The Role of Urban Design in Creating Resilient Public Open Spaces Surrounding Urban Small Watercourses: A Case Study of the Kumodraz Stream in Belgrade

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper examines the role of Urban Design in Creating Resilient Public Open Spaces Surrounding Urban Small Watercourses: A Case Study of The Kumodraz Stream in Belgrade. The paper holds promise in its interesting and informative content.

However, the authors need address and resolve various significant concerns and make substantial revisions to meet the publication standards.

Introduction

Ln 46 Needs rewording; the statement is awkward. This needs further clarity.

Ln 61 referencing is missing

Ln 77-90 needs to be moved up before the Ln 68-76

Research Framework

Ln 149 The statement is unclear and lacks references to support it.

Ln 153 The statement is unclear and lacks references to support it.

Ln 169 What are the likely things that will take place in an open space? This statement is unclear.

Materials and Methods

Ln 263 The research must clearly outline its methodology for identifying the 346 citizens of Belgrade. The 346 must have been derived from the population of Belgrade.

Ln 278 The study did not provide details about the type of analysis conducted using SPSS. This needs to be improved.

Ln 289-299 This should be removed from the result section; a new section (Study Site) should be provided. The author(s) needs to provide a map and the physical setting of the study area.

Results

Ln 317 What is the rationale for using Chi-square when there is no clear methodology?

Ln 339-349 Needs to be moved to the discussion section instead of being in the results section. The focus should be on the results obtained from the questionnaire.

Ln 409-418 This should be removed to form part of the discussion section.

Discussions

The discussion section needs improvement by collaborating their findings with existing literature, if available.

None

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The following comments are included for consideration as this article moves forward towards publication:

-the introduction provides a strong grounding into the context and importance of this study

-I would recommend adding a stronger statement of purpose or overview of the intent of the paper clearly in section 1. Introduction

-In section 2, I would recommend clearly contextualizing and describing what is meant by a “socio-ecological system” right from the beginning, including a strong grounding in past scholarly research.

-for readers unfamilar, I would also recommend describing what is meant by “green-blue infrastructure” (line 130)

-I was interested in what scale specifically describes a “small city watercourse” and would recommend this be explicitly described, especially for an international audience where this may vary greatly from region to region. 

-I was unsure what was meant by “the set” (line 194)?

-Could you further describe how the set of attributes (Table 1) was developed?

-Additional context is needed related to the survey methodology. Was ethical approval achieved for this research? I was curious to learn more about the survey methodology.  For example, when and how were the surveys administered? Was it electronic, paper? How was it distributed?

-How many surveys were distributed in total? successfully completed (I assume this is 346)? What was the response rate? How were the themes for the SWOT analysis generated? Were these data collected through open ended responses in the survey?

-I don’t think that Table 8 is needed, as these data can be described in text sufficiently.

-Could you further ground what is meant by an “ecological approach” (line 398) both in the research findings and in scholarship?

-Are the data presented in Table 9 meant to be used as a more generalizable framework, or specific to the Kumadraz stream?  If it is meant to present a framework for adaptation in other context, I would recommend changing the description related to the “Protection of floodplains.” Some descriptions present results from the survey specifically and others do not.  I recommend consistency throughout such that the reader can further contextualize these results.  This is a long Table, I wondered about separating each section into separate tables for each theme for greater readability?

-Section 5 (Discussion and conclusion) would be strengthened by situating the findings within the context of related scholarly research, and by including some specific questions for further research (which extend beyond the focus of this study). 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author has made the needed correction. There is no comment.