Developing the Ecological Footprint Assessment for a University Campus, the Component-Based Method

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Highlight changes in yellow in a next revision, please. No track changes.

 

Use assessment instead of evaluation?

 

Language needs revision, as seen: “university campuses with various activities and organizations”

 

Check terms because this is not used in the abstract: “Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA),”

 

Why headings corresponding to such a tiny text:

“1.3. The Novelty of the Proposed Method 62

This paper has developed the EF method as follows: 63

1.3.1. Evaluation the UOK's EF was conducted over four academic years (2013-2016), 64 while most of the similar researches were applied in one year. 65

1.3.2. The evaluation was done at both the campus and building scale, whereas other 66 reviewed researches conducted only at the campus scale. Evaluation of EF at the build-67 ing scale leads to the comparison between the performance of the buildings and ranking 68 them for further sustainability policy. 69

1.3.3. Visualizing the results of the ecological footprint analysis (EFA) and presenting 70 them by Ecological Footprint Map (EFM)”

 

Add authors names to reference numbers in these cases:

“Table 1. Overview of EFA results of different universities.”

 

There are better ways to do this: “Table 1. Overview of EFA results of different universities (Continued).”

 

Use upper letter: “(Left: the faculty”

 

Terrible quality: “Figure 2. The flowchart of the developed model for the UOK.”

Also here: “Figure 3. Ecological deficit (1) and ecological remainder (2)”

 

Assure no references means complete originality…

[The same in equations, known data needs to be referenced…, otherwise highlight originality]

 

Data from? “Table 2. Kurdistan province’s per capita BC in 2016.”

 

All axis needs a legend… “Figure 4. EF per capita of the UOK.”

Also here: “Figure 7. The mean EF of food usage at UOK.”

Or here: “Figure 9. Comparing the EF (Per capita) of the UOK with other universities.”

 

Please use plural: “7. Conclusion”

Respect the same structure as in the abstract:

Brief contextualization and methodology, main findings and practical implications, to be revised

 

The manuscript needs entire proofreading

Author Response

See the attached file, please.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article tackles a very important subject of campus impact on the natural environment. Ecological footprint on campuses is a very up-to-date topic and is worth researching on a large scale.

The article is interesting and well written, although I have a few remarks:

• In the abstract, I am lacking a specific and well-thought goal of the conducted research.
• Lines 21 - 26: the provided data are too detailed for an abstract. I would recommend concentrating more on the methodology of the study and its' outcome, rather than on specific results.
• Lines 37-38: "Human pressure on the nature, have been rising steadily" is a too general statement and can mean anything.
• The presented investigation was conducted between 2013 and 2016. It is 2021 now, so the study was not updated for 5 years. In my opinion, it should be updated, otherwise, the research is outdated.
• The analysis itself is very interesting, but the concussions and discussion could be improved.
• Recommendations provided in table 9 are very general and narrow, and also might be improved.
• There are some minor mistakes in references editing.
• Linguistic proofreading is recommended.

Author Response

See the attached file, please.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Highlight changes in yellow in a next revision, please. No track changes.

 

What I mean is the table must be unique, and then there are ways to allow the first rows to appear in every page…

“Table 1. Summarizing the EFA results of different universities (Continued).”

Each time  a reference is used in a Table, the authors names should be included before [], because this is a direct reference:

“Reference

[47]

[13]

[14]

[48]

[38]

[12]”

 

Etc…

 

In theses cases. It should be clear why the references are present:

Example:

Data from authors names and then []

“Table 2. Kurdistan province’s per capita BC in 2016 [50; 51].”

 

The reference must me in the text, immediately before the equations appears, not here…

“Total EF (gha) =Σci . efipi? [48]”

 

In a graphics there must be a legend, before unit.

Example: Time (years)

“Figure 4. EF per capita of the UOK.”

The same in yy axis…

 

Authors should avoid abbreviations in headings and captions and be mode detailed, so that the reader focusing in a figure/Table/data, knows exactly what it means…

“Figure 5. Percentage of mean EF of each component.”

 

Add date range to caption… … to …

“Figure 6. The annual EF breakdown of water and electricity.”

As in several other cases… Figure 7 etc

 

Do not start captions by “The”:

“Table 7. The”

 

Despite the work done and the interest of this manuscript, there are small changes that make all the difference. See comments above.

 

Why use red… in year?

References…

 

 

Thank you!

Author Response

please see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for your reply to my comments, but I still believe that the data is old. Yes, in December 2019 the university was closed due to COVID-19, but still the dataset ends with 2016.

The goal of the study ("The goal of the study is to 19 diminish the human impacts on the environment in university campuses.") is to diminish the impact? How? This is a poorly defined goal. Isn't it to identify the impact and therefore give recommendations on how to diminish?The study itself has no chance to diminish the impact - only specific actions and policies at the campus can do it...

The recommendations are still very general and only marginal improvements were implemented. I am responsible for Sustainable Development Strategy at my University, so I'm saying this from a professional perspective.

In the conclusions there is still no discussion with the state of art, as is usually required in this journal and there is no connection to the recommendations.

 

Author Response

Please see the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf