Consistency between Environmental Performance and Public Satisfaction and Their Planning Intervention Strategies: A Policy Text Analysis of Urban Environmental Planning
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The issue being addressed is interesting and relevant to the journal but there are some improvements needed.
1. The title needs to be changed as very difficult to understand what is being studied and also language wise.
2. The introduction is not compelling to justify why the research is warranted.
3. There was no discussion about theories.
4. There was also no discussion about the methodology.
5. Tables and figures should be presented more legibly.
6. At reading the paper, I am left with the question what was achieved.
7. How does this research inform practice?
8. How does this translate to implications for the stakeholders and which particular stakeholder's?
9. References are mostly dated and limited, I would suggest to explore more recent papers published in more reputable journals.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic of this paper concerned the inconsistency between environmental performance and environmental satisfaction, which seems very interesting. I have several major concerns below which might be of use when revising the manuscript.
1. The part of abstract is too simple, and does not cover the whole story in my mind. This part needs to be expanded, esp. on how the authors analyze the data, what is the main conclusion, etc.
2. Fig.3 and 4 seems redundant, and what kind of information can we obtain from Fig.4? Compared with these, I do suggest the authors proposing a new figure depicting the geographic distribution for different types of cities based on the results of environmental performance and satisfaction. And more analysis would be preferred and discussed.
3. The authors discussed some in page 13-14. However, this kind of discussion seems easier. E.g., concerning cities with low environmental performance and high environmental satisfaction, the authors provided two categories in which they took Shanghai as an example, then how about the other category? And why?
4. According to the data analysis, I mean Fig.3 & 4, what kind of conclusion they could draw? This should be carefully thought about, and related suggestions are important in future planning.
5. The English writing needs to be substantially polished, better by an English native speaker. I only listed a few of them below.
L28 is very limited-> was very limited; even some cities do not rise but fall -> and it even fell in some cities
L31 need to be revised
L 54-56 I cannot grasp what the authors want to tell.
L74-77 EPI, OECD, PSR, these are suggested to be explained at their first glance if they will appear later.
L79, 81 literature cited in the text should be carefully checked. Here W.A. should be replaced by Ajibike, Cunkuan Bao replaced by Bao
L83 he -> they
L101 need to be revised
L110 get rid of “With”
L118-120 ref. is needed here
L132-135 rephrase
L188 Or -> or
L190 A period is lack for this sentence
L194-194 needs to be revised
L209-211 awkward sentence, needs to be revised
L215 On the basis of the existing research -> Based on the existing studies
L244 ; -> .
L411-412 awkward sentence, needs to be revised. also, ; -> .
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The abstract of this manuscript is unclear. If this section is revised, readers will comprehend this research more. In addition, the approach, analysis, and conclusion were inadequate and poorly described. This needs a big restructure and reorganization. Additionally, the author must send this document to be proofread because several of the sentences are unclear and challenging to understanding.
Point 1: Please rewrite the abstract section's organization. Only the categories are mentioned in this abstract. The issue statement, the goal of the study, the research technique, and the conclusion should all be included in the abstract.
Point 2: Please cite your sources when you include material like:
- Line 25: However, according to the results of the questionnaire 25 conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on major cities in China, the overall 26 improvement of the public's satisfaction with the ecological environment in the past dec-27 ade is very limited, even some cities do not rise but fall.
- Line 28: The government invested human 28 and material resources, but the public did not "buy it".
- Line 29: The government's environmental 29 performance and the public's environmental satisfaction showed inconsistent feedback, 30 reflecting that the government's environmental governance work still need improve.
- Line 35: Therefore, the implementation of environmental 35 planning has greatly improved the performance of government environmental govern-36 ance. Moreover, as the "beautiful environment" and "high-quality ecological products" 37 become more and more important for people's "better life".
- Line 49: Environmental planning is a development plan formulated by human beings for 49 their own activities and ecological environment for the purpose of coordinating economic 50 and social development and environmental protection.
Point 3: Please clarify on this statement: Line 32: “Environmental protection, planning first”
Point 4: Line 45: It 45 is necessary to deeply study and reflect on how environmental planning plays a role in 46 improving environmental performance and public environmental satisfaction.
The research is not specific enough for this purpose. Additionally, the literature review part lacked clarity. The section's conclusion was not entirely apparent.
Point 5: The “Analysis Framework and Basic Ideas” section and The “Analysis of environmental performance, environmental satisfaction and environmental planning” has to be rephrased and reorganized. Understanding these two portions was challenging. I also offered further ideas for conducting in-depth studies of the data.
Point 6: Figure 4. Diagram of relevant nodes in each environmental planning text of different types of cities. It has to be redrawn because it is unclear.
Point 7: The conclusion paragraph was overly lengthy and did not concentrate on the research findings. I recommend completely rewriting the conclusion. It ought to give a general review of the methodology's significance and offer a clear justification for the findings.
Point 8: Some references are poorly written. These references are outdated as well. Give a more recent publication, at least five years ago.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The research article is substantive and within the scope of the journal. The paper is generally well-written and well-researched, though it would benefit from an extensive English language revision.
I have a number of comments/suggestions for the authors:
1) Why environmental performance and public satisfaction with the environment are significant in academia and should be mentioned in the initial study background of the abstract.
2) In the Abstract, some parts are missing, like (i) an Introductory statement highlighting the importance of the study; (ii) a clear study methodology and data nature; (iii) Specific central conclusions or results; and (iv) Implication of the study in science and practices.
3) Avoid duplication of the keywords with the research title. Add more alternative terms in the keywords section.
4) Add information in the introduction section regarding the historical context and policy instruments of environmental protection in China initiated by the government.
5) I believe that environmental efficiency will be the effect/consequence, not the cause, within the conceptual framework shown in Figure 1?
6) Some discussion points are missing. I would strongly recommend adding a separate discussion section with proper references to show the implication of this research in science, policy and practices. How will this issue be addressed in a larger context, such as on other continents? What is the challenging issue, and how will the province handle it? The discussion section should provide answers to all questions.
7) How does environmental governance vary at the household, community, market, and state levels? What causes this variation, and why? It should be mentioned in the discussion section.
8) In conclusion, limitations of this research and future scope could be added.
Good Luck!
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have done extensive revision as such I am recommending acceptance.
Author Response
Thanks for your positive comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
This version reads better. For figures 5-8, it will be better by using a table, I think.
Author Response
Thanks for your comment, we added Table 5 to represent the difference in the number of nodes for different urban planning texts. And, to visualize the difference, I've also kept Figure 5-8.
Reviewer 4 Report
The current manuscript has been improved significantly based on the comments from the previous review reports. I trust the manuscript is now ready for publication with a minor revision/check.
1) The length of the abstract should not be more than 300 words. Please revise accordingly.
Author Response
Thanks for your comment, we revised the summary and controlled the word count to be under 300.
