Urban Green Infrastructure and Ecosystem Service Supply: A Study Concerning the Functional Urban Area of Cagliari, Italy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The main content of this manuscript is about UGI and its research in providing ESs, which focuses on Cagliari's FUA and proposes a methodology to define and identify the spatial layout of UGI in FUA. Overall, the manuscript is fairly complete in terms of analytical framework and outcome analysis, but the biggest problem is that it is so flat that I can't find the analysis that excites me.

At present, too much research has been done on ESs, including the relationship between services, service networks and flows, etc. .

The author identifies UECs and Natura 2000 sites as UGI, but how are different Natura 2000 sites connected? What corridor does UECs depend on in space? River? Road? What is the carrier in urban planning?

The analysis of the spatial relationship between ESs and UECs is also relatively insipid. What is the significance of the increase of ESs to enhance the identification of UECs? How does it help the service ability, spatial fairness or resilience of UGI?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1、The content of the abstract is somewhat scattered. It is unnecessary to introduce the definitions related to urban green infrastructure or the application points of the method. Instead, the abstract should focus more on detailing the specific research activities you conducted and the specific results you obtained. This will help readers quickly grasp the contributions and outcomes of your research.

2、The two images on the left side of Figure 1 are unclear, and the text within them is difficult to read. Similarly, Figures 3 and 4 are also too blurry. Please provide clearer images and ensure that the text is legible.

3、you might consider adding a note after Table 1 to explain the meanings of the labels to enhance readability for the readers. This would provide better clarity and understanding of the table's content.

4、In the "Methods and Materials" section, line 360 should be numbered 2.3. In addition, ‘The identification of the urban ecological corridors’ is too lengthy and it is not recommended to expand too much on the description of existing methods. A more effective approach would be to describe only one's own methods. As it stands, it is difficult to discern the key points and specific steps that led to the results.

5、The section 3.2 'The identification of the urban ecological corridors' primarily consists of simple descriptions of each figure. There is a lack of deeper, more interesting conclusions.

6、The discussion is too long, especially in sections 4.1 and 4.2, and you spend a lot of time describing previous studies, which I don't think is justified. The Discussion section should focus on the proposed methodology and the phenomena in the results section for deeper interpretation.

7、The conclusion section is difficult to understand. You need to succinctly summarize what this manuscript specifically accomplished, the methods proposed, their effectiveness, the conclusions drawn, and the implications for future research.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English part of the manuscript has a clear logical structure in general, but there are more sentences with longer syntax that are difficult to read and understand. Please review carefully and split these sentences appropriately to improve readability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The entire article does not clearly state why the authors conducted this research or its importance.

2. Section 2.2 should provide the rationale for choosing the specific data used in the study.

3. Replace "identifies" with a different word in lines 496-505.

4. Rewrite section 2.3 to make it more understandable.

5. The results section should include more explanations of the content in figures and tables, such as Figure 12 and Table 3.

6. The authors should improve the language throughout the article to increase its readability.

7. The discussion section should include more on the contributions of the research findings.

8. The article should discuss the limitations of the study.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The authors should improve the language throughout the article to increase its readability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Many thanks to the author for responding to my concerns. In the revised version of the manuscript, the author's revision well addressed my concerns, especially for the discussion section is fruitful. Therefore, the proposed manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Comments 1: Many thanks to the author for responding to my concerns. In the revised version of the manuscript, the author's revision well addressed my concerns, especially for the discussion section is fruitful. Therefore, the proposed manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Reply to comments 1: The authors are very grateful to reviewer#1 for the valuable comments offered, which resulted in a substantial improvement in the quality of the manuscript, following the revision stage.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article is generally very informative, but there are still a few things that need to be added. Specifically, the manuscript does not detail the relationship between cost-weighted distance (CWD) and urban ecological corridors (UECs). All I could find was ‘UECs were defined as patches with CWD values within the 20th percentile of the statistical distribution’. Suggest adding how to get the final UECs to the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The article is clearly expressed, with a concise and clear sentence structure that helps to understand the thinking behind the author's research.

Author Response

Comments 1: This article is generally very informative, but there are still a few things that need to be added. Specifically, the manuscript does not detail the relationship between cost-weighted distance (CWD) and urban ecological corridors (UECs). All I could find was ‘UECs were defined as patches with CWD values within the 20th percentile of the statistical distribution’. Suggest adding how to get the final UECs to the manuscript.

Reply to comments 1: according to the reviewer's recommendation, in the revised version of the manuscript we detailed the relationship between cost-weighted distance and the identification of urban ecological corridors (lines 467-473).

The authors are very grateful to reviewer#2 for the valuable comments offered, which resulted in a substantial improvement in the quality of the manuscript, following the revision stage.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

accept

Author Response

Comments 1: accept.

Reply to comments 1: The authors are very grateful to reviewer#3 for the valuable comments offered, which resulted in a substantial improvement in the quality of the manuscript, following the revision stage.