1917) (E2 – Figure 5)”

And so on.

 

Pag. 16, Why does figure d) represent Valencia-Alameda Station and not Santa Monica Station?

The caption for Figure 6 does not match with the subject it presents.

 

Pag 19, the Table 5, 6 and 7 are not mentioned in the text. For example, line 501 “…..in the different districts”. Here the table 5 can be introduced.

Table 7 can be after the table 6.

Graphic 1. The caption of this is not according the title.

Another issue, is “Constructions” or “properties”?

Consider the Table 6, 7 and the Graphic 1. After the text of pag 21.

In this text, the table 6, 7 and Graphic 1 must be mentioned.

 

Pag. 22, line 564: is Figure 1? Or Figure 5 or even table?

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf