Identifying Spatial Driving Factors of Energy and Water Consumption in the Context of Urban Transformation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

• The research contributions of the paper should be articulated more clearly. The abstract is not representative of the content and contributions of the paper. The abstract does not seem to properly convey the rigor of research.
• Aside from the aim stated in the title, the research gap and the goals of the research are not specified which leads to the reader missing the significance of the research.
• The introduction section is detailed, but needs a significant amount of reorganization. It could be strengthened by adding more recent references.
• Please add as sentence or two to clearly recap how your study differs from what has already been done in literature to ascertain the contributions more strongly
• The research idea should be linked to multiple problems the research is trying to address so that the findings have relevance.
• The methodology section needs more details and a drastic revision.
• The items in the instrument used, demographic information, reliability and validity information, any statistical or data analysis should be presented in detail.
• It is suggested to add articles entitled “Qerimi et al. Modeling of the Solar Thermal Energy Use in Urban Areas”, “Tahiri et al. Optimal Management Energy System and Control Strategies for Isolated Hybrid Solar-Wind-Battery-Diesel Power System” and “T. Floričić. Sustainable Solutions in the Hospitality Industry and Competitiveness Context of “Green Hotels”” to the literature review.
• The reason for using specific analysis is not clearly mentioned. Justification for using a specific methodology or instrument will make it more understandable. Adding more details in this section can give more clarity to the readers
• The methodology used should be justified in the article in the light of the research questions (i.e. why is the chosen methodology the best approach to answer the research questions).

Findings:

• This section needs to be re-written keeping in mind the research questions.
• The value of the research to the academician and the practitioner should be expressed in an unambiguous manner.
• The generalizability of the findings must be discussed.

Discussion:

• Improve the discussion section to better ascertain what is unique / novel about your findings
• Explain in detail how the article contributes to new knowledge in the domain.

Conclusion:

• Update the conclusion to include the newly formulated theoretical contributions
• Mention the limitations of the study and prospects for future research.
• Summarize the key results in a compact form and re-emphasize their significance.
• Summarize how the article contributes to new knowledge in the domain.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting, the following observations are raised:

1) The variables used for the development of the article should be expanded in the methods chapter. The analysis of this information should be explained.

2) In section 3.1, the analysis should be expanded. There is a lack of depth in the analysis of the results. It is not clear why the clusters occur, what variables and conditions are necessary for these groupings to occur.

3) Why is there no calibration and validation procedure for the regression model?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript investigates the spatial pattern of energy and water consumption in Taichung city and tries to associate the pattern with social-economic factors. But there are several issues with this manuscript which needs major revision. The results are not consolidated, some figures are confusing. The structure needs to largely reorganized. I will start from the structure and go into the detail. For research structure, it is not clear to me why you use year 2015 and 2017? Any evidence support you choose those two years? For introduction, line 87, eco-environmental science, I recommend use either “environmental science” or “ecological science”, but not “eco-environmental science” Line 92- 101. This paragraph serves as argument for the purpose of this study which is to fill the gap of research granularity. But it fails to deliver. To begin, spatial scale is not interchangeable with spatial resolution. They two are related but different. In your research, you are using town level data as opposed to previous research using national or city level. However, the literature review do not reveal the research gap. You are not using examples/ literature to establish the research gap. The obscure in spatial concept also cause ambiguity in sentence, such as line 89-90, “large quantities of spatial resolution data”. Are you talking about lack of fine resolution data, or lack of spatial data? Line 101, “at fine geographical scale” what is that scale you are referring to? Town scale? Also, line 115, “high-resolution GWR” what do you refer to when using “high-resolution”? Besides, the writing should be improved, there are lots of errors and ambiguity, I only name a few. The authors themselves are responsible for the wording and grammar check. Line 117- 118, “key socio-economic variables that causing positive or negative effects…” maybe the phrase you want to use is ”has positive or negative relationship with” Line 125, “to predict changes in domestic … for validation”. Predict and validation are two different procedures. Line 149. “the referring studies”, should be “this study[41]” and add citation right after. Line 154 “excluded to avoid misleading outcomes” ? I don’t understand. Line 219 “is used to be the research unit” , considering “is the study site” or “focus of this research” can be more concise. Line 223, “occupied” wrong word. “take up” or “comprised” Line 227 “swift” should be”rapid” Line 231 “in sum, the results demonstrate that….” You are writing in methods session, not in results session yet! Fig. 2 are confusing, is population change from 2011 to 2015 or population??Please add scale on the map.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All of my concerns have been fully addressed in the revised version.

Reviewer 2 Report

It's ok for publication

Reviewer 3 Report

the authors respond to my comments carefully and made edits to improve the manuscript.