History and Future Challenges of Roadkill Research in South Korea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1.       This manuscript is a review, not “Article”.

2.       What is the significance of the research? Why you want to compare the bibliographic 19 networks between international and South Korean studies?

3.       You miss a part before the Materials and Research Method. It should has a literature review to find the knowledge gap, which links to the significance of the research

4.       In 2.3 what method are you going to use? Data Collection is clear bur not clear how want to analyze the data.

5.       The in-text does not show where is the location of your figures.. and I do not think these figures are really help to your manuscript besides figure 4.

6.       You miss the analyze how you get the result from 3.1 to 3.4. If you do the systematic review, then you should analyze the data from WOS, and do the statistical model to analyze it instead of concluding the result directly.

7.       In abstract, you need to identify the significance of the research and identify your research method clearly

Author Response

General comments

Authors made significant improvement to their manuscript and took all my previous comments and suggestions into consideration; they are well thanked for that. Only two last comments still stand and related to the reformulation of sentences in the impersonal form rather than the first-voice one. However, this point can be easily adjusted throughout the final formatting of the manuscript.
Briefly, based on that, the manuscript shows a full merit to be published in "Journal of Environmental Management" once the sentences reformulation is fully attained.

• Thank you for your constructive comments. We have revised the respective sentences according to your comments.

1. This manuscript is a review, not “Article”.

• According to the comment, we changed the type of article to “review”.

2. What is the significance of the research? Why you want to compare the bibliographic 19 networks between international and South Korean studies?

• Our study is relevant because this research showed the history of policy mitigating Wildlife-Vehicle collisions and related articles. Because South Korea has been rapidly urbanized, the policies and research have been comprehensively implemented and conducted. Thus, this review can reveal the national scale of research projects in South Korea and provide be good overview not only for Koreans but also for other researchers worldwide. We rewrote this aspect to emphasize the importance of this research (Lines 44 – 54).
• In this research, we would like to suggest different research trends that Korean research can further develop. Because Korean research related to WVCs has been more recently developed than in other countries, the comparison can suggest which research topics have been more fully explored and where research is lacking. These results could help to elucidate the Korean situation and provide good examples for researchers who are engaged in this field (Lines 101 – 105).

 

3.  You miss a part before the Materials and Research Method. It should has a literature review to find the knowledge gap, which links to the significance of the research

• We appreciate your valuable comments. We have revised the manuscript to describe the significance more definitively (Lines 66 – 70).

 

4. In 2.3 what method are you going to use? Data Collection is clear bur not clear how want to analyze the data.

• We appreciate your valuable comments. We have revised the manuscript (Lines 109 – 113).

 

5. The in-text does not show where is the location of your figures. and I do not think these figures are really help to your manuscript besides figure 4.

• Thank you for your careful comment. We have added the location of the figures. Because we would like to show the density of roads and eco-corridors in the area of Seoul, which has one of the highest human population densities. In addition, we would show whether the corridors have been made not for wildlife animals, but also for trackers. In addition, Figure 3 shows the location of the symbolic ecological connections along the mountain axis in South Korea. Accordingly, we decided not to delete the figures.

 

6. You miss the analyze how you get the result from 3.1 to 3.4. If you do the systematic review, then you should analyze the data from WOS, and do the statistical model to analyze it instead of concluding the result directly.

• We appreciate your valuable comments. Our manuscript is composed of two sections. First, we reviewed the literature that was significant in the research field. Thus, we did not include all the literature even though the aims and topics were similar (Lines 97 – 99). Then, we compared the research trends between Korea and other countries to define differences in structure or concepts associated with roadkill. In this section, we did a systematic review based on VOS viewer. Consequently, this can tell us 1) how Korean research has developed along with the policies, and 2) where the research has progressed and what topics are lacking compared to international trends (Lines 101 – 105).
• We admit that the materials and methods section lacks this explanation and confuses readers. We have revised it to reduce this confusion.
• Accordingly, we have not revised the results section. However, we have tried to revise two sections of this research to clarify them.

 

7. In abstract, you need to identify the significance of the research and identify your research method clearly

• We have revised the abstract to demonstrate the significance of the research and identify our research method more clearly.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please refer attached comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

1. Authors have selected an important issue for study and reviewed the international and South Korean norms for wildlife roadkill issue.

• Thank you for the comment. Actually, we did not study only the norms. First, we reviewed literature that is significant in this field in South Korea, then we compared the norms to define the differences.
• We admit that we lacked a clear explanation for this. Thus, we have revised sections throughout the manuscript (Lines 44 – 54; 66 – 70; 101 – 105).

2. The abstract presented is more theoretical in nature. It is required to provide more qualitative abstract highlighting the main outcome of this study.

• As this study is a review article, we focused on theoretical aspects. However, since we also used systematic surveys, we have revised the abstract with more qualitative results.

3. Authors have selected only “45 domestic and 12 international papers and 13 reports” for preparing this article. In my opinion more exhaustive study is needed for sustainability journal publishing high impact research content.

• We reviewed more articles during revision (6 domestic and 3 international papers and 6 reports and 1 thesis). As some of the articles published concomitantly showed similar topics, we reviewed only articles that have significance to WVC mitigation. Thus, we consider that almost all articles related to this field have been included in our study (Lines 97 – 99).
• We also reviewed the articles with historical events. Thus, during the revision, we read some manuals to know how the government establishes the policy and the related research that has been done.

4. Section 1 introduction of the article is not able to highlight the depth of this important issue.

• We have revised it according to your comments.

5. Add novelty statement in the introduction section.

• We have revised it according to your comments (Lines 44 – 54; 63 – 70).

6. In introduction section a table is required to show the data of previous prevention method, new prevention method and its result showing the life saving of wildlife animals.

• We have mentioned results showing life-saving figures (Lines 169 – 171).

7. Materials and method shows the road construction of 111,314km till 2019 having 536 eco-corridors and highlight the important point how the data were collected.

• We have highlighted how we collected the data (Lines 76 and 81).

8. Results section lack in proper representation of results.

• We have revised the results to show more quantitative results and added information from newly read literature (Lines 122 – 127).

9. Discussion or conclusion section is based on theoretical data more qualitative results are required.

• Because this study was a review article, we focused more on the theoretical meanings of other studies. However, as we also used systematic reviews to compare the research trends between Korean and internationals, we have revised some parts to include more qualitative results.

10.Revised conclusion with future scope of present research work.   

• We have written the conclusion according to these comments (Lines 376 – 384).

11. Overall the article lack in methodologies and quantitative results.

• We tried to revise the manuscript to show the quantitative results. However, this article is a review article, so please consider this aspect (Lines 122 – 127).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for your comments

Reviewer 2 Report

* Thank you for incorporating all suggestions.

* Revised manuscript is more accurate and acceptable. 

*Title of Article: History and future challenges of roadkill research in South Korea

It can be revised as: Wildlife Vehicle Collisions Research in South Korea: Past, Present and Future.

* In present form roadkill word is confusing to readers.