Indicators for the Circular City: A Review and a Proposal
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper concerns the interesting and actual problem. It is very well written, structured, and documented. It shows no noticeable flaws in its methodological approach or its argumentation.
One aspect that could be more stressed in the discussion is the territorial scale at which the data can be collected. In particular, it is suggested to better specify how it is possible to move from the national scale to the urban scale (lines 397-400) and if the data can really be collected at the municipal and neighbourhood scale (lines 388-390). A reference that can be useful for comparison in this field is, for example, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/5/3056.
I have noticed minor editing errors, which will certainly be corrected during the proofreading.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
I am writing the revisions to our manuscript entitled “Indicators for the circular city: a review and a proposal”.
First, we would like to thank you for your work and for your comments, which will certainly improve the article.
In general, an attempt was made to revert the form of the text.
In particular, the following is a timely response to the revisions suggested.
“One aspect that could be more stressed in the discussion is the territorial scale at which the data can be collected. In particular, it is suggested to better specify how it is possible to move from the national scale to the urban scale (lines 397-400) and if the data can really be collected at the municipal and neighbourhood scale (lines 388-390). A reference that can be useful for comparison in this field is, for example, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/5/3056.”
The problem of data retrieval was highlighted, as suggested. In particular, it was mentioned how these should be collected for the different sectors, contacting the various bodies involved in their collection and finally arriving at the creation of a common database, and how unfortunately this is still problematic given the current landscape.
“I have noticed minor editing errors, which will certainly be corrected during the proofreading.”
The text was proofread to eliminate any typing errors.
Thank you for the indications.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper deals contribute to an actual topic of the circular economy. Specifically, it is a review of published indicators on the circularity evaluation of a city. The review combines scientific papers published with materials and reports issued by cities involved in the Declaration of European Circular Cities. In the end, some proposal of a feasible set of indicators is provided. The work is valuable since it summarizes data from many literature sources.
However, I have some issues with the manuscript preparation, which should be handled:
1) Affiliations - Authors organizations - It should be provided in English
2)Abstract - Aim of the work is mentioned. However, achieved findings/outputs are not described here.
3) Page 1, line 40, word "do-mestic". Could you check the manuscript to avoid misspellings like this?
4) Typically, the introductory section ends with the research gap identified and the aim of the contribution. Nothing like that can be found at the end of Section 1. Instead, Section 2 Material and Methods follows, whereas section 2.1 is too general and informative. In my opinion, it is still the introduction. Section 2.1 ends with some statements ("Study aims....), which I expected at the end of Section 1.
Figure 1 - The figure represents a proposed template, yet without data. I consider it redundant. It should be skipped. It should be only shortly described, mainly when the complete table can be found in Figure 2.
Figure 2 - Is of bad quality. It is not readable. It should be improved.
Table 2, 4- Both tables are extremely long. An appendix should be created and the tables transferred there.
Table 6 - It seems that it has two parts. The second part, which starts with "environmental dimmenssion" seams to be artifically added to the first part. The link between both parts is not clear. Therefore, I propose to split it into two independent tables.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
I am writing the revisions to our manuscript entitled “Indicators for the circular city: a review and a proposal”.
First, we would like to thank you for your work and for your comments, which will certainly improve the article.
In general, an attempt was made to revert the form of the text.
In particular, the following is a timely response to the revisions suggested.
“1) Affiliations - Authors organizations - It should be provided in English”
English affiliations are provided.
“2) Abstract - Aim of the work is mentioned. However, achieved findings/outputs are not described here.”
The abstract has been revised as suggested by specifying the purpose of the paper, particularly in the final part.
“3) Page 1, line 40, word "do-mestic". Could you check the manuscript to avoid misspellings like this?”
The paper has been proofread to correct typing errors
“4) Typically, the introductory section ends with the research gap identified and the aim of the contribution. Nothing like that can be found at the end of Section 1. Instead, Section 2 Material and Methods follows, whereas section 2.1 is too general and informative. In my opinion, it is still the introduction. Section 2.1 ends with some statements ("Study aims....), which I expected at the end of Section 1.”
The layout of the first two sections has been revised, as suggested, to make it more organic. In particular, the first part of section 2.1 was moved to the introduction.
“5) Figure 1 - The figure represents a proposed template, yet without data. I consider it redundant. It should be skipped. It should be only shortly described, mainly when the complete table can be found in Figure 2.
Figure 2 - Is of bad quality. It is not readable. It should be improved.”
In fact, the two figures, 1 and 2, are redundant. For the sake of a correct reading of the paper, it was decided to delete Figure 2 instead of Figure 1, which we believe is instead useful for a better understanding of the methodological approach.
“6) Table 2, 4- Both tables are extremely long. An appendix should be created and the tables transferred there.
Table 6 - It seems that it has two parts. The second part, which starts with "environmental dimension" seems to be artificially added to the first part. The link between both parts is not clear. Therefore, I propose to split it into two independent tables.”
For ease of reading, all the tables (except Table 3 which becomes Table 1 in the new version) have been moved to a separate section called "section 6 - Appendix". In addition, Table 6 was split into two separate tables (6 and 7). This suggestion also responds to an indication of the third reviewer.
Thank you for the suggestions.
Reviewer 3 Report
The topic of the circular city is currently much more popular for achieving sustainability in urban areas. The authors have presented a review of existing indicators related to the circular city and proposed a set of them to evaluate the circular city at the urban level. The work is of importance to provide helpful references for the sustainable development of circular city. However, the current paper has the following problems:
(1) The English language should be polished by formal English embellishment agencies or native speakers. Some sentences are too long and difficult to follow. Also, the authors should carefully check the work spelling and grammar. For example, Line 180, should be "evaluate", not "evaluete"; Line 285 focus on doing sth..
(2) The resolution of the Figures shoud be improved, especially the Figure 2.
(3) Line 286, the author mentioned "the criteria identified by the approach were applied", what approach?
(4) For the tables, three-lines table is recommended. Table 6 should be revised.
(5) Line 337-342, through the simple comparison of the number and size of cities, the authors then concluded that the number of indicators is inversely proportional to size/importance of the city. The result is unreliable.
(6) The paper should be re-organized into: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, and Conlusion. The Results and Discussion need to be arranged hierarchically and logically. It is suggested that the results and discussion should be written into subsections for a clearer explanation. Each subsection presents a part of the main findings. The discussion should be deepen by connecting to the research results.
(7) It is recommended to write the conclusion part seperately and highlight the main results and core innovation of the paper. Where is the innovation and improvement of the proposed indicators?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
I am writing the revisions to our manuscript entitled “Indicators for the circular city: a review and a proposal”.
First, we would like to thank you for your work and for your comments, which will certainly improve the article.
In general, an attempt was made to revert the form of the text.
In particular, the following is a timely response to the revisions suggested.
“1) The English language should be polished by formal English embellishment agencies or native speakers. Some sentences are too long and difficult to follow. Also, the authors should carefully check the work spelling and grammar. For example, Line 180, should be "evaluate", not "evaluate"; Line 285 focus on doing sth..”
An attempt was made to revert the form of the text and the paper has been proofread to correct typing errors
“2) The resolution of the Figures should be improved, especially the Figure 2.”
The Figure 2 has been deleted, also following the suggestion of Reviewer 2.
“3) Line 286, the author mentioned "the criteria identified by the approach were applied", what approach?”
In the text, the section referred to was specified (section 3, lines 267-273).
“4) For the tables, three-lines table is recommended. Table 6 should be revised.”
Table 6 has been divided into two separate tables (6 and 7), this indication also responds to the request of reviewer 2.
“5) Line 337-342, through the simple comparison of the number and size of cities, the authors then concluded that the number of indicators is inversely proportional to size/importance of the city. The result is unreliable.”
The part where the correlation between the number of indicators and the size of the city was mentioned has been revised as it was not intended to be a result of scientific value, but only an observation of a reality under examination that corroborates the thesis being examined. Thank you for the report.
“6) The paper should be re-organized into: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. The Results and Discussion need to be arranged hierarchically and logically. It is suggested that the results and discussion should be written into subsections for a clearer explanation. Each subsection presents a part of the main findings. The discussion should be deepened by connecting to the research results.”
The paper was initially divided into the indicated parts: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results. The following part was revised: Discussion and Conclusion
“7) It is recommended to write the conclusion part separately and highlight the main results and core innovation of the paper. Where is the innovation and improvement of the proposed indicators?”
The final chapters have been divided into: Results, Discussion, Conclusion and Appendix. As requested, the main results and thus the innovation of the paper obtained from the research have been highlighted more. In fact, the creation of a minimum set of indicators that are representative of the main sectors insisting on the urban sphere is, in the authors' thinking, useful both to be able to compare cities with each other, regardless of their characteristics, and to avoid the risk of them becoming self-referential in the creation of their own indicators designed ad hoc for the actions implemented by the administration.
Thank you for the tips.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Thanks for the authors revision, I do not have any comments.
