Understanding the Carbon Footprint of Tile Transfer for Web Maps

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript is well prepared and the selected topic is quite interesting. It is well organized, and sections are defined clearly. However, I have some comments which help improve the manuscript's technical quality. Some of my comments are listed below;

The abstract is not very clear. Please revise it considering the research objectives, methodology, key findings, and implications for green cartography.

Provide detailed explanations for methodologies and technical terms.

The manuscript contains some repeating information about map browsing. Additionally, please avoid the unsupported claims.

Small sample sizes have some limitations. Please provide the results obtained for different sizes. To obtain consistent results, please provide more concise control over experimental conditions.

Please simplify visualizations and explain their relationship with the outputs. Additionally, please shorten or remove some geographic details about cities if they do not directly relate to the analysis.

Please provide more information about the data trends.

Please provide detailed energy-saving proposals, specific examples, and practical implementation strategies.

Please test and discuss the usability of generalization techniques and provide more details about the user interaction patterns.

Please simplify some technical terms in the Introduction section such as "generalization algorithms" and "vector tiles."

There are some very basic grammatical errors. Please revise the language of the manuscript from top to down.

Please provide a graphical scale for Figures 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 14 so that the readers can understand the maps' extensions clearly. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Personally, I found this article to be very interesting and in line with the scope of interest of this journal and at the forefront of the field's response to the theme of sustainable development as a global concern. The conclusions reached in this article are favourable to rethinking the design and use of digital maps. It can be expected that this article will draw on the reading interest of a large number of readers.

 

I think the title of the paper is too broad. The thesis focuses on one side of digital maps - map data organization, specifically the energy consumption problems associated with tile data organization. The title of the paper is a bit broad to discuss carton footprint of web maps in general. In fact, not all web maps are tiled, and data organization is only one aspect of map energy consumption.

 

The structure of the paper is not organized clearly enough. For example, the Introduction section does not clearly articulate the scientific question of the paper. It is only in the third section of the guide that the reader begins to understand that the paper focuses on the energy consumption problem posed by tiles, specifically by analyzing the use of tiles. In fact, these issues should have been clearly stated in the Introduction section than would have facilitated the reader's clear understanding of the paper's topic.

 

I found Figure 1 to be very interesting, providing considerable clue on how to make greener maps. I guest reader may want to check the original literature. So I suggest to add a reference to each of the dimensions/factors mentioned in Figure 1.

Why were these two cities chosen as experimental areas? The way the map tiles were used was related to the specific locations and the way the maps were used. What kind of digital map use scenarios are targeted in this paper's experiment? Navigation, or curiosity map browsing. It is recommended that the authors suggest additional clarification.

Personally, I suggest that Section 6 be cut out. Because, the impact of map generalization on map energy consumption is multi-faceted, firstly, there are many operators of map generalization, such as selection, exaggeration, etc., and there are many objects of map generalization, such as roads and buildings. Map generalization itself also involves the computational energy consumption of the map generalization algorithm itself, so it is very challenging to comprehensively analyse the impact of map synthesis on map synthesis. This paper only discusses a very small part of it, and it is recommended that the authors write another paper dedicated to the impact of map generalization on map energy consumption.

 

To sum up, the topic of this paper is very interesting, but it needs further revision in terms of structural organization of the paper and presentation of the scientific question.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please, find attached the Comments' file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your review.

We corrected the remaining errors that you pointed in the review.

And we changed the conclusion accordingly.

"To conclude, this paper reported three short experiments to better understand the energy consumption of web maps related to tile storage and transfer. The first finding is that the number of tiles transferred during each use of a web map is significant. Then, the distribution of these tiles among zoom levels is not regular, with a peak between levels 13 and 16, though the distribution depends on the task accomplished with the map. The third finding is that the size of the tiles is irregular across zoom levels, with larger tiles often corresponding to the heavily loaded tiles. Finally, we found that map generalization can play an important role in the mitigation of this energy consumption, but further studies are necessary to better define what its role can be in the design of greener web maps."

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Most of my comments were realized by the authors. Thus, it can be published as it is.

Author Response

Thank you for your review.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have substantially revised my previous round of review comments, and I personally believe that the revised version meets the requirements for publication. I have one more suggestion: the abstract mainly describes the main content of the paper and could be strengthened to elaborate the specific findings and conclusions of the paper.

Author Response

Thank you for your comment.

We added a sentence to the abstract to reflect the findings from the experiments presented in the paper.