Stakeholders’ Perspectives to Support the Integration of Ecosystem Services in Spatial Planning in Switzerland

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research is very interesting and the paper is very well written.

There are only some objections:

On pages 10-11:

The “we” should be changed in more neutral “the authors” or “the researchers”. The same goes for other moments where “we” is used.

Also:

“we argue that crop rotation…” – This proposition does not seem as a part of research, or the result of research but personal opinion of the authors, and should be avoided in scientific paper. The same applies for other such statements.

The same applies for “we suggest a swift change…” – also seems as an opinion of the researchers and not the result of the presented research. Instead the point that the “participants considered cultural aspects as important, but with negative impacts on the environment” would be better addressed as the bases for the proposal of the analysis to check why  participants think so, and if there would be the same result if an evaluation on the landscape would be applied (as in the possible future research).

 On page 11:

Methodological considerations are very well stated.

 “moving away from a productive approach” – maybe “productive-only approach”?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This article explores the stakeholder’s perspective of integrating ES in spatial planning. Although It is an interesting study, the lacking of supportive references, description of methods, and the samplings. The followings are the questions for the study which are unknown in current version.

 1.     Introduction. “While the concept of ES is considered complementary to current spatial planning…” Although this is an interesting discussion, there is not enough support for such discussion.

2.     Introduction. “ES tradeoffs could addressed…” Why mention ES tradeoffs?

3.     Introduction. “While much work has focused on the quantification and mapping…” It is necessary to give more supportive evidence for the discussion.

4.     Introduction. There is no concrete support in exploring the stakeholder’s perspective of integrating ES in spatial planning. What is social demand? What are the differences between social demand and ecological priorities?

5.     Introduction. The purpose, the methods, and the simplified procedure should be mentioned in the last paragraph.

6.     Study site. Since the paper discusses ES, there should be more description on ES to let the readers catch the necessity to integrate ES in spatial planning.

7.     Q-methodology. Why apply Q-methodology? Is there any other methods used in previous studies? What is the pro and con to apply Q-methodology?

8.     Table 1. The table is based upon 10 researchers. What is the significance? Is it suitable for Switzerland? How can you define such suitability?

9.     “First, a first list of 14 stakeholders is set based on three information sources: our research group, name request to key informants, as well as the grey literature.” Does it indicate only 14 stakeholders in this study? Why 14 stakeholders?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round  2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have checked the paper and review, and it seems to me that the authors addressed all the comments.

I've just noticed some things:

-  The phrase :”ES tradeoffs could addressed by the assessment of ES supply at various planning levels, to assist stakeholders in making rational decisions, particularly within a temporal informed framework” – seems strange, like missing a verb?
- Also please check once more for remaining “we” and change in “authors”