Integrated Traditional Water Knowledge in Urban Design and Planning Practices for Sustainable Development: Challenges and Opportunities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
1. Please improve the quality of Figure 2, it may be hard to read. If it is taken from an external source you need to reference it
2. Figure 3 is a nice graph that contains a lot of information. However, it could be better explained in the text and more analyses could be done from it. Are there challenges or opportunities that a certain group (informant) does not consider relevant and if so why? for example, no government officials considered the opportunities of religious and psycological benefits or relationship building, why could it be?
Author Response
Point 1: Please improve the quality of Figure 2, it may be hard to read. If it is taken from an external source you need to reference it
Response 1: The Figure has been replaced with a new one, which is generated by the author.
Point 2: Figure 3 is a nice graph that contains a lot of information. However, it could be better explained in the text and more analyses could be done from it. Are there challenges or opportunities that a certain group (informant) does not consider relevant and if so why? for example, no government officials considered the opportunities of religious and psycological benefits or relationship building, why could it be?
Response 2: Themes and sub-themes are generated by the lead author based on data gathered during the interview session. The diagram has been further thoroughly checked and included information where it was necessary. New lines (347 to 352) have added on page 8 for better explanation.
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
Considering the improvements performed on the article, the introduction now contains sufficient references and recent works. Furthermore, now that the recent research is mentioned in the article, the flow of the article overall feels better.
Having the interviews and data analysis portion described further definitely helps explaining your approach.
Your discussion is also making good points about the overall article.
In terms of reliability, such an approach poses certain risks in different contexts. As you also suggested, findings here cannot be generalized in another urban context. Then, the problem is that, if your research is not generalizable, then how can it contribute to other parts of the world? That would be something to think about. Perhaps, we can say that you are proposing an approach, and results are more like side effects you produce as you are describing your methodology. Regardless, this could well be clarified.
Otherwise, it is a nice effort to incorporate traditional knowledge for urban design and planning.
English Language is used well. Minor spell checking might be performed.
Author Response
Point 1: Considering the improvements performed on the article, the introduction now contains sufficient references and recent works. Furthermore, now that the recent research is mentioned in the article, the flow of the article overall feels better.
Having the interviews and data analysis portion described further definitely helps explaining your approach.
Your discussion is also making good points about the overall article.
In terms of reliability, such an approach poses certain risks in different contexts. As you also suggested, findings here cannot be generalized in another urban context. Then, the problem is that, if your research is not generalizable, then how can it contribute to other parts of the world? That would be something to think about. Perhaps, we can say that you are proposing an approach, and results are more like side effects you produce as you are describing your methodology. Regardless, this could well be clarified.
Otherwise, it is a nice effort to incorporate traditional knowledge for urban design and planning.
Response 1: Thanks for your positive comments and Support.
Lines (392 to 396) into the section of Validity and Reliability has re-write for better clarification.
Point 2: English Language is used well. Minor spell checking might be performed.
Response 2: Thanks for your comment. The paper has been cross-checked and reviewed in detail by the second co-author who is a native in English language. A. full content of a section (Relationship Building) was missed by mistake before, which has added on page 18.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This research work is on a topic of relevance and general interest to the readers of the journal. However, in my opinion, a complete revision is needed before considering this paper for publication with the objective of better highlighting the novelty, improving the methodology and the expression of the results, improving the overall readability of the manuscript. Few main suggestions below to help the revision of the paper that deals anyway with an interesting field of research.
1. Better definition of TWK, which are the traditional practices and how they may have an impact on the water management at the local scale.
2. Explain the sentence at lines 93-95. It is strong and not sufficiently supported by evidences.
3. Include information contained in sections 2 and 2.1 in the introduction. Consider also a complete revision of the subsequent sections. The methodology in not adequately explained in the “methodology” section but elements typical of the “methodology” are expressed in the result and discussion paragraph. I suggest thus a general revision of the structure of the paper, following a more traditional distribution of the contents in scientific sections.
4. Add few lines about the objectives and novelties of the research work at the end of the introduction, finding support in the presented literature.
5. Improve the whole methodology, explain the choice of a small group of interviews. Consider for example including citizens and locals in the survey. It could be interesting to understand their perception of the problem and their solutions. It could be a method for measuring their TWK. Including just 23 people with a specific profile in the survey can lead to a unique view about the problem (you explain this issue also at line 325).
You are on the right way for publishing your results, the topic is interesting but a complete revision and reorganization of the contents would be essential to improve your work.
Minor editing of English language required
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper presents the challenges and opportunities of integrating Traditional Water Knowledge in urban planning and design. Main focus of the research is the interpretation and analysis of interview results from different groups of people in a specific study case.
The topic is very interesting and original, and it is in line with the aims and scope of the journal. Abstract and keywords are informative. However, improvements can be done in the conclusions, including more insights, advantages, disadvantages or challenges of the proposed approach that can be derived from a more in-depth discussion. Furthermore, presentation and length can be improved. Despite a few sentences and words, the English quality is also satisfactory.
Although the research is good, I consider that several improvements need to be done in order to increase the quality of the paper. For this I have several general and specific comments/suggestions listed below.
general comments
1. I would suggest to combine/restructure chapters 1 and 2 into an Introduction section which follows a triangular scheme (from general to specific) and include a separate section for the Study case description. A map to locate the study area is needed.
2. Materials and Methods section needs to be greatly improved and expanded. This will help future readers/researchers that might to follow up or replicate the work
a. The process of people selection for the interviews and the post processing of the interviews’ results need to be explained in detail.
b. A general description of the questions or the main topics is needed Furthermore, I would recommend to include as an Annex a draft of the questions used for the interviews.
c. Description of the three components is needed
d. Description of each of the challenges and opportunities categories used through the document is needed
3. The first part of the Results and Discussion section (lines 220 to 246) seem to be more suited in the Materials and Methods part
4. In general results need to be explained a bit better. Mainly on the description of each of the identified challenges and opportunities in each of the three component.
5. Shouldn’t the first part of chapter 4, i.e. the description of results be Chapter 4.1 and the Challenges of integrating TWK be Chapter 4.2?
6. How do the challenges and opportunities in each of the three components are distributed in each of the different groups of participants? Figures with these results will provide better insight on these results. A more in depth analysis of trends/ insights or correlations between interviews’ answers and groups of participants is needed to better understand the discussion part (Chapter 4.1)
7. Great inconsistency with referencing styles. Please check the entire document
8. More Figures are needed to better understand and illustrate the different results presented in the manuscript
9. Comparisons with similar studies in the Discussion section is missing. Have other studies identified similar challenges and opportunities? Please expand this part
10. The document seems a bit lengthy. Although the quotes form some of the interviewees are interesting, I am not sure how necessary they are since they might distract the reader from the main results. I recommend to make the document a bit more precise and concise
Specific comments
Lines 21-22: what do you mean by a “delta city”?
Line 55: is it proving or providing?
Line 117: Check referencing style, it should be Kim et al. [27]. Consider this for all the other references in the text
Line 169: check reference style
Line 180: Change it to Materials and Methods
Lines 183-185: can you explain more how were they selected, the specific criteria and so
Line 186: can you clarify this phrase please? For me more data (in this case more interviews) imply a bigger knowledge no?
Line 202: There are some roles in the Table for which most people are not familiar, for example Nobolok and Rupantor. I would suggest to include a footnote or a side comment for the table explaining these roles. This will help to better understand the data
Lines 212-217: please expand and clarify the process of processing and analyzing the results from the interviews
Lines 233-243: check reference style
Line 246: Figure 1 needs a better explanation
Lines 247-255: include percentages to better understand results
Line 265: Classifications such as Challenges and Opportunities are presented after the graphs. This complicates the readability of the document. I recommend to describe what you mean by these classifications in the main text before you present the Figures Furtermore, I recomedn to include a brief description of each of them, for example what do you mean or consider as bad governance or weak urban planning?
Line 273: Figure 3 is a bar plot not a doughnut chart, please correct
Line 330: check reference
Line 333: were these 6 people from the same group?
Line 35: check phrase, reference and then a dot
Line 345: check reference
Line 350: check reference
Line 502: is it a thesis or a research paper?
Lines 546-551: this feels more appropriate to mention in the Material and Methods part
Line 560: check reference style
Lines 592-612. To which SDG does this correspond?
Line 610: remove the round bracket (
Lines 630-631: correct format of the phrase
Line 653: acronym for SDG was already mentioned and it is not necessary to repeat it
Reviewer 3 Report
The final part starting with Author contributions, is just generic text copied and pasted. You need to customize that section.
In your conclusion, you indicated that local informants could be helpful, yet this is not proven scientifically. Did they provide better accuracy to the predicted flood occurrence? Is any other metric utilized to compare it to a non-informant-based approach?
I believe that the idea could be provided as a review of the current state of affairs, yet as a research article, I would expect more integration of some sample data of how this approach affects urban design.
The English language is acceptable overall. Some spell check may be required. Please ensure that you have appropriate punctuation.
