Spatial Analysis for the Landscape Visual Aesthetic Quality of Urban Residential Districts Based on 3D City Modeling

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is well laid out in terms of structure and logical sequences. The text is clear and methodologically and scientifically correct. The state of the art and the bibliography are sufficient, but can be further implemented.

The work carried out by the authors is substantial and it must be acknowledged that it required a great deal of effort.

The results of this research, suitably refined, can be a useful tool for improving the widespread quality of neighbourhoods and cities.

However, some clarifications need to be made in the paper and can certainly represent an improvement in scientific severity:

 1) It is necessary to specify the meaning of the term 'aesthetic' with appropriate and suitable definitions drawn from the scientific literature;

2) It is necessary to specify in the title of the paper that it deals with "visual aesthetic quality" and not generically with "aesthetic quality" (the term "visual" is missing from the title)

3) On line 145 of page 3 it is written: greening rate (or building density), but the terms "greening rate" and "building density" do not mean the same thing, because the former indicates the percentage of green and the latter the percentage of buildings constructed. This difference should be specified;

4) In the paragraph "2.2. Evaluation of the aesthetic score of landscape areas" reference is made to 54 experts who filled in the questionnaires, but there is no reference to the competences and roles of the experts;

5) The distinction between the aesthetic quality of buildings and the aesthetic quality of the landscape should also be clarified in the introduction (it is only mentioned in the conclusions).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

With the collection of massive RS data, the manuscript established a 3D city model covering a large amount of architecture and landscape information. While the landscape visual aesthetic quality (LVAQ) of urban residential districts is an important topic in human settlement environment research, there is no broad conclusion and implication to explain how the findings contribute to the existing body of knowledge and how to support future studies. However, there are still the following problems in this paper, which need to be further revised by the authors:

Abstract: the abstract should be revised to explain the knowledge gap and/ or research problem rather than the research process in the current format. Moreover, the contribution of the study to existing knowledge must be revealed in the abstract.

 Introduction: the authors missed to clearly address a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within the research field in China or/ and beyond China.  So, in the introduction, you must clearly state the need for this study(with a range of citations) and what has been solved in the prior studies, and what knowledge gaps remain nonetheless.

 

Page 3 Line 126: “….generated a detailed urban base map with a 1 m resolution.” You need to indicate 1 m in complete form.

Page 3 Line 136: While the nine representative indicators were indicated in Appendix, I recommend that the authors address the nine representative indicators in this section and then explain the nine indicators obtained from where.

Page 3 Line 138: “….directly obtained from the website.” Do the authors need to indicate the website name or address? Furthermore, the authors need to address the validity and reliability of source data.

Page 4 Line 151: The authors need to explain what is the means of main landscape areas. And the authors must justify the selection method for 80 areas in this study.

 Page 4 Line 153: There is no information on how the instrument for primary data collection has been designed or developed. A clear explanation is needed for the instrument design or development. Furthermore, the employed instrument must be supported by suitable references and evidence if it has been developed, or the instrument must be validated if it has been designed by the authors.
The authors need to provide clear discussions for the following questions in this section

How did you validate the collected data? (Current explanation is not convincingly addressed the validity of the collected data)

How was reliability measured in collected data?

 

Page 4 Line 158: The authors collected a survey questionnaire from 54 experts and 262 residents, but there is no explanation regarding the sample size and sample method. The authors need to justify the suitability of the method regarding the study objective.

Page 9 Line 280: the authors selected three case studies based on the significant differences. I didn’t find how these three cases were selected and which scientific approach(s) for case study selection was applied.    

 Conclusion: this part is essential for a high-quality paper. It is suggested that the author re-write this part. The current discussion/conclusion is not comprehensive, and it is not convincing enough to implicate the research findings.

I didn’t find the theoretical implication of the paper. This is essential for a high-rank article. Moreover, the manuscript findings have been reviewed in the discussion, but the scientific value-added of the paper didn’t address in this section.

Generally, in this session, authors should enhance the manuscript's contributions, limitations, and the applicability of their findings/results and future study beyond China.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

After reading the revised manuscript, I found most of the comments were appropriately addressed by the authors, but the following issues are still unsolved.

Page 3 Line 138: “….directly obtained from the website.” Do the authors need to indicate the website name or address? Furthermore, the authors need to address the validity and reliability of source data.

The authors described how verified the data obtained from this website by randomly selecting 50 residential districts for field investigation. However, the authors must address method (s) for the validity and reliability of source data based on the scientific methods that have been employed and cited by past studies in a similar field of knowledge. Thus, this part needs to be revised by the authors.

 

Page 4 Line 153: There is no information on how the instrument for primary data collection has been designed or developed. A clear explanation is needed for the instrument design or development. Furthermore, the employed instrument must be supported by suitable references and evidence if it has been developed, or the instrument must be validated if it has been designed by the authors.

The authors have described the process of instrument design and development in detail in this section, as well as the relevant research of funk (2012) and Jin (2020), but the explanation is not convincingly addressed the instrument development. The authors need to design a table to introduce research variables, the questions to assess each variable, and the sources from that each question has been employed.

 

Page 4 Line 158: The authors collected a survey questionnaire from 54 experts and 262 residents, but there is no explanation regarding the sample size and sample method. The authors need to justify the suitability of the method regarding the study objective.

The authors explained the sampling method, but the sample size is not convincingly discussed in the revised format. The authors need to address a valid sample size method or approach that has been used in and cited by past studies in the field of quantitative studies.

 

Page 9 Line 280: the authors selected three case studies based on the significant differences. I didn’t find how these three cases were selected and which scientific approach(s) for case study selection was applied

The authors described the selection principles and methods for the three cases in this section, but there are not there is no evidence to support the selection method. Therefore, the authors need to add evidence to support their explanation.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

After reading the revised manuscript and cover letter, I found most of the comments were appropriately addressed in the manuscript. It is almost reaching the requirements of the journal for acceptance to publication, but I am still not satisfied with the two following comments:

 The authors illustrated the questions and the sources in table 1.

I see the authors assessed each variable with one question. However, it seems that it isn’t enough to assess a variable by one question regarding reliability.

Furthermore, it is not clear to me how the collected data (via the Likert scale) can be analyzed using Excel software. We know Excel is spreadsheet software and it is not enough strong to perform statistical analysis. The analysis is the essential component of the manuscript in high-ranked journals.

I strongly recommend that the authors perform the statistical analysis by SPSS. It is more powerful in comparison with Excel.

 

  

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf