Noise Pollution Analysis Using Geographic Information System, Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering and Principal Component Analysis in Urban Sustainability (Case Study: Tehran)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study investigated the influences of different factors on road traffic noise at one urban site in Iran. The authors used agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) and principal component analysis (PCA) to analyze noise measurement data. Overall, the manuscript was generally written in a logic way and the results were presented clearly. However, the written grammar and format should be improved, and the novelty of the study is insufficient. My other comments are listed below:

1.      Introduction: authors should add more literature reviews to show the related research process and emphasize the aims of this study to fill the current knowledge gap. I suggest giving a concise text of contents in Table 1.

2.      In Research Methodology part: please add references to explain why authors chose these various parameters and factors. I am confused about the format of “The volume of traffic…”, authors can list them using “including…” in normal text format.

3.      Table 2: In Author column, please uniform the citation format and explain the blanket in table using footnote. Is “Ahvaz City” a country?

4.      The table titles usually are placed before tables, please revise them.

5.      All figures in current version are vague and not displayed in a uniform way, please revise them.

6.      There are so many figures, authors can merge some similar figures with showing the same type of results in one figure using sub-figures.

7.      Table 8: please revise the format for column of “Degrees of freedom”.

8.    In Conclusion: there are too many paragraphs and please revise and reorganize the structure, especially for paragraphs beginning with “ it is suggested that…”.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

Please see the attachment.

yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this case study, a new approach has been presented where it was used SPSS and GIS in urban road traffic noise pollution. The results showed that noise level can be predicted through the traffic volume, slope, residential, commercial, office land use, green space and road width. Green Building Labels and noise protection is seen as an important part of the social sustainability aspects of a building.

1. The overall impression of the manuscript is good. It is well-structured and more or less easily readable. However, a last grammar and vocabulary check by a native English speaking scientist would be appropriate.
2.  Title: there is no need to capitalize GEOGRAPHIC. Why was the full name Geographic Information System used in the title, but not the abbreviation GIS, and the abbreviations AHC (Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering) and PCA (Principal Component Analysis) were used. Inconsistency. 
3.  It is necessary to modify the affiliations of the authors: Amir Esmael Forouhid ^1,*, Shahrzad Khosravi² and Jafar Mahmoudi³

¹Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Parand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Parand, Iran

²Department of Industrial Engineering, North Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

³KTH/School of Industrial Engineering and Management/Dept. of Sustainable Production Development, Stockholm, Swede

4. Abstract. Rephrase the sentence: “The model predicts that one vehicle per hour increase in vehicular traffic volume will increased by 0.002 dB.”

5. Table 1. Column: Null hypothesis. Last two sentences are the same.
6. Table 2. It requires a complete rearranging. Column Author (mixing APA and Harvard style), Column Country (for the last two lines the country is Iran), Column Title (for some papers the titles are incomplete or do not match the original).
7. Page 4. “To calculate the slope of the land, a 1:...” (not a clear part: a 1)
8. Figure 2(c): the markings in the figure are not clear.
9. Table 3: The sum of the first column-Occupancy% is 101%, the sum of the second column is 286892.2, Column Occupation level title-Green space (Capital letter).
10. Explain the abbreviated name software OTL (Olive Tree Lab Suite)
11. Page 8. Explain or cite the standard ISO 9613-2 (Acoustics - Attenuation of Sound During Propagation Outdoors - Part 2: General Method of Calculation) at the first place of appearance in the paper.
12. Page 8: replace “He maximum horizontal” with “The maximum horizontal”
13. Page 8: confusing-rephrase "in some routes 3 lanes in two lanes".
14. Figure 6: arrange Legend, Left Alignment, use Capital Letter.
15. Page 10: explain the abbreviation WGS (World Geodetic System).
16. Page 13. Table 4 should be turned 180 degrees.
17. Page 14. Change font size and bullets in equation (3). There is no bullet for Evening.
18. Page 14. Replace in equation (3) ???????? with ???????.
19. Page 14. Seven parameters (traffic, slope, residential, commercial, office, green space and road width) do not agree with the parameters in equation (3), i.e. Administrative-Office, Natural Ground-Green space.
20. Reconcile the marks in the text: t test, t-test, T test or T-test; F test or F-test.
21. Table 7. Column Parameter. Uniform font size, Left alignment, Capital letters.
22. Figures 8-14. Insufficient image quality (blurry). The captions on the pictures and in the Figure Captions do not match (Sound level-Noise level). "Land use" is used in the text of the paper, and Landuse in the figures.
23. Page 18. Replace “According to Figure 12 the R2 for the residential land use and noise level was 0.163” with “According to Figure 12 the R2 for the administrative land use and noise level was 0.163.”.
24. Page 20. Replace “According to Figure 14 the R2 for the natural ground and noise level was 0.395 and it is shown that the slope is important and has direct effect on noise level.” with “According to Figure 14 the R2 for the natural ground and noise level was 0.395 and it is shown that the natural ground is important and has direct effect on noise level.”
25. Check Figure 20 Caption: Noise level (dB(A)) and slope relationship.
26. Page 23. Table 8. Use Superscript and Subscript.
27. Page 23. Figure 21. “Official landuse” of “Administrative land use”. The percentages above the picture are unclear.
28. Table 9. Check if reference [22] should be reference [20] instead.
29. Page 25. A large number of sentences begin with "It is suggested...” Instead, I suggest that the first occurrence of “It is suggested that:” be followed by a bulleted list.
30. (Brittain & Charalampous., 2016)- Reference [21] incorrectly listed in the list of references - missing authors, it is not stated that the paper is from the NOISE-CON 2016 conference.
31. (Miguel Barrigón Morillas et al., 2016)- Reference [22] incorrectly listed in the list of references - missing authors.

32. References [2], [5], and [23] are not referenced in the text of the paper.
33. Reference list. The Harvard system of referencing should have been used in the paper, and the Harvard and APA style of referencing were mixed in the paper, and the style in the list of references is completely inconsistent. Detailed correction necessary.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

Please see the attachment.

yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper requires extensive revisions to be published. The quality of presentation is low and almost all sections are required to be revised. Conclusion and explanation of simulation results need extensive editing. Authors must try to improve the quality of Figures presented. English language and style also needs to be revised.

Authors can re-submit the paper after fixing the issues. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3

Please see the attachment.

yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

I have had the opportunity to review a manuscript entitled “Noise Pollution Analysis Using GEOGRAPHIC Information System, AHC, PCA in urban sustainability (Case Study: Tehran)”. The subject of the study is interesting, however, some changes are needed to improve the presentation of the article.

Title: 

Please use the full name (AHC and PCA) instead of the abbreviations.

Abstract: 

The authors reported that “The result of this study showed that the vehicle speed and width of the road and the land use, can affect different sound levels emitted by moving vehicles on road”. However, according to the manuscript text “According to the common results of all time analyzes, which include "principal component analysis", "regression analysis", the noise level is more affected by the traffic volume and residential use parameters than other parameters.” Please clarify/edit  

It is mentioned that “The model predicts that one vehicle per hour increase in vehicular traffic volume will increase by 0.002 dB.” Please explain this result in the manuscript.   

Introduction: 

Please consider the integrity and the connectivity among the paragraphs. In some cases, the sentences are not in the right place or are incomplete. For example: “During this study, an approach is used”.

Please put the literature review presented in Table 2 in the introduction section by comparing the methods, main findings, and limitations of the studies. Why is a new model needed?     

Method: 

Please put the information about the study area in the method first.    

Result: 

Please mention the most important results of each of the Tables and Figures clearly in the text.

Placing Figures in a single framework can help analyze the results. For the linear association Figures 8-14 and the non-linear association figures15-20. 

Discussion: 

Please consider the previous studies in the discussion and compare the results of the present study with them. Does the model presented in the present study have a better performance?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4

Please see the attachment.

yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I agree to publish it after double checking all tables and images resolution.

Author Response

Dear The Reviewer 1

Thanks for the comment of the reviewer and  the resolution of all figures and tables and images have been improved in the revised manuscript.

Yours sincerely 

Reviewer 3 Report

Simulation results are still required to be explained well in order to publish the paper. 

Author Response

Dear the Reviewer 3

Thanks for the comment of the reviewer and I explain the results more in the revised manuscript. 

Yours Sincerely