Assessment of Urban Land Surface Temperature and Vertical City Associated with Dengue Incidences

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript presents a study correlating LST obtained from Landsat images and dengue incidence in Bangkok. In general, the paper is well written, presenting a complete series of results and analysis. Before considering it suitable for publication, the authors must clarify some doubts and make a moderate English review.

My first concern is about the state-of-art present. It is too poor, needing more paper describing the temperature and dengue incidence correlation, that it is not new. Also, papers using remote sensing technologies can be found and must be inserted in the manuscript.

About the urban zone classifications, the authors must use Local Climate Zones, where we can identify and classify the urban morphology. This must improve the work and the analysis of the results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 Assessment of Urban Land Surface Temperature and Vertical City Associated with Dengue Incidences

The authors should address the following comments to improve the quality of the paper:

Abstract

• Line 23-24: Please replace “vertical city planning” with “vertical city development”
• Line 26: climatic factors instead of climate factors
• Line 34: time period is redundant. Just use one of the two words

 

1. Introduction

• Line-43: Instead of repeating that dengue is endemic in “over 100 countries”, mention that it is endemic in South-East Asia, Africa, South America, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Western Pacific
• The section should recognize the extent of urbanization and its impact on the local climate and urbanization link to urban heat island (UHI). Cities account for about 2% of the Earth’s surface yet consume 78% of the world’s energy and produce more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions (https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cities-pollution.shtml).
• Also, about 55% of the World’s population currently lives in urban areas, and the proportion is forecasted to reach 68% by 2050 (UN World Population Prospects).
• There is a need for a literature review to establish the general principles that inform the study such as factors that spur urbanization, including natural population increase, in-migration, and urban expansion to surrounding rural settlements,
• The literature review should also underscore the causes of UHI such as impervious surfaces (roads, pavements), dark land surfaces and structures that absorb head, lack of vegetation, the thermal mass that is produced by anthropogenic activities such as transportation, industries, and buildings.
• What is the contribution of the present study to the literature? What are the knowledge gaps in the literature and how does the present study fill these gaps?
• Lines 66-67: replace “of the urban vertical city” with “due to urban vertical development”

 

2. Materials and methods

• Please justify the selection of the districts and the study duration (2009 and 2014).

• Merge Figure 2 by using two distinct colors for 2009 and 2014 (each month will have two columns in different colors one for each year)
• Section 2.2 should not be a separate sub-section. It should be merged with the next section to be called methods
• Lines 81: the dengue data are NOT “from 2009 until 2014”, but they are “for 2009 and 2014”
• Figures 3-9 and their legends should be enlarged and legible.

 

3. Results and discussion

• Lines 199-205: why are data source and a formula presented in a result section. Is this paragraph not supposed to be in the methods section?
• Given that the very weak correlation between temperature level and inner-city (0.0007), urban fringe (0.05), and suburban (0.008) areas, is this finding not going against the study objective linking built-up areas to high temperatures resulting in an increased incidence of dengue?
• This section should discuss how the findings corroborate or differ from prior studies and likely explanations. Not a single prior study is used in the discussion
• There is the need to stress the value the study adds to the literature.
• The discussion should relate the study findings to SDG 11 (making cities sustainable)

4. Conclusion

• To what extend can the method be applied in other settings?
• Highlight the policy and practical implications of the study on urban growth, urban planning, and management
• What are the study’s limitations?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Research has several scientific aspects.

The methodology, the case study, the data are well organized and are well linked to the conclusions.

The layout of the paper can be improved.Maps can be larger; the mathematical formulae - included in the text - may be more readable; table graphics are disproportionate.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

All my comments have been answered accept the following

• The statement that cities occupy 3% of Earth’s land (Line 57-58) contradicts another statement (2%) in lines 72-73. So, keep only one of the sources to avoid redundancy and contradiction.
• The study duration from 2009-2014 should be justified. Is it because of data availability? The comment was not on how the rate of incidence was calculated. 
• Study limitations mentioned at the end of the result and discussion section (lines 415-421) should be moved to the end of the conclusion section (lines 478-481) where some limitations are already mentioned

Author Response

Point 1: The statement that cities occupy 3% of Earth’s land (Line 57-58) contradicts another statement (2%) in lines 72-73. So, keep only one of the sources to avoid redundancy and contradiction.

Response 1: removed redundancy in lines 72-73.

 

Point 2: The study duration from 2009-2014 should be justified. Is it because of data availability? The comment was not on how the rate of incidence was calculated. 

Response 2:  This study duration in 2009 and 2014 because of the existing of building data in GIS format are available only in year 2009 and 2014. BMA is still preparing the updated data in 2020.

 

Point 3: Study limitations mentioned at the end of the result and discussion section (lines 415-421) should be moved to the end of the conclusion section (lines 478-481) where some limitations are already mentioned

Response 3: corrected it (lines 467-474).

 

Thank you very much.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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.