Implementing a GIS-Based Digital Atlas of Agricultural Plastics to Reduce Their Environmental Footprint: Part II, an Inductive Approach
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
your article is very interesting and has great application potential. I have no comments as to the content of the article, but I am asking you to consider a certain issue regarding the cartographic illustration – 4. suggestion.
- Page 4, line 129. Figure 1. The map on the right side would be clearer if the administrative units were filled in white, or were set to no fill.
- Page 4, lines 132-135. These regions mentioned in paragraph should be somehow marked and signed on a location map (Figure 1, left map).
- Page 4, line 136, title of the subsection: Indicutive? Is it the right word? Maybe “Indicative”?
- Page 5, line 219, Figure 2. In the cartographic methodological system used in my country, the choropleth method used by you in figures 2, (and consequently 3, 4) has not been properly applied – summarized values are given in all cases, while the choropleth method should use normalized values, e.g. Figure 2: the density of cultivated areas in Italian provinces in ha / km2 or e.g. ha / 100 km2, or use the diagrams.
Best regards,
R.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your comments and compliments.
Regarding your comments, below I am going to respond point by point:
Page 4, line 129. Figure 1. The map on the right side would be clearer if the administrative units were filled in white, or were set to no fill.
Page 4, lines 132-135. These regions mentioned in paragraph should be somehow marked and signed on a location map (Figure 1, left map).
We partially modified Figure 1 as proposed. We have not highlighted the regions in the text so as not to create too much confusion for the reader.
Page 4, line 136, title of the subsection: Indicutive? Is it the right word? Maybe “Indicative”?
there was a mistake in typing.
The correct term is "inductive," which repeats the title of the paper
Page 5, line 219, Figure 2. In the cartographic methodological system used in my country, the choropleth method used by you in figures 2, (and consequently 3, 4) has not been properly applied – summarized values are given in all cases, while the choropleth method should use normalized values, e.g. Figure 2: the density of cultivated areas in Italian provinces in ha / km2 or e.g. ha / 100 km2, or use the diagrams.
Thank you for this comment is that very helpful.
In our case study, we did not normalize the values because rather than a comparison, we needed to show the absolute quantities present in the different regions. It is not a true chloropleth map but only a quantitative cartographic representation.
In addition, the aim of the work was also to provide actual values for the different regions of Italy since that is also the aim of the source research project.
Certainly, when we complete the work for all European countries, we will make actual chloropleth maps for comparison. Thank you for the suggestion.
Reviewer 2 Report
Please mention if formulas 1, 2, 3, and 4 are original, or if not, please mention the source.
In title, and in paper you mention about an introductive approach, while it is a second part of a previous study in which you had a deductive approach. In a logical order the introduction must precede all kinds of studies. It is a fracture of logic, so, please reconsider the approach.
Line 325 In introduction you mentioned as aims the development of ˮan agricultural plastics digital Atlasˮ, while secondly ˮto provide an additional geomatics methodology that is accurate but at the same time easy to apply on a large scale and in other administrative contextsˮ, while here you mention that ˮThe main objective of this work was to create an open source GIS-based methodology to preliminarily quantify the potential APW present in a given territorial and administrative areaˮ
Please clarify the objective of your study.
In title you mention the reducing of environmental footprint, but in text you made no mention about this issue.
Please mention in a clear manner what novelties are brought by this study.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your comments that made the article clearer and more readable.
Below, I reply point by point to your issues:
Please mention if formulas 1, 2, 3, and 4 are original, or if not, please mention the source.
I added a sentence to report the issue of originality of formulas
In title, and in paper you mention about an introductive approach, while it is a second part of a previous study in which you had a deductive approach. In a logical order the introduction must precede all kinds of studies. It is a fracture of logic, so, please reconsider the approach.
Thank you for this comment and the right observation.
However, this second part is not related to the first one as the study areas and approaches are different.
We started from the same problem but approached it differently. This is because we started from two objectives of a research project that we are following.
They are two different methodologies (parts), but both can be used separately to quantify plastics in agriculture. In the first part we infer plastics starting from satellite images, in the second part we implemented a general methodology for Italy starting from specific cases.
But the study areas and some aspects of the papers are different.
As reported in the discussions, in the future these two methodologies (parts) will be merged together for integrated quantification of agricultural plastics.
In the text we reported these issues
Line 325 In introduction you mentioned as aims the development of ˮan agricultural plastics digital Atlasˮ, while secondly ˮto provide an additional geomatics methodology that is accurate but at the same time easy to apply on a large scale and in other administrative contextsˮ, while here you mention that ˮThe main objective of this work was to create an open source GIS-based methodology to preliminarily quantify the potential APW present in a given territorial and administrative areaˮ
Please clarify the objective of your study.
I have made some changes to the text to make it clearer.
The goal of this paper (and the previous one) is to develop different methodologies useful for making a digital atlas of plastics in Europe in the future that is as complete as possible .
I have made this issue clearer in the text by changing sentences in the Introduction.
In title you mention the reducing of environmental footprint, but in text you made no mention about this issue.
As suggested, we have made this concept more explicit.
Please mention in a clear manner what novelties are brought by this study.
we added a new part in the discussion section
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors took into consideration the suggestions.
The article may be published.
