Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cities of Ranchi and Dhanbad during COVID-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Common remarks

1) The authors refer to the table, but the tables themselves are not in the text

2) The authors presented the results of kriging, but there is no description of the applied method (type of kriging - simple, ordinary, universal, semivariogram model used, search radius).

3) The term "kriging interpolation" involves calculating a mathematical expectation in new locations where there is no data. However, the authors apply it to known data on a regular grid, resulting in a sliding window filter with fixed coefficients. The goals of such filtering are not disclosed by the authors. Filter size is unknown, some filtering results look strange.

4) The authors do not use any statistical models or tests to support their findings. The conclusions are declarative.

5) Legend for compared images (Fig.5, etc) do not match, making comparison difficult.

 

Possible typos

1) authors use two different styles for literature referencies: (Kumar and Kumar 2020) vs [30]

2) Line 491) The word "Districts" seems superfluous

3) Line 553-554) The phrase "This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex" seems to be copied from an article template

Author Response

1. The authors refer to the table, but the tables themselves are not in the text.

Our apologies for the error. It was some negligence on our end during compilation. We have added the tables to the manuscript.

 

1. The authors presented the results of kriging, but there is no description of the applied method (type of kriging - simple, ordinary, universal, semi variogram model used, search radius).

Thanks to the worthy Reviewer for bringing it to our knowledge. The ordinary kriging method was used in this study. Search radius and Semi variogram model were optional and provided best fitting by the software. The same description has been mentioned in the manuscript too.

1. The term "kriging interpolation" involves calculating a mathematical expectation in new locations where there is no data. However, the authors apply it to known data on a regular grid, resulting in a sliding window filter with fixed coefficients. The goals of such filtering are not disclosed by the authors. Filter size is unknown, some filtering results look strange.

As such in this study, Kriging was done to average and autocorrect the prediction biasness which was evident in the initially generated LST maps. Example if you just have a look at LST maps (Fig15) it depicts max temperature to be 50+ *C which is impossible and is due to a prediction error/bias of data points in ArcGIS to sum/nullify such data point/ data ranges Kriging interpolation was must.

The section "Kriging" under the Material and Methods section has been updated to address the worthy Reviewer's concerns.

 

1. Legend for compared images (Fig.5, etc) do not match, making comparison difficult.

We agree to the worthy Reviewer and have duly corrected the legends. I am sure it will make the comparison easier for the readers.

 

Possible typos

1. authors use two different styles for literature references: (Kumar and Kumar 2020) vs [30]

We are grateful to the worthy reviewers for pointing out these errors. We have corrected the reference styles.

 

2. Line 491) The word "Districts" seems superfluous.

The authors have sincerely tried to reduce the word 'District'. However, it cannot be undermined entirely since we are not considering Ranchi and Dhanbad City's boundary but a complete group of Blocks significantly more significant than the main city centre.

 

3. Line 553-554) The phrase "This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex" seems to be copied from an article template

The authors have removed the statement as suggested.

Reviewer 2 Report

In the paper ‘’Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cities of Ranchi and Dhanbad During Covid-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology’’ the spatial-temporal assessment of two Indian cities, Ranchi and Dhanbad, was conducted to review the influence of COVID lockdown on its urban climate. The topic of the article is interesting and relevant.

However, the authors need to make corrections

Reference design should be uniform throughout the manuscript

The authors forgot to insert tables into the text

Line 149: Do you have more recent population data?

Line 153 and 160: in one case, kilometers in full, in the other in abbreviated form. do the same

Figure 7. you need to add the name of the Y-axis and explain what the solid and dotted lines mean

Please add a discussion section. you can move part of the text describing the results of other works from the introduction (lines 102-120)

Quality (resolution) of all figures should be improved. All figures should be formatted uniformly

Lines 121-132: the title of the article focuses on the COVID lockdown, but the purpose of the article does not contain a word about COVID. reconcile one with the other. 

Figures 8 to 15 need to be grouped and made smaller. Now they take up too much space. Perhaps transfer some of them to the supplementary material

Lines 553-554: remove the first sentence

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

In the paper "Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cities of Ranchi and Dhanbad During Covid-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology" the spatial-temporal assessment of two Indian cities, Ranchi and Dhanbad, was conducted to review the influence of COVID lockdown on its urban climate. The topic of the article is interesting and relevant.

However, the authors need to make corrections.

We are grateful to the worthy Reviewer's appreciation as it's a source of motivation for our research team. We have tried to improve the manuscript by incorporating the suggestions by the worthy reviewers.

1. Reference design should be uniform throughout the manuscript.

Apologies for the error. There was some negligence during compilation. Needful corrections have been made. 

1. The authors forgot to insert tables into the text

Our apologies for the error. There was some negligence during compilation. Needful corrections have been made. 

1. Line 149: Do you have more recent population data?

Recent population data is available from some open sources, but it is not as accurate and authentic as the census data. That is why we are relying on the census data in the manuscript.

1. Line 153 and 160: in one case, kilometers in full, in the other in abbreviated form. do the same.

Apologies for the error. There was some negligence during compilation. Needful corrections have been made. The authors are thankful to the Reviewer for highlighting it.

7. Figure 7. you need to add the name of the Y-axis and explain what the solid and dotted lines mean.

We are grateful to the worthy Reviewer for highlighting an important point. We have followed the suggestion and the name for Y axis "Temperature" has been provided in the figure and the meaning of solid and dotted lines in the figure have been also included in the following paragraphs.

1. Please add a discussion section. you can move part of the text describing the results of other works from the introduction (lines 102-120)

Thanks for the important suggestion. Discussion section explaining past research works have been made. The authors are thankful to the Reviewer for such insightful suggestion.

 

1. Quality (resolution) of all figures should be improved. All figures should be formatted uniformly.

Efforts have been made to improve the quality of figures along with bringing uniformity in all the illustration provided in the manuscript. We are pretty sure that the worthy Reviewer will admire our efforts.

 

1. Lines 121-132: the title of the article focuses on the COVID lockdown, but the purpose of the article does not contain a word about COVID. reconcile one with the other. 

Needful corrections have been made. Our research team sincerely appreciates the reviewer feedback. 

 

1. Figures 8 to 15 need to be grouped and made smaller. Now they take up too much space. Perhaps transfer some of them to the supplementary material

Figures 7-14 have been added as the supplementary material.

 

1. Lines 553-554: remove the first sentence.

Authors have corrected the error.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear,

The article reviews the influence of lockdown (COVID 19) on its urban climate (India). Have some important data about the theme, but In order for it to meet the journal's quality requirements and standards, I believe it needs some adjustments:

1- There are non-standard citations in the article (such as Tiwari et al., 2018), contrary to the correct numbering (e.g. [1]). It is necessary to standardize the format requirements of the journal.

2- There are at least 3 pictures used to describe the study area. This pollutes the article too much. It is necessary to make an effort to represent the study area in 1 single figure.

3- It is necessary to cite the units of measurement according to the International System of Units (SI). You need to correct things like line 228: thermal spectral radiance (Watts/ (m2 * sr *μm)).

4- It is necessary to do a rigorous process figure's correction. The visualization quality is poor, and there are numberings with inappropriate designations ("a" and "b" together figure numbers, however they are not in the same panel, so 5 a and 5 b are actually figures 5 and 6. e.g.).

Author Response

Dear,

The article reviews the influence of the lockdown (COVID 19) on its urban climate (India). Have some important data about the theme, but In order for it to meet the journal's quality requirements and standards, I believe it needs some adjustments:

1. There are non-standard citations in the article (such as Tiwari et al., 2018), contrary to the correct numbering (e.g. [1]). It is necessary to standardize the format requirements of the journal.

Apologies for the error. There was some negligence during compilation. Needful corrections have been made. 

 

1. There are at least 3 pictures used to describe the study area. This pollutes the article too much. It is necessary to make an effort to represent the study area in 1 single figure.

The authors have limited reduced the geographical depictions to; As if we remove the blocks detailed figures, the blocks named at several instances will be very confusing for readers

1. It is necessary to cite the units of measurement according to the International System of Units (SI). You need to correct things like line 228: thermal spectral radiance (Watts/ (m2 * sr *μm)).\

The necessary corrections have been made. The authors are thankful to the Reviewer for highlighting it out.

6. It is necessary to do a rigorous process figure's correction. The visualization quality is poor, and there are numberings with inappropriate designations ("a" and "b" together figure numbers, however they are not in the same panel, so 5 a and 5 b are actually figures 5 and 6. e.g.).

The image quality have been rigorously amended to improve its quality

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript entitled Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cit- ies of Ranchi and Dhanbad During Covid-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology after Major Revision.

 

I believe that the subject of this paper is relevant to Journal Sustainability MDPI after major revision and have approved (moderate) corrections.

 

The topic of the paper is very interesting and important, especially in the context of Urban climatology in connection with the CPVID-19 lockdown.

 

Journal of the Sustainability is committed to receiving interesting and high quality papers.

Initially, the paper has the following sections and subsections (i.e., Abstract, Introduction, Study Area, Materials and Methods, Datasets, Estimation of Top of Atmosphere (TOA) Spectral Radiance, TOA to BT Transformation, Determining the NDV, Pv Estimation, . Land Surface Emissivity (ε) Determination, Local Standard Time Estimation, Kriging Interpolation, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, etc.).

 

Because of the large number of short scientific worlds, I strongly recommend that authors add a special section called Section of Abbreviations.

The section of Abstract  

This section is well written on the whole, but in my opinion a few sentences should be added in this section explaining the main results of this research. Also, the authors should add in this section how they measured the relationship between COVID -19 and urban temperature parameters and how they found this relationship. The one sentence of the main results can be adding too.

The section keywords

In this section, I strongly recommend that the authors add another key word.

The section of Introduction

I recommend the authors to add more sentences describing previous research with similar or very similar topic. In this section, the authors need to write more about possibility to in applicable way implement this interesting investigation.

 

Lines 39, 42 can the authors explain better how they are find these data about global population, cite more sources.

 

The same for the lines between 46, 50.

In this section is also important to explain better the term urban heat. The urban heat is not the same in the whole cities in the world.

Line 98, the situation in San Francisco is more complex, please explain better.

Because of the use of different spatial techniques and methods, I strongly recommend the authors to read and cite two valuable references

The references are

- Valjarević, A., Djekić, T., Stevanović, V., Ivanović, R., & Jandziković, B. (2018). GIS numerical and remote sensing analyses of forest changes in the Toplica region for the period of 1953–2013. Applied geography, 92, 131-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.01.016.

- Tewari, A., & Srivastava, N. (2023). Impact of COVID lockdowns on spatio-temporal variability in land surface temperature and vegetation index. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 195(4), 507. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11119-7.

 

Section of Study area

 

Figure 1,

This figure is well drawn, but it would be good if the authors could place geographic coordinates on the map for clarity.

In this section the authors must add more about geographical locations (main sites) of this area, especially in the context of climate or weather extremes.

Section of study area

The authors have attempted to explain the procedures for deriving the NDVI (Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). The authors need to add whether they used satellite data from the Landsat 8 or Landsat 9 satellite missions. They should also explain more about the spatial resolution.

Sub-section Estimation of Top of Atmosphere (TOA) Spectral Radiance

Can the authors explain there are any similar equation for Atmosphere (TOA) Spectral Radiance, please explain?

Figure 5a. why the authors used the period for the analysis of (2019-2022). Is the NDVI index sufficient to analyze the impact of urban heat, or is it necessary to add other indices?

Figure 5b: Can the authors explain how the boundary (area) between two different areas studied affects the results of the NDVI index?

 

Figure 8, how the authors analyzed and estimated surface temperatures and how the authors used kriging methods.

 

Section Conclusion

In this section, the authors should write more about the relationship between the methodology and the estimated results.

As I mentioned in the answers above, this methodology can also be compared with the accuracy of satellite records.

 

This section is overall too short and definitely needs to be extended

 

In this section, the authors need to answer the following questions?

 

Why is this research important?

How did the authors estimate the actual impact of the COVID -19 closure on surface temperatures?

 

This paper has the potential to be published. The paper is very interesting and scientifically correct.

In the end, I recommend a major revision

 

Good luck to the authors
Reviewer#1

Author Response

The manuscript entitled Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cities of Ranchi and Dhanbad During Covid-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology after Major Revision.

I believe that the subject of this paper is relevant to Journal Sustainability MDPI after major revision and have approved (moderate) corrections.

The topic of the paper is very interesting and important, especially in the context of Urban climatology in connection with the CPVID-19 lockdown.

Journal of the Sustainability is committed to receiving interesting and high-quality papers.

Initially, the paper has the following sections and subsections (i.e., Abstract, Introduction, Study Area, Materials and Methods, Datasets, Estimation of Top of Atmosphere (TOA) Spectral Radiance, TOA to BT Transformation, Determining the NDV, Pv Estimation, . Land Surface Emissivity (ε) Determination, Local Standard Time Estimation, Kriging Interpolation, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, etc.).

1. Because of the large number of short scientific words, I strongly recommend that authors add a special section called Section of Abbreviations.

We are grateful to the worthy Reviewer's motivating comments and suggestions for the improvement of the manuscript. We have followed the instructions by the worthy Reviewer and have added a list of abbreviations in the manuscript

The section of Abstract  

1. This section is well written on the whole, but in my opinion a few sentences should be added in this section explaining the main results of this research. Also, the authors should add in this section how they measured the relationship between COVID -19 and urban temperature parameters and how they found this relationship. The one sentence of the main results can be adding too.

 

The section keywords

1. In this section, I strongly recommend that the authors add another key word.

Thanks for the suggestion. We have added a keyword (Remote Sensing) to the Keywords section.

The section of Introduction

1. I recommend the authors to add more sentences describing previous research with similar or very similar topic. In this section, the authors need to write more about possibility to in applicable way implement this interesting investigation.

The authors do understand the concerns of the Reviewer and have attempted to add a discussion section of past research work for the same.

 

1. Lines 39, 42 can the authors explain better how they are find these data about global population, cite more sources.

The authors have provided references for the highlighted data

 

50. The same for the lines between 46, 50.

Thanks for the suggestions from the worthy reviewers. We have followed the suggestions and needful corrections have been made

 

1. In this section is also important to explain better the term urban heat. The urban heat is not the same in the whole cities in the world.

The authors have made sincere attempt to address the concern of the Reviewer and have made necessary corrections

 

1. Line 98, the situation in San Francisco is more complex, please explain better.

The writers have made an honestefforts to address the Reviewer's concern and have made the required revisions.

 

1. Because of the use of different spatial techniques and methods, I strongly recommend the authors to read and cite two valuable references
   The authors are thankful to the reviewer suggestion both the recommended works have been thoroughly studied and utilized in the present work

These references are now added to the text and the reference list.

- Valjarević, A., Djekić, T., Stevanović, V., Ivanović, R., & Jandziković, B. (2018). GIS numerical and remote sensing analyses of forest changes in the Toplica region for the period of 1953–2013. Applied geography, 92, 131-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.01.016.

- Tewari, A., & Srivastava, N. (2023). Impact of COVID lockdowns on spatio-temporal variability in land surface temperature and vegetation index. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 195(4), 507. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11119-7.

Section of study area

1. The authors have attempted to explain the procedures for deriving the NDVI (Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). The authors need to add whether they used satellite data from the Landsat 8 or Landsat 9 satellite missions. They should also explain more about the spatial resolution.

The authors have updated the Materials Section under the sub-section Datasets to encompass the concerns of the Reviewer. 

1. Figure 5a. why the authors used the period for the analysis of (2019-2022). Is the NDVI index sufficient to analyse the impact of urban heat, or is it necessary to add other indices?
2. Figure 8, how the authors analyzed and estimated surface temperatures and how the authors used kriging methods.

The authors have made efforts to provide a  detailed explanation on the Reviewer concerns from section 3.1.1 to 3.1.7 and the summarizing figure 3 "Flowchart of methodology" in the Materials and Methods sections

Section Conclusion

1. Why is this research important? How did the authors estimate the actual impact of the COVID -19 closure on surface temperatures?

ANSWER)  The authors estimated the actual impact of the COVID-19 closure on surface temperatures by conducting a spatial-temporal assessment of class-II Indian cities, Ranchi and Dhanbad. We used ArcGIS to estimate Land Surface Temperature (LST), a crucial measure for heat balance research, land use, and climate change models. The LST was accurately computed using existing LANDSAT-8 equations and parameters obtained from the Thermal Infrared bands. By comparing LST during the lockdown period with the pre-pandemic period, we observed a significant drop in temperature, indicating a meaningful relationship between human activities and urban surface temperature. This analysis provides insights into the impact of reduced human activities during the lockdown on the urban thermal environment and highlights the potential influence of anthropogenic heat on urban temperature.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although the authors have stated that

"We agree to the worthy Reviewer and have duly corrected the legends. I am sure it will make the comparison easier for the readers",

all figures are exactly the same as in the previous version, and the legends of paired drawings do not correspond to each other (Fig. 4a left 2019 and right 2022, etc.)

 

Author Response

1. Although the authors have stated that

 

"We agree to the worthy Reviewer and have duly corrected the legends. I am sure it will make the comparison easier for the readers",

 

All figures are exactly the same as in the previous version, and the legends of paired drawings do not correspond to each other (Fig. 4a left 2019 and right 2022, etc.)

 

Response to Worthy Reviewer 1:

The images and legends have been corrected to ensure it's readable. The authors fear that further improvement is not possible. Moreover, Figure 4a does not seem to portray any errors, per the authors. The arrangement of legends should not be considered a technical error.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors did a good job and significantly improved the article, but there are a few minor remarks left.

 

In Section  2, the authors provide an overview of work to reduce emissions during the lockdown. Please add a phrase to the text about what it is exactly during the lockdown.

 

Figure 6. The numbers are not visible above the histogram. The designation of the blue and brown lines should be added to the title of the figure (apparently this is a trend), as well as a dotted line.

 

 

Line 161. put the link in square brackets instead of the authors and year in parentheses.

Author Response

 

 

The authors did a good job and significantly improved the article, but a few minor remarks remain.

 

1. In Section 2, the authors provide an overview of work to reduce emissions during the lockdown. Please add a phrase to the text about what it is exactly during the lockdown.

 

Ans) The complete restriction of industrial and transportation sector due to economic lockdown to contain COVID-19 significantly reduced the GHG emissions in the country improving the poor air quality and thereby bringing unexpected relief in surface temperature as well (Please see lines 145-149: Topic-Past Studies)

 

6. Figure 6. The numbers are not visible above the histogram. The designation of the blue and brown lines should be added to the title of the figure (apparently this is a trend), as well as a dotted line.

 

Ans) Corrections have been made as per the suggestion of the Reviewer.

 

161. Line 161. Put the link in square brackets instead of the authors and year in parentheses.

 

Ans) Corrections have been made as per the suggestion of the Reviewer.

 

We are grateful to the worthy reviewers for their constructive suggestions, which were helpful in improving the quality of the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear,

 

I consider was done a deep modification in inicial text. The changes are substancial do improve the paper's quality. So, now I recomend the accept of paper.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Dear,

 

I consider was done a deep modification in initial text. The changes are substantial do improve the paper's quality. So, now I recommend the accept of paper.

 

Ans) The Authors thank the Reviewer for his insightful suggestion.

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript entitled Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cities of Ranchi and Dhanbad During Covid-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology can be accepted after a minor (moderate) revision.

The authors have responded to half of my comments and suggestions, but this is not enough. The process of responding to a review always includes all responses to all questions

Therefore, the manuscript cannot be accepted as is.

 

The text for my questions is the text below, and the authors must respond point by point.

1. Because of the use of different spatial techniques and methods, I strongly recommend the authors to read and cite two valuable references
   The authors are thankful to the reviewer suggestion both the recommended works have been thoroughly studied and utilized in the present work

These references are now added to the text and the reference list.

- Valjarević, A., Djekić, T., Stevanović, V., Ivanović, R., & Jandziković, B. (2018). GIS numerical and remote sensing analyses of forest changes in the Toplica region for the period of 1953–2013. Applied geography, 92, 131-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.01.016.

- Tewari, A., & Srivastava, N. (2023). Impact of COVID lockdowns on spatio-temporal variability in land surface temperature and vegetation index. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 195(4), 507. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11119-7.

Section of study area

1. The authors have attempted to explain the procedures for deriving the NDVI (Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). The authors need to add whether they used satellite data from the Landsat 8 or Landsat 9 satellite missions. They should also explain more about the spatial resolution.

The authors have updated the Materials Section under the sub-section Datasets to encompass the concerns of the Reviewer.

1. Figure 5a. why the authors used the period for the analysis of (2019-2022). Is the NDVI index sufficient to analyse the impact of urban heat, or is it necessary to add other indices?
2. Figure 8, how the authors analyzed and estimated surface temperatures and how the authors used kriging methods.

Section Conclusion

1. Why is this research important? How did the authors estimate the actual impact of the COVID -19 closure on surface temperatures?

 

 

 Reviewer#4

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

 

The manuscript entitled Assessment of Land Surface Temperature from the Indian Cities of Ranchi and Dhanbad During Covid-19 Lockdown: Implications on the Urban Climatology can be accepted after a minor (moderate) revision.

 

The authors have responded to half of my comments and suggestions, but this is not enough. The process of responding to a review always includes all responses to all questions

Therefore, the manuscript cannot be accepted as is.

The text for my questions is the text below, and the authors must respond point by point.

1. Because of the use of different spatial techniques and methods, I strongly recommend the authors to read and cite two valuable references

 

These references are now added to the text and the reference list.

 

- Valjarević, A., Djekić, T., Stevanović, V., Ivanović, R., &Jandziković, B. (2018). GIS numerical and remote sensing analyses of forest changes in the Toplica region for the period of 1953–2013. Applied geography, 92, 131-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.01.016.

 

- Tewari, A., & Srivastava, N. (2023). Impact of COVID lockdowns on spatio-temporal variability in land surface temperature and vegetation index. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 195(4), 507. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11119-7.

ANS) The authors are thankful to the Reviewer for highlighting the error. Both the recommended works have now been Mentioned in 42 and 43

Section of study area

 1. The authors have attempted to explain the procedures for deriving the NDVI (Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index). The authors need to add whether they used satellite data from the Landsat 8 or Landsat 9 satellite missions. They should also explain more about spatial resolution.

ANS) We believe that section 4.1 DATASETS section is significant enough to respond to the question raised by the worthy Reviewer and that too much elaboration on the procedures for deriving NDVI won't be appropriate here

2. Figure 5a. Why the authors used the period for the analysis of (2019-2022). Is the NDVI index sufficient to analyze the impact of urban heat, or is it necessary to add other indices?

 The authors selected the study period for 2019-22 since it was the lockdown period and it was an ideal period for a comparative study on climatic parameter changes due to globally reduced man-incurred activities. While the author agrees with the Reviewer that the NDVI perhaps is not sufficient to analyze the impact of urban heat, the maps were created to assess the dense vegetative areas and not exactly to map the 3 years difference. The authors are well aware that there will be no significant changes in the period however it was essential to know the periphery of vegetative lands to conclude that dense forests were much cooler than urban centers.

3. Figure 8, how the authors analyzed and estimated surface temperatures and how the authors used kriging methods.

 Answer) The authors have made efforts to provide a  detailed explanation on the Reviewer concerns from sections 3.1.1 to 3.1.7 and summarise figure 3 "Flowchart of methodology" in the Materials and Methods sections.

Section Conclusion

1. Why is this research important? How did the authors estimate the actual impact of the COVID -19 closure on surface temperatures?

 The following has been also been added to the CONCLUSION section to address both the above concern of the Reviewer;

The authors estimated the actual impact of the COVID-19 closure on surface temperatures by conducting a spatial-temporal assessment of class-II Indian cities, Ranchi and Dhanbad. We used ArcGIS to estimate Land Surface Temperature (LST), which is a crucial measure for heat balance research, land use, and climate change models. The accurate computation of LST was done using existing LANDSAT-8 equations and parameters obtained from the Thermal Infrared bands. By comparing LST during the lockdown period with the pre-pandemic period, we observed a significant drop in temperature, indicating a meaningful relationship between human activities and urban surface temperature. This analysis provides insights into the impact of reduced human activities during the lockdown on the urban thermal environment and highlights the potential influence of anthropogenic heat on urban temperature.

 

Final Note: It is also important to mention that the current study is a preliminary study which will be followed by a detailed analysis integrating more data sets. At this moment we are confined and wont be able to add more to the manuscript.

Thanks for the kind suggestions and help in improving the manuscript.