Application of the Integrated Design Process (IDP) Method to the Design of Riverside on the Example of Żmigród (Poland)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The work has the potential to make excellent contribution to practice. Before it can be considered for publication, I would suggest following improvements to be made -
1) The abstract needs to be re-written for wider readership. At the moment it is dealing with specific details which do not interest wider audience. The author should clearly state the problem, issue, methods, result and significance of the research.
2) The introduction should highlight the significance of the research. In page 1 line 42, when the authors are discussing public awareness, the authors should engage with and cite recent MIDP artciel by Ahmed et al. (2019), copied below -
Ahmed, S.; Meenar, M.; Alam, A. Designing a Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) Network: Toward Water-Sensitive Urban Growth Planning in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Land 2019, 8, 138.
Also, the authors assume that everybody is on the same page when discussing the concept of BGI, which is unfortunately not the case in practice. In this regard, I would suggest, the authors should clearly state what is their take on BGI. Ahmed et al (2019) will be helpful in this regard.
The key objective of the paper should be clearly stated in the intro.
3) Section 3 heading should be shortened. It's not really clear from the heading if this is part of literature review or the description of IDP. Similarly before moving to Section 4. Study area, there should be some sign-posting regarding what are the key learnings (and connections) between Section 2 and Section 3.
Similarly, the authors should clearly define IDP for the reader with the engagement with appropriate literature
4) the key research question as stated in page 7 line 316 - "in order to answer the question 316 whether the riverside design process in Żmigród met the key assumptions of the IDP method" should be clearly highlighted in the Introduction.
5) In Section 4. more details are needed on what specific questions were asked to stakeholders to generate data? what is counted as data? what form of data was produced? how the data was analysed to get results for the later section - at the moment the details are inadequate.
6) In table 1, what is meant by the term 'breakpoint' - please clarify
7) Figure 6 looks like a Table to me. please rethink
8) The conclusion and recommendations section is inadequate. in its present form it sounds like an extended result section followed some recommendations. The authors are recommended to discuss what the paper and its result add to the existing knowledge of BGI and IDP? Please discuss the broader significance of the research beyond Zmigrod case.
Author Response
We would like to thank you for your valuable comments and guidance. We have tried to include all the comments in the article and clarify the ambiguities.
Ad.1. The attention has been taken into account.
Ad.2. The attention has been taken into account.The introduction has been modified.Reference is made to the definition of BGI. And the importance of research is underlined. Reference is also made to the recommended article (line 44-60).
Ad.3. The whole Chapter 3 has been modified in the context of the comments from all the reviews. Chapter 3 is now a literature review divided into two main issues.
Ad.4. The key research questions have been addressed in the introduction (line 85-96).
Ad.5.We have included a reference to the 2015 research carried out by the Żmigród commune that we used (Chapter 3).
Ad.6.The attention has been taken into account.
Ad.7.The attention has been taken into account.
Ad.8. The whole Chapters 6 and 7 have been modified in the context of the comments from all the reviews.
Kind regards,
Anna Bocheńska-Skałecka,
Ewa Walter
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
review the title and keywords.
review some references validity
a general tendency to over cite Timur [54] and cengiz [4], avoid that.
some English sentences are not clear at all and so abstract. review.
results need to move to discussion
the whole methodology section needs re-writing as it do not lead to IDP model understanding
divide the table in P9 in two extra column cause and effect .. it is hard to read, follow and understand.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
We would like to thank you for your valuable comments and guidance. We have tried to include all the comments in the article and clarify the ambiguities.
Title and keywords have been modified.
References have been improved.
The citation note is included.
A linguistic correction has been made.
The attention has been taken into account. Results have been moved to the chapter 4.
The chapters describing the methodology, results and conclusions have been modified in the context of all the comments of the review.
The revised version of the article includes comments from the pdf file.
Kind regards,
Anna Bocheńska-Skałecka,
Ewa Walter
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
General comment - The authors of this paper demonstrate an ambition to describe a design process and critique the implementation of the process to a case study. In doing so they offer an analysis of the success (or otherwise) of the project outcomes based on the IDP method. In reading the paper in full it appears that the motivation of the authors is to point out that the deficiencies in the adoption of the IDP method has resulted in sub-standard outcomes due to the overwhelming influence of the project investor. This unfortunately tells the reader very little about the many topics areas that are given superficial attention during what is a wandering and often repetitive account of the process with few definitions, a weak and confusing method, an overlapping and complicated design process and an equally complicated analysis. That said, the article could be simplified and the scope narrowed to focus on one aspect of the paper (e.g. influence of stakeholders in multidisciplinary decision making during the design and development of blue-green infrastructure). The paper needs to be much more focussed and restructured to present a more convincing argument that (a) the design process (IDP) is indeed an innovative approach to delivering blue-green infrastructure projects and (b) that the case study presents an analysis and critique of and reflection on the IDP and provides recommendations to improve the design method rather that criticising the project for not successfully following the method.
Title- the title is confusing – it makes no reference to IDP or to sustainable development outcomes (in a journal called sustainability).
Abstract - The abstract (line 12) points to the authors' concern about design choices- the authors should ask themselves the question if that is really the issue at hand. It seems like a leading statement rather than an objective analysis.
Introduction – There are too many general statements throughout the introduction. E.g line 32. Lately doesn’t offer a time frame that provides a historical context to the problem. The issue that the authors are addressing is really something that has been an issue since the early 2000s. Similarly, the authors refer to EU guidelines. These should be cited or included in the text.
Line 36 the definition of Blue-green Infrastructure is inadequate and not derived from the literature. Given the importance of the term in the paper, BGI deserves a more comprehensive definition. Likewise- sentence Lines 41-42 refer to the limitations of BGI but with very little context ( why is it difficult to implement and why is low public awareness the only barrier, what about cost, maintenance, engineering performance). A better account of BGI would help the reader to understand the relationship between BGI as a tool for sustainable development and the suitability of IDP to address some of the implementation challenges.
Line 65- You allude to a stakeholder ( I think you mean the investor) was involved. You need to spell out here why this is important to the analysis. Why would they not normally take part, how does the IDP address the input of stakeholder at this phase of the project?
Line 90 What are the water regime problems? Water quality, peak flow, public safety, erosion? We need to know what are the environmental problems that BGI will address to make the condition more sustainable.
Line 95- What are the services provided by the ecosystem. If you mean ecosystem services here, then state it and define the term and why it is an effective evaluation tool for determining sustainability outcomes.
Line 123-124 The sentence is confusing. Give an example of the social aspect you are referring to.
Section 3 The subheading is confusing. This section should explicitly talk about the deployment of the IDP and provide a detailed account of the process, its conceptual framing and how it proposes a new design methodology ( I cannot see how it is substantively different novel or innovative at the moment).
Line 144- you introduce human-centered design without establishing how it informs the design method. The sentence is also very general. Phrases like ‘researchers in various fields’ and ‘for a long time’ are inaccurate and unhelpful in establishing the relevance of human-centered design.
Line 147-149 This sentence is also vague and confusing.
Line 171-172 This sentence is also vague and confusing.
Line 177-185 This paragraph essentially repeats what has already been stated and, as stated on line 183 is opinion not analysis.
Line 186 – You introduce IDP here and you need a subheading. Generally, this section needs to be far more analytical and detailed in describing the IDP framework, its advantages and its shortcomings. It should also explain the innovation of the process and take the reader through figure 1 in more detail.
Line 222 Figures 1and 2 need to be in portrait view and more attention needs to be paid to explaining the steps in the process.
Line 234 Don’t use the term “data derived from”
Line 267 - Why is the design process complicated due to the multi faceted policy? Surely the whole point of IDP is the address the complex interactions between landscape processes, environmental flows, multiple stakeholders with different agendas and overlapping local regulations and policies. This is an internal contradiction that needs to be addressed.
Section 5- I am not convinced that this is the research approach. It seems to me that you should be analysing the success and suitability of IDP as implemented in a case study. Instead, you seem to critique the success of the project in adhering to a rather fixed idea of a design process.
Line 335 – Figure 4 – the data doesn’t really tell us anything about the process. Why is the duration (project staging) relevant? What is the importance of reporting on the number and duration of project phases is this unusual for a development project? It seems pretty typical?
Line 343-345 – It is unclear why those clarifications are relevant results? There is no reference in the methodology to determining social, economic or formal classifications.
Line 346- Figure 5 is difficult to read and complicated. It seems to be an application of the process and therefore needs a substantial explanation of the findings in the text.
Line 353- Table 1 is poorly designed and offers little explanation of the merits of IDP in the application.
Line 354-356 – This sentence offers a criticism of IDP. It suggests that one stakeholder (person) exerted excessive influence over the process. Yet there is no explanation as to how this was a problem or how the process could or should moderate this influence if indeed it was a problem.
Line 364-366 What was the method for determining whether a stakeholder decision had a positive or negative effect on the outcome. This seems to be new information very late in the paper that is not mentioned previously (e.g. contractors tend to have a negative impact on the implementation of BGI). I this is the case it is a paper in itself.
Line 367 Figure 6 is too small.
Line 370 – Conclusions and recommendations.
This is of greatest concern to me because it seems to identify a range of variables that are typical in any urban design scenario ( environmental constraints, vague regulations) and argue that the problems in implementation were a failure of institutional and stakeholder actions. ‘If only the team had followed the design process more closely’ is not an objective finding based on an objective analysis of a rigorous method. The authors need to critically review the aims of this paper and reorganise to reflect the aims of the journal.
Line 413-425 The recommendations offer no additional insight into the research question. They should be removed and published in an industry report.
Author Response
We would like to thank you for your valuable comments and guidance. We have tried to include all the comments in the article and clarify the ambiguities.
We took a critical look at the message of the article and, in accordance with the advice, tried to highlight the goal and key research questions. Therefore, we modified the whole article.
Title, abstract and introduction have been modified.
Line 36: Attempts were made to better describe BGI in the context of the subject of the research. A definition was also given.
Line 41-42: The comments were taken into account.
Line 65:This passage has been modified in the context of modifying the whole article.
Line 90: The comments were taken into account (chapter 2).
Line 95: The comments were taken into account (chapter 2, line 118-130).
Line 123-124: Sentence has been modified.
The whole Chapter 3 has been modified in the context of all the review comments.
Line 144: The whole Chapter 3 has been modified in the context of all the review comments.
Line 147-149; 171-172; 177-185: We tried to modify these fragments of the article in the context of the highlighted objective and research questions.
Line 186: We have given definitions and expanded the description of the IDP.
Line 222: Figure 1,2, 5 have been improved and modified.
Line 234: The comments were taken into account.
Line 267: In this article we wanted to present the first stage of research concerning the issue of the very possibility of adapting the IDP method (used in architectural design) to the design of riverside areas.
The issue will be developed in subsequent publications based on the continuation of our research.
Section 5 has been modified in the context of comments from all reviews.
Line 335:This comparison confirms that the main determinants were design (workshops) and formal activities (resulting from imprecision of regulations), which influenced the dynamics of the process in Żmigród. On the other hand, the consultation activities were spent the least time, which is contrary to the assumptions of the IDP method.
Line 343-345: We adopted it in accordance with the criteria of the IDP.
Line 346: Figure 5 has been modified.
Completed also in the text (Figure 1 a,b,c with description).
Line 353: Tabele 1 has been improved.
Line 354-356: The comments were taken into account.
Line 364-366 and 367: Tabela 2 has been modified to be more clear. It shows result of influence.
Line 370: The conclusions and recommendations have been modified and rewritten in the context of comments from all target reviews and research questions.
Line 413-425: The comments were taken into account. Comments from other reviews have also been taken into account and recommendations have been moved to Resaluts and recommendations.
Kind regards,
Anna Bocheńska-Skałecka,
Ewa Walter
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I have no more comments.
i thank the authors for improving the paper in its overall current form.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments. We corrected English language as you suggested.
Regards,
Anna Bocheńska-Skałecka
Ewa Walter
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Hi authors,
It is good to see that you took the time to revisit the paper and to make the changes to improve the arguments set out in the introduction. The paper still needs a good proofread with a number of spelling mistakes (including in the figure and table captions).
The conclusion is greatly improved and helps the reader to make sense of the aim of the research.
Author Response
Thank you for your comments. We corrected English language as you suggested.
Regards,
Anna Bocheńska-Skałecka
Ewa Walter
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
