The Impact of Urban Form and Density on Residential Energy Use: A Systematic Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsA literature review study like this should be based on a common understanding that residential density and energy consumption varies in different research purposes and research context. A research justifies a common understanding is not a significant research.
There is a need of review and justification of research methodology applied in this research, by comparing with other similar researches.
The study should focus on “density”, rather than “form”. Misuse of the terminology of “form”, “type” and “density” is the obstacle for a rigorous research.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageNo problem found in understanding the paper.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe study is a systematic review of the association between Urban Form and Residential Energy Use.
This review-paper extracts urban form variables and discusses their correlations, interpretations, frequencies, alongside methodologies used to quantify their impacts.
Additionally, this review also identifies the parameters that cause mixed effects of density on residential energy use in different studies.
Multinomial logistic regression is used to quantify the odds of getting a positive or non-significant association rather than a negative correlation.
The results highlight that density correlates negatively with residential energy use in cold climates, in temperate regions, its impact could be considered positive.
Comprehensive analysis is conducted.
The study is exhaustive and paper may be accepted for publication.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEditing may be done.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI have reviewed the manuscript titled “A systematic review of the association between Urban Form and Residential Energy Use”. The authors try to reveal the relationship between urban form and residential energy consumption.The subject of the article is interesting and important in terms of implications, and the efforts of the authors are worthy of praise. In general, the paper follows a cohesive structure to reach its objectives. In my opinion, the authors have successfully reached their aims and goals, but some corrections are needed to make the paper publishable. As a result, I would like to suggest the following comments:
1. The abstract should be more self-explanatory. I suggest that the authors make this important part of the paper more informative.
2. The keywords provided by the authors are mainly derived from the main title. The authors should try to provide some different keywords. This would increase the visibility of the paper by search engines if accepted for publication by the journal.
3. The Introduction part is relatively suitable, but the question should be derived from the literature review. As a result, it should move after section 1.2 and be correlated with the review.
4. Materials and methods are well written. However, some information is neglected. First, the period of time covered by the review is missing, and the reason for selecting those periods. Second, why only the Google Scholar database is selected, and why other important databases such as Web of Science and Scopus are neglected. Third, each method used should be mentioned in the methodology, such as regression line 436, which is not explained.
5. What is section 3? It is not a method naturally, and it seems to be a discussion more than a result or method. Therefore, it should be moved to a suitable place with an appropriate title.
6. Regarding section 3.7.2, if the authors would like to review the methodology of the reviewed article, should utilize appropriate methods like meta-method. If other dimensions are considered, the title and the content should be relevant. It seems that the authors tried to reveal limitations and obstacles and heterogeneity in the method more than assess the methods.
7. The result part is well written and justified.
8. It seems that the discussion is relatively poor. First, the subject of energy consumption in cold and temperate regions is mentioned, but the paper does not consider warm and dry areas. Second, the paper only reports the results of the indicators used, which is not enough, as the importance and performance of these indicators are more critical and expected to be revealed. In contrast to data gathering, especially in review papers, it is expected to identify major gaps, challenges, and generalize the findings, evaluating the literature critically and more deeply than it is in this paper. The end of the discussion needs a compact synthesis and generalization of the finding of research.
9. Based on the authors' statement in 105-107, the paper should highlight the major gaps and underscore the imperative need for additional research, while the future works in this review paper are disappointing and do not provide a certain vision for future research work in this field.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript discusses the important variables that should be considered while analyzing the energy requirements of buildings. The manuscript may be accepted after addressing the below mentioned comments.
1) The title of the manuscript may be changed and somehow the word 'density' may be incorporated as the authors have carried out the analysis using density of the residential energy use.
2) The abstract should be further improved and the authors may discuss as to what is the need of the study and what variables are required.
3) While carrying out the regression analysis, which database was considered is not clear. If the dataset from other articles have been considered then how did the authors get the entire dataset?
4) Reference for Table 2 should be provided.
5) The authors have uploaded supplementary information. However, it is not relevant to the study and no reference was made to the supplementary information in the manuscript.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe revision of the paper sees the improvement. A literature review is foundation of any further study. However, only a literature review without a profound theoretical base as this paper is difficult to justify its significance in generate new knowledge in the field.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
I would like to extend my sincere appreciation for your dedicated time and thoughtful feedback on my article, “The impact of Urban Form and Density on Residential Energy Use: A systematic review” submitted to “Sustainability”. Your insights and comments have been invaluable in enhancing the quality and rigor of this work. Your expertise and attention to detail have significantly contributed to the overall improvement of this paper.
In response to your comment, I have revised the "Further research in this field" section. In that section, I have described that although this systematic review aimed to find certain facts among scholars' contradictory conclusions, evaluating developmental theories regarding the elicited facts would have a great contribution in this field.
Once again, I want to express my deep gratitude for your invaluable feedback. The changes made have greatly improved the paper's quality and addressed the issues you raised. Should you have any further questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Sincerely,
Sina Narimani Abar
Resource and Energy Systems Group at Spatial Planning Department, Technical University of Dortmund
