Regional Economic Impacts from Timber Check Dam Construction—A Comparison with Concrete Check Dam Construction

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is very interesting and very provocative but the methodology need some additional information.

You jumped directly to assessing different costs in yen, without any physical inputs or outputs. how many people are being affected?

How did you unify the costs paid in different periods?

Some data about inflation rate would have been helpful, not necessary for the results themselves but for more credibility.

Otherwise, the reader has no reliable checkpoint to assess to which extent conclusion are being supported by results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of “Regional economic impacts from timber check dam construction - a comparison with concrete check dam construction”

The research paper deals with an interesting issue which is a comparison between timber check dam construction and concrete check dam construction from the point of view their economic impacts on the regional economy.

Following proposed changes should be done to improve the research paper:

• discussion of the results is very poor, it would be appropriate to separate it from the

chapter 3 "Results and Discussion" and put it as a separate part of the article

• formula 3 on page 10 (248 - 251) should be given in part 2 "Methods"
• I would suggest to pay more attention to proof reading of the paper as some sentences need to be re-arranged in terms of the syntax, e.g. 253: "the height of the concrete check dam was increased to increase the amount..."
• 288 - 289 the statement on page 11 "Therefore, it is shown that using timber processed in the region has a larger effect on the regional economic impacts than using timber harvested in region" is very important information and should be included in the abstract.
• 316 - 320 in the part "Conclusion" add summary information about impacts of concrete check dam construction
• it would be appropriate to include in the discussion or conclusions chapter a recommendation on what should be done in regions where the regional self-sufficiency ratio of the lumber and wood products sector is very low, is it better to construct concrete check dams or import lumber?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All questions have been answered and the English was improved. The article is clearer now. We are aware that all calculations cannot be fully presented in the article or annexes. Yet there is room for improvement:

Line 393 Therefore, it is shown that using timber that is processed, rather than simply harvested, in the region
line 394 has a larger effect on the regional economic impact.

suggestion: It is shown that using processed timber for flood control has a larger effect on....

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf