A WebGIS for Visualizing Historical Activities Based on Photos: The Project of Yunnan–Vietnam Railway Web Map

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the history of the railroad itself, using this method is of high interest to readers and very significant. I think the introduction needs to be rewritten to guide the reader through the importance of the railroad, the usefulness of the method and the applicability of the final product to multiple audiences. The verb tenses need to be aligned to a present day reader. The expertise of the intended audiences needs to be clear in the minds of the authors as they present their materials. I am giving these same comments to the editors.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

1, The part of introduction is rewritten with the adding of the significance of the railway itself.

2, The verb tenses are changed to be aligned to a present day 

3, The scientific terms are explained better for the normal readers, historians and other social scholars.

4, The modern photo are taken by the author along his fieldwork in 2018-2019, the author take the original YVR to follow the historical line and use the smartphone to record the landscape, then the photos are with coordinates can be directly input into GIS.

Details of the changes are in the Word following.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of the paper is interesting. However, the submitted paper is not a scientific research article, but rather a report of an implemented Web GIS platform. The major problem with this paper is that it is not clear how the case study in question - the case of Yunnan-Vietnam Railway – is related to the topic of the Special Issue. Furthermore, the relationship between historical photos and photographers and current touristic activities and their photos is neither clear in the paper, nor presented in a meaningful way. What do authors want to achieve with this relation?

Little has been said about the use of Web GIS to integrate historical and new data in the form of photos to produce new information that carries possibilities to reconstruct/understand the past culture, including the environment on the one hand, and create and map perceptions of tourists, travelers, and others in their habits, ways, and taste towards the contemporary layers of human interaction with the landscape. In other words, much of this is hinted at and shimmering through, but it is important to elucidate more on such a significant relation. Nevertheless, the paper must prove why it is important, e.g. what is the purpose itself of linking an interesting topic of using historical photos in relation to the landscape changes along the railway.

The Introduction section. Besides many functionalities and roles of historical photos and several ways and possibilities of their digitalization using contemporary technology, including Web GIS, little has been described related to the main topic of the Special Issue - the relationship between the human footprint and ecological patterns. Additionally, there are no references to theoretical texts and concepts that would create a conceptual frame of the paper.

When authors claim in rows 121-124: ''Therefore, the aims of this paper are threefold: 1) systemize the sources of historical photos of YVR; 2) combine spatial analysis with statistical tools, analyze the historical activity of historical photographers; 3) use open GIS tools to design a WebGIS platform for publishing and visualizing these historical photos and the analyzed results.'' they actually describe the role of their project – a WebGIS for visualizing historical activities based on historical photos, rather than the actual goals of the paper.

I would expect a scientific article to have aims and/or hypotheses and/or research questions that would contribute more to the body of knowledge in the field of sustainability in general and cross-disciplinary approaches to the Anthropocene in particular as a topic of the Special Issues. Therefore, the research objectives should be more clearly defined and indicated in order to provide significance and value for similar contexts and also for scholars working with these issues. This would enable better wholeness of the paper in structural and methodological terms, and would indeed help authors to restructure the Results and Conclusion sections more suited to the nature of the scientific article.

The Materials and Methods section is missing information about the methodology of the research paper itself. Nevertheless, the SQL geodatabase, along with new feature datasets and analyzed data for the production of thematic maps, namely heatmaps of the historical photos, are shown in a precise and punctual manner, showing functionalities of their publishing options on the web.

The Results section is not clear and is excessively bound to the case study, particularly towards the Web map of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway (YVR). This section is surprisingly brief and short compared to other sections (e.g. compared with the Materials and methods section). Again, the technical aspects of the Web GIS functionalities and the web maps are presented, rather than the results of the whole research.

The Discussion section - Authors could (and should) raise issues about the aim of the study for the scientific community, show how the research can be interpreted to previous and future studies, and not just give a short explanation about the use of Web GIS like the one given in the Result section: ‘’Thus, the visitors can preview the landscape of the railway heritage sites, and the scholars can make use of these historical photos for further other studies.’’

There are also a few general remarks. The paper contains several unnecessary information, such as Table 1 with names of photographers, their occupation, year (I believe of photos being taken), and source, which is not related to the research issue of the paper.

Additionally, this paper is authored by three authors, and claims like ''the author used’’ should be reformulated in the text. Furthermore, the English language style and grammar should be revised throughout the text.

To be accepted by the journal, I think the paper needs a revision, including the theoretical underpinning in the Introduction section, and further development of the Results and Discussion sections.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

Thanks for your review and all the suggestions. Here are my answers:

1, This paper is mainly developed based on an ongoing project, thus, the title of the paper is changed into "A WebGIS for visualizing historical activities based on historical photos: the project of Yunnan-Vietnam Railway Web map".

2, in each section (introduction, result and discussion), more contents are added according to the suggestions to make it complete.

3, the grammar errors are revised.

4, the changes in detail are attached in Word with highlighted color.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The research is interesting. Objectives are clear and very well explained. Good background and conclusion.

Author Response

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I still maintain that this is an important topic of interest to scholars and non-scholars of French-Asian Colonial History and railroad history, especially narrow-gauge railroad history. It is also important for the GIS application for sustainable tourism, however I find the presentation to be very difficult to follow.  The English language competence is extremely uneven; the verb construction is not uniformly addressed across the manuscript; I have noted an occurrence of poor use of colloquial expression. The editing suggestions only seem to have been applied to the location in which they were placed and not carried over to other parts of the text. I have inserted specific review comments in the attached but they should be checked across the entire manuscript.

This seems to be aimed more toward an audience conversant in, and happy to read, WEBGIS technical language. It is not packaged for the historian or cultural specialist who will benefit from this analysis but does not want, or need, to read detailed programming information.

I am giving these comments to both authors and editors.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear editor,

The grammar problems are carefully resolved in this version as shown in Word.

Thanks for your reviewing and Merry Christmas

Kun Sang

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper can be published now.

Author Response

Thanks for your reviewing,

Merry Christmas