A Needs-Driven, Multi-Objective Approach to Allocate Urban Ecosystem Services from 10,000 Trees

Round  1

Reviewer 1 Report

General Comment

This is an interesting manuscript about a spatially-explicit method to optimize tree planting in rapidly growing urban area for urban ecosystem services. However, there are aspects that require improvement before being considered for publication. Specific comments and suggestions are included below.

Specific comments and suggestions

L22-23: Briefly include the type of data used in the abstract. Additionally, there some typos especially spacing in the beginning of sentences in the abstract (e.g. L19, 28, 29) and other parts of the manuscript.

L63-64: The ecosystem service depends on species types. How is considered such issue apart from potential beneficiaries of those services?

L71: The used word “deployed” confusing, may be located?

L78: Which planting scenario?

L81: Why 10,000 trees selected? What are the bases of tree species selection?

L128-129: What about the danger of selecting single species, or monoculture? What if tree diseases or pest infestation happens? Assumptions and alternative strategies need to be considered.

L142: Include explanations for the base of considering four objectives.

L288: add scale to the map.

L307: Is that subsection? It is confusing.

L308-321: This seems more methodology rather than result. I suggest if cost is going to be considered, how calculated should be described in the method and the findings need to be presented in the result section.

L326-333: What are the major implications in relation to this study? What is better than of earlier similar approaches of tree planting optimization?

L337-344: These are extensive presentation of the results. I suggest moving the appropriate place in the result section, and focus on discussing them based on other findings.

L400: Conclusion is more of summary. What are the major conclusions from this study?

Author Response

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper entitled “A Needs-Driven, Multi-Objective Approach to Allocate Urban Ecosystem Services from 10,000 Trees” offer a methodology to apply a prioritization strategy in order to maximize the ecosystem service capacity to deliver multiple benefits by planting trees in green areas.

The field is of great interest for the scientific community since one of the major gaps concerning ES is the gap between the theory for their assessment/quantification and their implementation at the practical stage. This manuscript should be used to construct in the future a handbook for a possible management of urban green areas to maximise the ES delivering capacity.

Overall, I found the article well-written, and well-designed. There aren’t signicative flaws in the structure, and also the style is good. Even if with multiple acronyms the article remains easy-to-read which is very important. The introduction is concise and clear, and the discussion is catted around the central issue findings revealed the methodology.

My main doubt concerns that the work didn’t consider the works already done to assess the trade-off synergies between alternative ES and their capacity to be delivered simultaneously.

 (Burkhard et al., 2013; Turkelboom et al., 2015; Albert et al., 2016; Arcidiacono, Ronchi and Salata, 2016)

 As regards this, I don’t know if the four selected in the study are properly ES (walkability and population vulnerability are aspects of environmental wellness and healthy conditions of citizens as an effect of ES implementation). See also that you use two regulative ES (stormwater and pollution reduction), but a comprehensive assessment of a multi-objective approach for ES should cover almost 3 out of 4 categories of ES according to TEEB (supporting, regulative, provisioning, cultural/recreative/aesthetic).

The second doubt regards your approach which is not sector-specific modelling (you careful explain in limitations that you did not refer to these studies). Nonetheless, major attention to this study in the text is fundamental to well-know the limits to implement a comprehensive strategy. If you only refer to the buffering capacity of trees to remove PM (or other pollutants) for example, there are plenty studies that you have to mention because they present an in-depth assessment of the biophysical capacity to improve air quality depending on site, specie, growth-rate and other variables.

 I want to add that my doubt doesn’t interfere with my evaluation, which remains good, and I encourage the authors to adjust the manuscript for publications.

 Good work!

 Albert, C., Galler, C., Hermes, J., Neuendorf, F., Von Haaren, C. and Lovett, A. (2016) ‘Applying ecosystem services indicators in landscape planning and management: The ES-in-Planning framework’, Ecological Indicators. Elsevier Ltd, 61, pp. 100–113. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.03.029.

Arcidiacono, A., Ronchi, S. and Salata, S. (2016) ‘Managing Multiple Ecosystem Services for Landscape Conservation: A Green Infrastructure in Lombardy Region’, in Procedia Engineering. doi: 10.1016/j.proeng.2016.08.831.

Benini, L., Bandini, V., Marazza, D. and Contin, A. (2010) ‘Assessment of land use changes through an indicator-based approach: A case study from the Lamone river basin in Northern Italy’, Ecological Indicators, 10(1), pp. 4–14. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2009.03.016.

Burkhard, B., Crossman, N., Nedkov, S., Petz, K. and Alkemade, R. (2013) ‘Mapping and modelling ecosystem services for science, policy and practice’, Ecosystem Services, 4, pp. 1–3. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2013.04.005.

Crossman, N. D., Burkhard, B., Nedkov, S., Willemen, L., Petz, K., Palomo, I., Drakou, E. G., Martín-Lopez, B., McPhearson, T., Boyanova, K., Alkemade, R., Egoh, B., Dunbar, M. B. and Maes, J. (2013) ‘A blueprint for mapping and modelling ecosystem services’, Ecosystem Services, 4, pp. 4–14. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2013.02.001.

Geneletti, D. (2013) ‘Assessing the impact of alternative land-use zoning policies on future ecosystem services’, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 40(1), pp. 25–35. doi: 10.1016/j.eiar.2012.12.003.

Langemeyer, J., Gómez-Baggethun, E., Haase, D., Scheuer, S. and Elmqvist, T. (2016) ‘Bridging the gap between ecosystem service assessments and land-use planning through Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)’, Environmental Science & Policy. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2016.02.013.

Turkelboom, F., Thoonen, M., Jacobs, S. and Berry, P. (2015) ‘Ecosystem Service Trade-offs and Synergies’, Ecology and Society, 21(1), p. 43. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4882.9529.

Zhang, S., Fan, W., Li, Y. and Yi, Y. (2017) ‘The influence of changes in land use and landscape patterns on soil erosion in a watershed’, Science of The Total Environment, 574, pp. 34–45. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.09.024.

Author Response

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear author 

I found your paper of great interest and well written

There are also two recommendation to improve the paper

Be consistent with the style of the figures. I suggest to use color in all of them

I found that your paper is working in a topic that is relevant to achieve sustainability and to apply nature-based solutions to the human management of the land

I recommend to read two of the papers a recently participated to introduce in your future paper rationales the topic of soils as a key issue for the sustainability of the Earth .... The trees will improve the soils in the urban areas and this will help to achieve the United Nations Goals for sustainability. And more...  also planting trees is a nature-based solution to achieve sustainability in land management for enhancing ecosystem services....

Following the mentioned papers

Keesstra, S. D., Bouma, J., Wallinga, J., Tittonell, P., Smith, P., Cerdà, A., ... & Bardgett, R. D. (2016). The significance of soils and soil science towards realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Soil, 2(2), 111-128.

Keesstra, S., Nunes, J., Novara, A., Finger, D., Avelar, D., Kalantari, Z., & Cerdà, A. (2018). The superior effect of nature based solutions in land management for enhancing ecosystem services. Science of the Total Environment, 610, 997-1009.

I fully support the publication of this paper

Author Response

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round  2

Reviewer 1 Report

General Comment

The manuscript (ID sustainability-392056) entitled with “A Needs-Driven, Multi-Objective Approach to Allocate Urban Ecosystem Services from 10,000 Trees” has gone through a significant revision as compared to the earlier version. Major issues from my side were already taken into account. The manuscript has merit for contributing a spatially-explicit method to optimize tree planting for multiple ecosystem services in rapidly growing urban area. This is important for strategic use of green infrastructure to support societal needs. Thus, I recommend considering this manuscript for publication.