The Impact of Spatial Resolutions on Nature-Based Solution Suitability Mapping for Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Even though this is an interesting study, however, the article needs extensive revisions, specially writing and explanation. Please address the comments to improve the quality of your article.

1. The introduction also needs extensive improvement. Please read more articles before summarize introduction. For example, in the introduction first paragraph (line number 30-31), authors stated that "Riverbanks are increasingly re-naturalised to enlarge the space for runoff during peak water discharges and, therefore, to mitigate or reduce flooding.". I suggest that the authors provide the following reference to support the argument: Sarker, Shiblu, et al. "Understanding the Planform Complexity and Morphodynamic Properties of Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh: Protection and Exploitation of Riparian Areas." Water 15.7 (2023): 1384.

2. "Study area" should be seperate section before methods. Figures 1 should reflect your study area not figure 2, and it's require revision. On the map of their study area, authors may include DEM, river networks and systems. Please review the manual for ArcGIS or another professional software in order to generate publication-quality figures. See aformensioned articles. Please utilize two panels: Panel A should encompass Germany, while Panel B should focus on the study area. These panels need to be combined.

3. I am not convinced by the writing in Methods! Currently, it is poorly written! Please review additional articles to improve your methodology. Also can you add a nice and clean flow chart, revise your figure 1? It should be figure 2. Same for figure 3.

4. Please explain your results with nice and professional plots. Where is your calibration and validation plots and comparison statistics? You may use Python or Matlab to generate publishable figures. Please review this python toolbox. https://timcera.bitbucket.io/plottoolbox/docs/index.html. 

5. What is the significance of this research? Please explain this study's implications in terms of environmental protection, hydrology and climate change. Please describe the potential implications of this study in a separate section (prior to the conclusion). Please review the following literature to address this issue. (a) Sarker, Shiblu. "Fundamentals of Climatology for Engineers: Lecture Note." Eng 3.4 (2022): 573-595, (b) Sarker, Shiblu. "Separation of floodplain flow and bankfull discharge: application of 1D momentum equation solver and MIKE 21C." CivilEng 4.3 (2023): 933-948, (c) Singhal, Akshay, et al. "Identifying Potential Locations of Hydrologic Monitoring Stations Based on Topographical and Hydrological Information." Water Resources Management (2023): 1-16.

 

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our paper and your valuable suggestions! 

Comment 1: The introduction also needs extensive improvement. Please read more articles before summarize introduction. For example, in the introduction first paragraph (line number 30-31), authors stated that "Riverbanks are increasingly re-naturalised to enlarge the space for runoff during peak water discharges and, therefore, to mitigate or reduce flooding.". I suggest that the authors provide the following reference to support the argument: Sarker, Shiblu, et al. "Understanding the Planform Complexity and Morphodynamic Properties of Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh: Protection and Exploitation of Riparian Areas." Water 15.7 (2023): 1384.

Response 1: We performed a major revision of the introduction further integrating the comments by all reviewers. We thank you for this interesting study but due to the rewriting process, this sentence was removed. 

Comment 2: "Study area" should be seperate section before methods. Figures 1 should reflect your study area not figure 2, and its require revision. On the map of their study area, authors may include DEM, river networks and systems. Please review the manual for ArcGIS or another professional software in order to generate publication-quality figures. See aformensioned articles. Please utilize two panels: Panel A should encompass Germany, while Panel B should focus on the study area. These panels need to be combined.

Response 2: We prepared a separated section for introducing the test study area. In addition, we separated the study area figure from Figure 2 and made it an own figure (1) including river networks and flood hazard areas.

Comment 3: I am not convinced by the writing in Methods! Currently, it is poorly written! Please review additional articles to improve your methodology. Also can you add a nice and clean flow chart, revise your figure 1? It should be figure 2. Same for figure 3.

Response 3: We improved the methods section but did not turn the process figure into a flow chart because it would not fit space-wise. 

Comment 4: Please explain your results with nice and professional plots. Where is your calibration and validation plots and comparison statistics? You may use Python or Matlab to generate publishable figures. Please review this python toolbox. https://timcera.bitbucket.io/plottoolbox/docs/index.html. 

Response 4: Thank you for this suggestion, we added a plot on the coherence between the three outputs. A plot for the calibration and validation were not found suitable because the calibration is not part of this study and the validation was performed qualitatively.

Comment 5: What is the significance of this research? Please explain this study's implications in terms of environmental protection, hydrology and climate change. Please describe the potential implications of this study in a separate section (prior to the conclusion). Please review the following literature to address this issue. (a) Sarker, Shiblu. "Fundamentals of Climatology for Engineers: Lecture Note." Eng 3.4 (2022): 573-595, (b) Sarker, Shiblu. "Separation of floodplain flow and bankfull discharge: application of 1D momentum equation solver and MIKE 21C." CivilEng 4.3 (2023): 933-948, (c) Singhal, Akshay, et al. "Identifying Potential Locations of Hydrologic Monitoring Stations Based on Topographical and Hydrological Information." Water Resources Management (2023): 1-16.

Response 5: Thank you for this suggestion, we integrated them and considered the listed publications.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presents an analysis of how spatial resolutions can affect sustainability mapping. The paper flows well in general, but it lacks a showcase of novelty and lacks sufficient results. I recommend publication after major revision. Please see the details below: 

1. My major concern is with the lack of novelty. The methods and tools for analysis are quite standard, and the conclusion is straightforward and not that exciting. One can imagine that, for heterogeneous areas, fine-resolution data is needed, and for more homogeneous areas, coarse-resolution data may be fine. I suggest the authors explicitly mention what is new in this manuscript and conduct a more comprehensive study (e.g., show more analysis results) to make the research more interesting and informative.

2. The manuscript lacks sufficient results to discuss the impact of different spatial resolutions. Figure 3 is the only plot that shows the impact. However, this figure does not compare different resolutions's impacts for the same area. If we are looking at different regions, then we cannot tell which resolution is doing better.

3. Table 1: The "temporal resolution" column is actually about the "temporal range". "Temporal resolution" usually refers to cases like "1-hour data", "1-day data", "monthly", or "annual", etc.

4. Figure 2: You may want to put Figure 2(a) at the center, or move the other figures up to avoid the gap. Also, the figure resolution is too low and should be replaced with high-res figures.

5. Lines 319 - 328: for this part of the conclusion, there aren't sufficient results presented to support it. I suggest adding a processing time analysis/comparison to show how fast it can get by using coarser data, and also showing statistical comparisons of the accuracy when using different resolutions of data.

 

 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for all the valuable suggestions!

Comment 1: My major concern is with the lack of novelty. The methods and tools for analysis are quite standard, and the conclusion is straightforward and not that exciting. One can imagine that, for heterogeneous areas, fine-resolution data is needed, and for more homogeneous areas, coarse-resolution data may be fine. I suggest the authors explicitly mention what is new in this manuscript and conduct a more comprehensive study (e.g., show more analysis results) to make the research more interesting and informative.

Response 1: Thank you for this important comment! We improved the introduction, discussion and conclusion to highlight the novelty of the study.  

Comment 2: The manuscript lacks sufficient results to discuss the impact of different spatial resolutions. Figure 3 is the only plot that shows the impact. However, this figure does not compare different resolutions's impacts for the same area. If we are looking at different regions, then we cannot tell which resolution is doing better.

Response 2: We improved the results with an additional plot. Figure 3 (now 5) is actually showing the comparison of all three layers which is further discussed in the coherence analysis. Also, we would like to clarify that all outputs are representing the same area and Figure 3 captures some parts of these areas (and further indicating the differences). 

Comment 3: Table 1: The "temporal resolution" column is actually about the "temporal range". "Temporal resolution" usually refers to cases like "1-hour data", "1-day data", "monthly", or "annual", etc.

Response 3: We adjusted this. 

Comment 4: Figure 2: You may want to put Figure 2(a) at the center, or move the other figures up to avoid the gap. Also, the figure resolution is too low and should be replaced with high-res figures.

Response 4: We removed Figure 2a from this Figure 2 and made it an own figure. Furthermore, we improved the resolution.

Comment 5: Lines 319 - 328: for this part of the conclusion, there aren't sufficient results presented to support it. I suggest adding a processing time analysis/comparison to show how fast it can get by using coarser data, and also showing statistical comparisons of the accuracy when using different resolutions of data.

Response 5: These were mainly based on the validation outcomes but we made this more coherent with the results section. We added more information on the processing time but we did not consider statistical comparison as suitable due to a lacking reference data. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Spatial resolution is crucial to design appropriate analysis methods and derive correct results in many applications efficiently. The authors proposed a methodology based on patch statistical analysis to evaluate suitable spatial resolutions of various data for riparian forest zone design, as a way of suitability mapping for Nature based solutions of flood management.

Comments and suggestions are following:

1.       It is necessary to consider topography (DEMs) and weather conditions, even not additional factors like social economic ones, of specific regions to develop nature based solutions for flood management. And DEM resolution may have its own intrinsic properties and influence to other spatial data.

2.       The paper title is “…for Europe”. But the study area is actually a region in Germany. The authors may need further elaborate how to generalize the results to Europe wide. At the same time, the meaning of “the impact..” in the title indicates just too broad.

3.       The OSM data is vector, with a 2m accuracy. It may not be appropriate to put it as spatial resolution in table 1?

4.       The paper introduces a number of input layers, which are not explained their functions, for example soil and forest density, in the suitability mapping process.

5.       It is critical to explain the corresponding resampling methods, which may have a big influence to the result, especially in the cases of 500 meters to 10 meters.

6.       Since the study area is only a region in Germany, data storage size comparison of Europe may not be appropriate.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

No.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for all the valuable suggestions!

Comment 1: It is necessary to consider topography (DEMs) and weather conditions, even not additional factors like social economic ones, of specific regions to develop nature based solutions for flood management. And DEM resolution may have its own intrinsic properties and influence to other spatial data.

Response 1: Thank you for this comment. In fact, from literature, elevation was not identified as a criteria for riparian forest buffers (unless in regard to tree lines which is not applicable in this test area). We agree that weather (especially precipitation) is important to consider. However, this would go into a next step following this suitability mapping. 

Comment 2: The paper title is “…for Europe”. But the study area is actually a region in Germany. The authors may need further elaborate how to generalize the results to Europe wide. At the same time, the meaning of “the impact..” in the title indicates just too broad.

Response 2: We clarified the fact that the main ambition is to produce suitability maps for entire Europe and here, we test the process in a smaller area but the results should inform the method to be used for whole Europe. 

Comment 3: The OSM data is vector, with a 2m accuracy. It may not be appropriate to put it as spatial resolution in table 1?

Response 3: We replaced it with n/a.

Comment 4: The paper introduces a number of input layers, which are not explained their functions, for example soil and forest density, in the suitability mapping process.

Response 4: All layers and their functions are explained in section 3.1 (revised version).

Comment 5: It is critical to explain the corresponding resampling methods, which may have a big influence to the result, especially in the cases of 500 meters to 10 meters.

Response 5: We added information on the resampling approach.

Comment 6: Since the study area is only a region in Germany, data storage size comparison of Europe may not be appropriate.

Response 6: We kept this information because the overall focus is on suitability mapping for entire Europe.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Some corrections are needed: see attach

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions! We integrated them! 

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article explores a very important topic. However, the authors did not organize the article well. I suggest that the authors revise it.

1. I suggest that the authors enhance the scientific value of the article. This includes two aspects, one is to show the original contribution of the article, and the other is to show that the results of the article can be applied in other regions. A scientific paper should have both, otherwise it becomes a research paper for stakeholders.

2. Figure 2 is not clear and should contain legends.

3. The paper should have a separate concluding section.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the valuable suggestions!

Comment 1: I suggest that the authors enhance the scientific value of the article. This includes two aspects, one is to show the original contribution of the article, and the other is to show that the results of the article can be applied in other regions. A scientific paper should have both, otherwise it becomes a research paper for stakeholders.

Response 1: Thank you for this comment! Indeed, it is rather a research article but we improved the introduction, discussion and conclusion to highlight the novelty better.

Comment 2: Figure 2 is not clear and should contain legends.

Response 2: We improved the figure and added a legend.

Comment 3: The paper should have a separate concluding section.

Response 3: We added a conclusion section.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the revision. Could you please improve the writing style of your methods?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Check again. 

Author Response

Thank you for the second review! We improved the writing style of the methods section. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript has improved a lot and I recommend publication.

Author Response

Thank you!