The Clustering of the Population at Building Scale in Bursa City (Türkiye)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI appreciate the authors' revision efforts based on the last review reports. Generally, the manuscript has been improved significantly and it needs several further improvements to satisfy the requirements for publication.
1. The current research of urban population related planning works briefly explained, but concerning the study scope of settlement and building construction, it is not easy to capture the research gap in an international context. Especially, why was the Bursa case selected? What is the specific research problem and its significance (theoretically and practically)? The related information should be presented in the introductory section.
2. As there is a need to understand the study's conceptual framework or theoretical foundation and how this is linked with research questions, it is suggested to refine and extend the Figure 3 flow chart with schematic diagram integrated with key model information. If possible, move the flow chart at the end of introduction part to depict the whole study framework.
3. The part of Materials and Methods is basically useful, but this should be connected with the significance of the case. The study area subsection should be numbed by 2.1.
4. The current discussion and conclusion are very scientific based. Nevertheless, what are the implications of the study results for other places, even in a wider context? I think it is necessary to compare and contrast with international case studies.
5. It is suggested to establish a theoretical framework to guide the research, except for emphasis on the regional case study. From a social science perspective, a theoretical framework helps clearly define the research questions and the research approach.
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 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease find review in the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis work is structured well, in a clear and logical manner. It is easy to follow.
Research questions are clearly stated and well supported. Methodology section suficiently describes the research process.
Please pay attention to correctly format all of your references in a uniform manner
At this point, I believe the work is improved to the point it can be published.
Only minor suggestions are to think about including additional recenet references (less than 5 years).
Please also take care that the final version of the paper is polished in a way that corrections are not visible.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAuthors have carefully addressed all issues.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
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
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI have reviewed the article in detail and find it to be very good work. However, I believe there are areas that could be improved. My questions and recommendations are as follows:
1- Could you please add a coordinate grid to the map in Figure 1, similar to the one in Figure 2?
2- Please number the equations and remove the lines enclosing them.
3- On line 154, please add the section number to the title 'The location of study area'.
4- Please review the section titles to ensure proper capitalization. You may only need to capitalize certain words as necessary. For example, you could change the title "DATA and METHOD" to "Data and method".
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsBased on the careful review on this submission, I suggest the author re-submit after thoroughly addressing the following issues for further publication consideration.
Firstly, the present manuscript is not well prepared following the journal instructions. Please download the latest template and re-format the whole stuff in required style (See fonts, tables 1, 2 formats, all equations numbering etc.)
Secondly, the scientific and application contributions are both limited in the present style, since there abounds in modeling on population concentrated urban planning, even though authors try to focus on specific local regions.
Moreover, what is the key difference and feature for the studied regions, compared to other places for similar study? What is the main objective and reference values on others? Benchmark comparison and validation or measurement are of high necessity to ground this study, since or the indicators, spatial statistic and population estimation methods (e.g., Moran's I, Hot Spot etc.) are all handy off-shelf ones.
Then authors should clarify the key novelty, especially the advances over available research? The submission lacks originality and fails to exhibit the amount of effort required for publication in journals of this class.
In addition, authors are highly advised to re-organize the content in a more academic and inductive manor. For instance, in the Introduction, even though with adequate references, the recent recap and caps on the specific land use and population topic are not clarified. The citations are a bit out-of-date. Besides, the findings and results part might be refined into separate subsections with in-depth focuses.
Moderate editing of English language required.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis study estimates the population at building scale using spatial statistical methods. It achieved a decent accuracy rate of 76% using a relatively simple method. It can be improved in the following aspects.
1. Line 245 “In ArcGIS Pro, the Spatial Join tool was used to write the neighbourhood population data to the building dataset.” How did you do this? Do you assume the population per building surface area is uniform within the neighbourhood?
2. You need to define “cluster”.
3. You need to explain the variables in Figure 4, and it is an equation instead of a figure.
4. Where are zi and zj in Figure 5. It is also an equation instead of a figure.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe quality of English is generally acceptable.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
