Evaluating Walkability through a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Approach: A Lisbon Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I am sympathetic with the authors and their case study. I would suggest some changes before acceptance.
1) a language check can be necessary especially in specific parts of the manuscript (e.g. bibliography, I suggest 'literature review').
2) a clear take-home message in the conclusion is recommended.
3) I don't see any comment about further studies in the discussion section.
4) generally speaking, I don't like results and discussion joint. This is the case. I believe authors can discuss their findings in a more extensive way. Please do it.
5) an extensive literature review is highly recommended. 26 references are probably not comprehensive of the extraordinary international literature on this field, I just remember a specific contribution of Sustainability (2017) by an Italian colleague, Prof. M. Clemente, but this is only one of a long list.
6) A photographic description of the roads is particularly appropriate. I know very well where the sites are in Lisbon, even if I am not Portuguese, because I studied the urban structure of the city for a long while, but many readers are not.
7) I suggest to compose the last figures of the paper in one unique panel with different graphs, all together. It should save space and give some comparative meaning to a very long description of the individual sites.
Many thanks!
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are pleased to submit the revised version of our paper considering your valuable comments. The manuscript has been thoroughly revised with the changes highlighted. We would like to summarize the main changes as follows:
- The Results and Discussion section were divided into two.
- Figures 6,7,8,9,10 were joined together in one panel (figure 6).
- 20 new references were added to the manuscript.
- Two new subsections (“Walkability Indicators” and “MCDA applied to Walkability” – lines 94, 132) were added to the literature review section.
- Table 1 was updated.
- Two new paragraphs were added in Section 5 of the document (lines 485 - 506).
- Small alterations in the text have been done to comply with the revisors’ suggestions.
Thanks for your positive feedback and good suggestions. The addressed answers (red) are described below.
1) a language check can be necessary especially in specific parts of the manuscript (e.g. bibliography, I suggest 'literature review').
The language was checked by a native speaker to improve the quality of the text. The section ‘bibliography’ was changed for ‘literature review’, as suggested.
2) a clear take-home message in the conclusion is recommended.
The following sentence was added in the conclusion to address this issue (line 501): “Supported by the findings, this work presents a reliable framework that comprises important metrics for improving streets and public spaces in urban contexts.”
3) I don't see any comment about further studies in the discussion section.
Further study suggestions were presented in the conclusion section. However, it is reasonable to present more extensively the further work steps in the discussion section. To address this issue, a new paragraph (lines 484 – 496) was added in the discussion section.
4) generally speaking, I don't like results and discussion joint. This is the case. I believe authors can discuss their findings more broadly. Please do it.
The results section and discussion section were divided. The findings were discussed more extensively, resulting in two new paragraphs of the document (lines 477 - 496).
5) an extensive literature review is highly recommended. 26 references are probably not comprehensive of the extraordinary international literature on this field, I just remember a specific contribution of Sustainability (2017) by an Italian colleague, Prof. M. Clemente, but this is only one of a long list.
A broader literature review is welcome, as pointed out by the reviewer. Therefore, 20 new articles were added to the manuscript (which encompass 8 documents from Sustainability), scattered through Introduction, Literature Review, and Methodology and Methods sections – 46 references in total. We would like to emphasize that the insertion of the references was made organically, meaning that the selected documents’ content aggregates value to the manuscript. As a consequence, two new subsections (“Walkability Indicators” and “MCDA applied to Walkability” – lines 91, 129) were added to the literature review section.
6) A photographic description of the roads is particularly appropriate. I know very well where the sites are in Lisbon, even if I am not Portuguese because I studied the urban structure of the city for a long while, but many readers are not.
A more careful description of the study zone was conducted in subsection 3.2 (lines 241 – 254). Table 1 was also updated to encompass the text changes and provide more information concerning the selected roads.
7) I suggest composing the last figures of the paper in one unique panel with different graphs, all together. It should save space and give some comparative meaning to a very long description of the individual sites.
All the five figures were joined together in one panel (figure 6), following the reviewer’s suggestion. The presentation was improved doing so.
Reviewer 2 Report
I am very pleased that I could be a reviewer of this publication, it is a wise and well written publication
The authors decided to take up a very current topic and did it in an attractive and thoughtful way
I would like to suggest the authors to review and include in their publication articles from the special issue entitled (none of them is mine:) :
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Walkable_Living_Environments
I am wondering why both: QGIS and ArcGIS were used to access and manipulate a large part of the data.- why not only one
I also find some technical mistakes:
line224-225: Error! Reference source not found. below presents the selected alternatives’ names and the total area of each one.
line 233:Error! Reference source not found.
Line 362,385: Error!
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We are pleased to submit the revised version of our paper considering your valuable comments. The manuscript has been thoroughly revised with the changes highlighted. We would like to summarize the main changes as follows:
- The Results and Discussion section were divided into two.
- Figures 6,7,8,9,10 were joined together in one panel (figure 6).
- 20 new references were added to the manuscript.
- Two new subsections (“Walkability Indicators” and “MCDA applied to Walkability” – lines 94, 132) were added to the literature review section.
- Table 1 was updated.
- Two new paragraphs were added in Section 5 of the document (lines 485 - 506).
- Small alterations in the text have been done to comply with the revisors’ suggestions, which are detailed below.
Thanks for your positive feedback and good suggestions. The addressed answers (red) are described below.
1) I would like to suggest the author's review and include in their publication articles from the special issue entitled (none of them is mine):
https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/Walkable_Living_Environments
A very good collection. After a carefully read, six articles from this source were included in the new manuscript. We would like to emphasize that the insertion of the references was made organically, meaning that the selected papers’ content aggregates value to the document.
2) I am wondering why both: QGIS and ArcGIS were used to access and manipulate a large part of the data - why not only one
The reason is logistic. The university’s computer has ArcGIS installed, however, with the covid-19 outbreak the access of this machine was compromised. To still developing the research, the author installed the QGIS in his machine, as ArcGIS, unfortunately, does not work on Macintosh computers. Since the programs are really similar the research was not harmed.
3) I also find some technical mistakes:
line224-225: Error! Reference source not found. below presents the selected alternatives’ names and the total area of each one.
line 233:Error! Reference source not found.
Line 362,385: Error!
The technical mistakes were corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Good paper overall. Thank you for your precise revision work.
