Slums Evolution and Sustainable Urban Growth: A Comparative Study of Makoko and Badia-East Areas in Lagos City

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

I have reviewed the manuscript and found that the subject is not of interest to the wider scientific community, or the readers of Sustainability. The paper presents the application of well-known methods to the problem of spatial evolution of slums in Lagos, Nigeria. It is more technical study than a research paper.

Minor editing of English language required. 

Author Response

Comment 1. Minor editing of English language required. The English language was updated using Grammarly software.

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The article entitled “Characteristics and Mechanisms Influencing Spatial Evolution of Slums in Lagos, Nigeria" proposed good topic; however, I have several issues that have to be addressed before the manuscript can be further evaluated for publication:

- Introduction:

Related studies need to be clarify the research gap.

The aim and main objectives need to be revised and paraphrased with firstly, secondly, and so on.

- Results and discussion:

The authors need to add the following points.

i. Comparison with other studies

ii. Implication and explanation of findings

iii. Strengths and limitations

iv. Recommendation, and future direction

The article entitled “Characteristics and Mechanisms Influencing Spatial Evolution of Slums in Lagos, Nigeria" proposed good topic; however, I have several issues that have to be addressed before the manuscript can be further evaluated for publication:

- Introduction:

Related studies need to be clarify the research gap.

The aim and main objectives need to be revised and paraphrased with firstly, secondly, and so on.

- Results and discussion:

The authors need to add the following points.

i. Comparison with other studies

ii. Implication and explanation of findings

iii. Strengths and limitations

iv. Recommendation, and future direction

Author Response

Comments from Reviewer 2

1.       Comments on Introduction:

Comment i. Related studies need to be clarify the research gap.

Lines 156-166: A research gap was added at the end of the introduction part.

 Comment ii. The aim and main objectives need to be revised and paraphrased with firstly, secondly, and so on.

Lines 142-155: The aim and main objectives were revised and paraphrased in accordance with the comment.

 2.       Comments on Results and discussion:

Comment i. Comparison with other studies

Lines 428-466: The research findings were discussed in reflection on the published studies on Mexico City, specifically for the government intervention in the slums.

 Comment ii. Implication and explanation of findings

Lines 468-505: Implication and explanation of findings were displayed and discussed in comparison between Badia East and Makoko areas.

 Comment ii. Strengths and limitations

This part was added to the lines 507-526

 Comment iii. Recommendation and future direction

This part is added to the lines 527-539

 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

My MA thesis was about "Informal Settlement Growth Using GIS" in a city and I like this topic. Because it is one of unsolved problems in developing countries cities. It brings hundreds of problems related to urban planning.

Comment 1: Abstract. When discussing slum expansion, omit or replace the word "development". Because "development" is a good thing, but what you're referring to is sprawl, or the physical and unplanned expansion of urban areas, which is fundamentally not a good thing. 

Comment 2:  Abstract. I believe that reporting software in detail is unnecessary in the abstract. Methods can be reported. Please edit and double-check the abstract, which should include the following information: objective, data, methods, results, conclusions, and recommendations for further study. 

Comment 2:  Introduction. I find that your paper's title conflicts with the parts that discuss the literature review (LR). Because "Characteristics and Mechanisms Influencing" was mentioned in your title. However, in LR, you prioritized studies that investigated mapping techniques. It is best to edit LR in accordance with the title of your work. 

Comment 3: Materials and Methods. I think figure 1 is very simple and not carrying valuable information. 

Comment 4: Materials and Methods. Additionally, I believe Figures 2 to 6 can be combined into a single, high-quality figure. The story is same. You can lower the figure count. 

Comment 5: Results: You can combine some figures (e.g., 7 and 8) into a single figure with subtitles. You can also improve Fig.10 b and Fig.11 b. I believe that comparing the slums with an ideal city environment is not a true comparison (Figs. 12 and 13). As an urban planner, I think that every city has its own way of life in different countries. Each city has own issues and we should avoid from 'One size fits all" approach in our writings. 

Comment 5: Discussion: It is better to compare your findings with previews research according your study title. I think you can change your title based on your study nature. 

Comment 6: I think we can use other approaches and methods like deep learning or neural network models to detect slum growth patterns. What suggestions do you have for future research? Add it to the best paragraph. 

 

 

Author Response

Comments from Reviewer 3

Comment 1: Abstract. When discussing slum expansion, omit or replace the word "development". Because "development" is a good thing, but what you're referring to is sprawl, or the physical and unplanned expansion of urban areas, which is fundamentally not a good thing. 

Lines 9-10: Development was replaced by evolution.

Comment 2: Abstract. I believe that reporting software in detail is unnecessary in the abstract. Methods can be reported. Please edit and double-check the abstract, which should include the following information: objective, data, methods, results, conclusions, and recommendations for further study.

Lines 8-32: The abstract was revised.

 Comment 3: Introduction. I find that your paper's title conflicts with the parts that discuss the literature review (LR). Because "Characteristics and Mechanisms Influencing" was mentioned in your title. However, in LR, you prioritized studies that investigated mapping techniques. It is best to edit LR in accordance with the title of your work.

Lines 117 to 131: The literature review was extended.

 Comment 4: Materials and Methods. I think Figure 1 is very simple and not carrying valuable information.

Lines 178-180: Figure 1 was revised, and the valuable information were added.

 Comment 5: Materials and Methods. Additionally, I believe Figures 2 to 6 can be combined into a single, high-quality figure. The story is same. You can lower the figure count.

Lines 311-360: Because mapping MAKOKO and Badia-East using fishnets, footprints, and NDBI is one part of the results, all maps were combined (into Figures 3, 4, and 5) in the results part before detailing mathematical results from supervised classification.

Comment 6: Results: You can combine some figures (e.g., 7 and 8) into a single figure with subtitles. You can also improve Fig.10 b and Fig.11 b. I believe that comparing the slums with an ideal city environment is not a true comparison (Figs. 12 and 13). As an urban planner, I think that every city has its own way of life in different countries. Each city has own issues and we should avoid from 'One size fits all" approach in our writings.

Lines 344-360: Figures 7 and 8 were combined and are now called Figure 5.

Lines 317-318 & 324-325; Fig.10 b and Fig.11 b are now called 7(b) and 8(b). The figures were not improved because these are only the best ones in the images of 2010 in Google Earth Pro. Others have clouds.

Finally, for your suggestion, (Figs. 12 and 13) and the environmental comparison were removed.

 Comment 7: Discussion: It is better to compare your findings with previews research according your study title. I think you can change your title based on your study nature.

Lines 428-505: Findings were compared with previous research according to our study title.

Lines 2-3: The title of our research was changed from “Characteristics and Mechanisms Influencing Spatial Evolution of Slums in Lagos, Nigeria.” to “Slums’ Evolution and Sustainable Urban Growth: A Comparative Study of Makoko and Badia-East areas in Lagos City.”

 Comment 8: I think we can use other approaches and methods like deep learning or neural network models to detect slum growth patterns. What suggestions do you have for future research? Add it to the best paragraph.

Lines 576-578: This part was added to the prospect.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

Authors improved the paper. It can be published after few minor changes: Figure 1 should be of better resolution and with arrows added so readers can follow the process; Reduce the number of keywords (delete Molusce 30 plugin; QuickOSM plugin, Footprints).

Author Response

Comments from Reviewer 1

Comment 1. Figure 1 should be of better resolution and with arrows added so readers can follow the process.

Lines 176-178: Figure 1 was improved using Canva software.

 

Comment 2. Reduce the number of keywords (delete Molusce 30 plugin; QuickOSM plugin, Footprints).

Lines 33-34: Molusce 30 plugin, QuickOSM plugin, and Footprints keywords were deleted.

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript can be accepted. 

Minor editing of English language is required.

Author Response

Comments from Reviewer 2:

Comment 1. Minor editing of English language is required. 

The editing of the English language was done using Grammarly software.

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

Please find the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

I don't find any issue with English, it is relatively ok.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper tried to analyze the land cover change and slum expansion. The authors displayed quantitative analysis and a number of photos to illustrate how these two slums developed during these two decades. Also the paper show us a completed theory to explain why and how urban planning improve the local development. However, there is a big problem for the data analysis. I will suggest the editor to reject this paper. Here are the detailed comments.

1.     The biggest issue is that only NDBI cannot classify the land covers accurately. The common approaches to classify land cover are supervised classification or unsupervised classification. One simple index is not enough to extract all information from two areas in a long period of time.

2.     The authors chose some NDBI ranges like -0.10569106- 0.171039356, 0.171039356 – 0.982142866 and others. The paper does not show us how the researchers acquire these ranges. Why do these range can accurately classify these land covers.

3.     The images used in the research included one image in April and another image in January. How did the researchers exclude the phenology and its effects?

4.     The Landsat 7 image in 2010 had sensors stripes. How do the researchers solve the problems?

5.     The titles of Table 1, Table 2 and Table 12 do not make sense.