An Integrated Information System of Climate-Water-Migrations-Conflicts Nexus in the Congo Basin

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Congratulations for presenting an interesting study on a compelling subject matter in a very important but under researched and  represented region. I found your paper very engaging. However, it requires some more work to make it ready for publication. Specifically, i recommend you address the following issues:

1. Please clarify and articulate the main aim of this study. As it is there are some many aims (more than 10)  making it very difficult to follow for the readers  and making it impossible to have logical boundaries on your study.  The inability to articulate a concrete study aim has made it difficult  for you to remain focused and drill down to a specific theme/area.
2.  Thank you for presenting your manuscript in simple /plain  clear English. However, there are very minor grammatical errors where you mix English with French  e.g. where you state 'Nord' instead of 'north' and your tables titles/descriptors are in French This shouldn't worry you much as you have the bulk of the manuscript written well. Nonetheless, as you revise your manuscript, it would be good to address those minor mistakes
3. Some where in your background, you state that the region has been characterised by a series of epidemics and in the examples you included COVID-19. While this may be true, the later is a pandemic that did not originate and is neither endemic in this specific region compared to other diseases like Ebola etc. I don't see the relevance of patching COVID-19 here- it is out of place.
4. You mention that you collected vast data including 250 aggregated variables and over 750 individual variables. This is a lot of data that would add significant intellectual content  if you could present the findings from the data and discuss the findings
5. Related to 4 above, your logical flow appear to stop at the methods section where you jump from and move to the conclusion. Granted you wanted to present the web interface but you don't explain how you came to it and the science behind. This could be due to lack of focus i.e. clarity of aim.
6. In addition to 5 above, this paper is too broad, you could probably break it into multiple papers e.g. a methods paper with the web interface as the result, and different papers  addressing enviromental issues associated with the water transfer; impact on livelihoods and settlements and the geo-politics and potential consquencies. I see all these themes and more crammed up in your paper making it difficult to follow.

My  comments above will help you re-focus your paper and hope that you see the value in the comments but more so the importance of your research  to global learning and information sharing.  I would love to see your paper/s published at some time.

All the best

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we are grateful to you for your comments that have helped us improve the content of the paper. Please find below our responses to your comments.

 

1. Please clarify and articulate the main aim of this study. As it is there are some many aims (more than 10)  making it very difficult to follow for the readers  and making it impossible to have logical boundaries on your study.  The inability to articulate a concrete study aim has made it difficult  for you to remain focused and drill down to a specific theme/area.

 

Reply: Many thanks for raising this concern. The main aim has been clarified “The aim of this paper is to    present an integrated information system needed to address the climate-water-migration-conflict nexus in the Congo Basin, as well as the methodological approaches used for data production, building the database and setting up an open access infrastructure of this information system”. However, we also present the purpose on this information system that is intended to address the challenges of climate change and resilient development, while supporting key policy areas and strategies to foster effective stakeholder participation to ensure the management and governance of climate and natural resources, and gender consideration in all aspects, both at national, basin and regional levels.  It aligns well with the development plans of countries in the Congo Basin region and can help strengthen the capacity of local communities, empowers women and benefit youth through insights for income and livelihood diversification activities. It also integrates an applied research dimension towards providing practical knowledge for decision makers and other stakeholders, along with enhanced understanding of the vulnerabilities, exposure and risk and to participatory design of long-term investment and development strategies.

 

1.  Thank you for presenting your manuscript in simple /plain  clear English. However, there are very minor grammatical errors where you mix English with French  e.g. where you state 'Nord' instead of 'north' and your tables titles/descriptors are in French This shouldn't worry you much as you have the bulk of the manuscript written well. Nonetheless, as you revise your manuscript, it would be good to address those minor mistakes

 

Reply: Many thanks for pointing to this comment. Much of these grammatical errors have been addressed. Nevertheless, we still have some minor French words or sentence, which reflects the direct content of the information system that is in French.

 

 

1. Somewhere in your background, you state that the region has been characterised by a series of epidemics and in the examples you included COVID-19. While this may be true, the later is a pandemic that did not originate and is neither endemic in this specific region compared to other diseases like Ebola etc. I don't see the relevance of patching COVID-19 here- it is out of place.

Reply: Thank you for this comment. Covid-19 has been removed from the text.

 

1. You mention that you collected vast data including 250 aggregated variables and over 750 individual variables. This is a lot of data that would add significant intellectual content  if you could present the findings from the data and discuss the findings.

 

Reply: Thank you for the comment.  Please note that the individual variables are 575. As we mentioned in the introduction, the aim of this paper is to present the database and the information system set up to render public access to this wealth of information for this an important but under researched region. It will be difficult to present an analysis of the data in this paper given that it addresses a range of topics. We devote this task to many users of the database. However, we have added a section to present the statistical content of the database ( see figures 9, 11, 12).

 

1. Related to 4 above, your logical flow appear to stop at the methods section where you jump from and move to the conclusion. Granted you wanted to present the web interface but you don't explain how you came to it and the science behind. This could be due to lack of focus i.e. clarity of aim.

Reply: Thank you for pointing to this concern. We consider that there is no much science to discuss for the interface. The science aspect is sufficiently dealt with in the methodological approach.

 

1. In addition to 5 above, this paper is too broad, you could probably break it into multiple papers e.g. a methods paper with the web interface as the result, and different papers  addressing enviromental issues associated with the water transfer; impact on livelihoods and settlements and the geo-politics and potential consquencies. I see all these themes and more crammed up in your paper making it difficult to follow.

Reply: We agree, the section on analysis of the information contained in the database with the aim to identify logical entities and logical interdependencies between entities has been removed from this paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presents an interesting topic. However, the document needs greater scientific quality and methodological effort. Scientific references are poor and limited. The mdpi (sustainability) formatting requirements are not being met. The document is well structured, however there is no adequate analysis and discussion of results. Authors should develop the section on future guidelines and limitations of the document. We recommend adding Scopus and WoS articles from the last 5 years. The document needs a strong adaptation to the demanding mdpi standards.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, we are grateful to you for your comments that have helped us improve the content of the paper. Please find below our responses to your comments.

The manuscript presents an interesting topic. However, the document needs greater scientific quality and methodological effort. Scientific references are poor and limited. The mdpi (sustainability) formatting requirements are not being met. The document is well structured, however there is no adequate analysis and discussion of results. Authors should develop the section on future guidelines and limitations of the document. We recommend adding Scopus and WoS articles from the last 5 years. The document needs a strong adaptation to the demanding mdpi standards.

Reply: Many thanks to the reviewer for the comments. The paper was thoroughly revised based on these comments. The MDPI reference style and standards are taken into account. The bibliography is also enriched with new and recent references.  Once again, I would like to stress the main goal of this paper that consists of presenting an integrated information system needed to address the climate-water-migration-conflict nexus in the Congo Basin, as well as the methodological approaches used for data production, building the database and setting up an open access infrastructure of this information system. In this regard, we feel that our methodological approach is robust and scientifically justified. We understand the reviewer concern with regard to analysis of results. We have added a section to present the statistical content of the database (see figures 9, 11, 12).

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your revisions and addressing most of my comments. However, you did not address my main point of contention. I have read your manuscript again and have the following concerns that i believe will improve your manuscript when addressed. The comments are:

1. You have too many figures in the manuscript, please consider reducing them and attaching some appendices. Figs 5 to 7 can be removed from the manuscript without weakening its intellectual content. Note that Fig 7 is confusing as it suggests qualitative data  had quantitative variables  (ref to ordinal  & nominal variables).
2.   Please include a clear section labled 'Results/findings'  and a nother section of 'Discussion' I highlighted this in my previous comments when i asked for the results of all the variables analysed and the interpretation.  It is important to present. Your manjuscript currently mixed methods findings  and the conclusion includes discussion of findings. This is confusing and weakens your manuscript. It would be good to streamline the structure for cohesiveness and logical flow. I would like to see your graphs in context of narrated results where the interaction of  the variables is explained and backed up by the qualitative findings/results that are missing in the manuscript.
3. Lastly, please in your revision, submit a clean version which changes clearly highlighted and add an attachment of a document with a table that captures each query raised and your  matching response . Please do not submit a document with track changes as it is untidy and  difficult in some instances to figure out which text is new  especially when more than one of the authors have made changes.

Wishing you success in your revision.

Author Response

Please see attached 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The document includes a very pertinent research topic. However, scientifically the manuscript has some gaps in content and form. The manuscript needs more methodological effort. The analysis of the results obtained needs to be worked on. Bibliographic references should be mostly from the last 5 years and respecting the mdpi citation standards. We suggest deepening the study limitations and the lines of investigation for the future. The authors have done a good job. There is publication potential.

Author Response

Please see attached file 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for revising your manuscript  to make it robust. I'm happy with the changes especially the presentation and discussion of the the 15 thematic areas which made your manuscript  clear, logical and easy to understand. 

I'm satisfied with the manuscript and believe it is ready for publication in Sustainability. Note there are some minor typos that you will need to address.

Congratulations!

 

Reviewer 2 Report

I consider the manuscript to have publication potential. The authors have made significant improvements to the document in recent weeks. Scientific references were improved, with quality.