Geospatial Decision Support for Forest Trail Constructions Allocation Using GIS-Network Analysis and Hybrid MADM Methods (AHP–PROMETHEE II)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsSee .PDF
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your review comments. Please see the attachment. A detailed, point-by-point response to all reviewer comments is provided in the attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease refer to the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your review comments. Please see the attachment. A detailed, point-by-point response to all reviewer comments is provided in the attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is well-written, well-organized and professionally presented. Section divisions (Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion) are logical and make it easier for the reader to understand. Technical terms and methods are sufficiently explained for an interdisciplinary audience and the language is short, objective, and free of major grammatical errors.
The manuscript has a consistent and strong theoretical background in the field with reference to important literature in sustainable forest planning, spatial optimization, and multi-criteria decision-making. The reason for the use of GIS, AHP and PROMETHEE II is strong and the discussion demonstrates consistency between theoretical concepts and their use in the study.
Suggested Minor Revisions
Improve clarity and readability in certain sections in particular in Methods and Discussion, so as to be more accessible for a wide audience.
Perform a final proofreading to fix occasional grammatical mistakes and compensate for technical terms.
Further elaborate on the justification or reasoning behind the choice of the criteria used for the AHP and PROMETHEE II models.
Other references should be added to the literature review to reinforce the study, especially on the recent applications of GIS-MCDM integration in environmental planning.
Improve figure and table captions in order to offer clearer contextual information and better presentation of results
A more explicit statement of study limitations and future research directions should be provided in the Discussion section.
These minor changes will further improve the manuscript’s clarity, completeness, and suitability for publication.
Author Response
Thank you for your review comments. Please see the attachment. A detailed, point-by-point response to all reviewer comments is provided in the attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsYour manuscript is already strong — conceptually solid, methodologically thoughtful, and with a meaningful landscape-scale application. The GIS–AHP–PROMETHEE II integration is well executed, and Mount Paiko is a compelling case study. With just a few focused adjustments, the paper will be publication-ready.
The first and most urgent point concerns Criterion C3 in Table 1 (Trail Attractiveness Rank). It is currently treated as a non-beneficial criterion; however, the ranking scale appears to indicate that lower values correspond to higher scenic quality (i.e., 1 = most attractive). If this interpretation is correct, retaining C3 as non-beneficial would invert the decision logic, favoring less attractive areas and penalizing the most scenic ones. A simple reclassification of C3 as beneficial (maximize) would align the criterion with the intended prioritization. If my reading of the scale is mistaken, a brief clarification in the text would also fully resolve the issue.
Second, I recommend adding a dedicated Results section. The methodological pipeline is clearly described, but the manuscript currently does not present the model outputs — namely, AHP weights, PROMETHEE net flows, and the resulting spatial ranking. Including these results (e.g., a table of weights, a bar plot of the top Φ values, and a map showing the highest-ranked sites) will provide readers with a transparent view of the decision process and strengthen the application narrative.
Finally, it would be helpful to report the AHP Consistency Ratio. Although the method is properly justified, explicitly stating the CR value (e.g., CR = 0.06, below the 0.10 threshold) reinforces the logical consistency of the pair-wise comparisons and adds methodological rigor.
Author Response
Thank you for your review comments. Please see the attachment. A detailed, point-by-point response to all reviewer comments is provided in the attached PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsMy comments to the initial version of the manuscript were completely and thoughtfully addressed by the author, both in the rebuttal document and in the revised manuscript.
My remaining observations/comments are:
- I do not fully agree with the author's statement about the title ('allocation').
- I believe that the intentional redundancy in the text (in particular regarding the repetition of Materials & Methods in the Results section and regarding a number of figures and tables) makes the flavour of this paper rather technical than scientific.
Author Response
Thank you very much for taking the time to review the revised version of my manuscript and for providing these additional comments.
I am pleased that the changes made in response to the first-round review have addressed your initial concerns.
Regarding your remaining observations, I respectfully retain the use of the term “allocation” in the title, as it accurately reflects the objective of spatially assigning and prioritising new facilities along the trail network; this notion is now more clearly defined in the revised Introduction and Conclusions.
In response to your remark about redundancy, I have carefully streamlined the Results section and the associated figures and tables, removing repeated methodological descriptions and condensing overlapping explanations so that the manuscript is more concise while remaining accessible to non-specialist readers.
