Mapping Landscape Values and Conflicts through the Optics of Different User Groups
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article concerns an interesting problem, but I have doubts about the research project. You wrote: "The findings of our research confirmed the findings of previous studies [31,32] which suggests that children and adolescents perceive their environment differently from the adult generation." (line 485-487). In your research, you have not confirmed this. You proved that children and adolescents perceive space differently from experts. If you wanted to prove that they have a different perception than adults then you should ask people who are not landscape experts.
In addition, I suggest improving:
1) Section "Introduction": It is too long. Please separate them into a suitable introduction and a description of the research background (literature analysis).
2) Section 2.2: Please change the name to "Study Area" and add a description of the landscapes found in this area. The reader should know what type of landscape was subject to analysis.
3) Table 1 and sections 3.2-3.4: You wrote how many locations were rated, but not how many respondents there were. Could one respondent rate a limited number of locations? Could all locations have been rated by one respondent? Were respondents allowed to work in groups (line 305 - "We chose..." not "I chose...")? Especially lower secondary school students - could they have worked in groups with adults (parents/teachers)? Wouldn't this distort the results?
4) Figure 3: Which locations were marked by lower secondary school students, which by students and which by experts? Which overlapped? Were there some that one group indicated as valuable and another as problematic?
5) Line 281: Can a table be classified as a graphic?
6) Figure 4: For better perception, arrange the bars in descending/ascending order.
7) Section "Discussion" should be No 4; Section "Conclusions" - 5.
8) Results: How can the results of this research be used in reality? Are the governments interested in them?
Author Response
Comment: The article concerns an interesting problem, but I have doubts about the research project. You wrote: "The findings of our research confirmed the findings of previous studies [31,32] which suggests that children and adolescents perceive their environment differently from the adult generation." (line 485-487). In your research, you have not confirmed this. You proved that children and adolescents perceive space differently from experts. If you wanted to prove that they have a different perception than adults then you should ask people who are not landscape experts.
Answer: Thanks for the notice of this conceptual mistake in interpretation. We have edited the text (line 524).
Comment: 1) Section "Introduction": It is too long. Please separate them into a suitable introduction and a description of the research background (literature analysis).
Answer: We divided the Introduction text into the two separate section - 1. Introduction and 2. Literature review.
Comment: 2) Section 2.2: Please change the name to "Study Area" and add a description of the landscapes found in this area. The reader should know what type of landscape was subject to analysis.
Answer: The title of the section has been changed to „Study Area“ (the current numbering of this subchapter is 3.2). Description of landscape types of the evaluated area has been added (last section of the subchapter).
Comment: 3) Table 1 and sections 3.2-3.4: You wrote how many locations were rated, but not how many respondents there were. Could one respondent rate a limited number of locations? Could all locations have been rated by one respondent? Were respondents allowed to work in groups (line 305 - "We chose..." not "I chose...")? Especially lower secondary school students - could they have worked in groups with adults (parents/teachers)? Wouldn't this distort the results?
Answer: We added information about the respondents into the text (the current numbering of this subchapter is 4.2-4.4). The data collection was partly anonymous. We only know that pupils (or group of pupils) from 17 secondary school classrooms and students and experts from two universities participated. The pupils couldn´t work with their parents. Now, it should be evident that we do not write about the parents/adults in the text.
Comment: 4) Figure 3: Which locations were marked by lower secondary school students, which by students and which by experts? Which overlapped? Were there some that one group indicated as valuable and another as problematic?
Answer: Figure 3 demonstrates the regional distribution of identified places including their character (valuable, problematic). We evaluated the differentiation of places according to the groups of respondents as insignificant due to the scale of the region. More, there is no regional correlation between groups of respondents and the particular location within the study area. The types of valuable and problematic localities marked by lower secondary students, students, and experts are described in sections 4.2 - 4.4. We can conclude that some types of localities were overlapped, e.g, students and experts identified the brownfield as a problem area. However, there was no overlap of a specific site. Neither group of respondents evaluated the valuable place of one group as its problematic place.
Comment: 5) Line 281: Can a table be classified as a graphic?
Answer: Thank you very much for the notice – we have reformulated (line 314).
Comment: 6) Figure 4: For better perception, arrange the bars in descending/ascending order.
Answer: The bars have been arranged in descending order.
Comment: 7) Section "Discussion" should be No 4; Section "Conclusions" - 5.
Answer: It has been corrected. All sections were listed under the correct numbers.
Comment: 8) Results: How can the results of this research be used in reality? Are the governments interested in them?
Answer: Some governments showed interest in the results, the cooperation will be solved in close future. Our common intent is to design the virtual education trails based on the valuable and problematic localities. Within these places where will be created augmented reality based on the management proposal. These trails will be drawing attention to possible risks of land use (territorial conflicts) in a specific landscape context.
We have added short text to the section “Conclusion.”
Reviewer 2 Report
The approach taken in this paper is innovative and would be a valuable contribution to the literature. For that to happen major revisions are needed and I would suggest that the entire first section be rewritten.
Section 1 needs to include what are the research questions that the researchers are answering with this paper and what are the objectives of the research (to document, to understand etc). And what is the theoretical contribution of this work? Is it about ‘participation’? Or is this a paper about citizen science and how youth can contribute? Or is the paper about emotion connections to landscape as is discussed on page 14 onwards?
Whatever appears as research findings needs to be discussed conceptually ‘set up’ in the first section. When that is done it is clear to the reader how the findings contribute to the literature. I recommend the authors start by looking at their most important findings and then see how those findings make contributions to the literature. Then go back and rewrite Section 1 and situate or contextualize these findings. Often there will be a second section of a paper after the introduction and before the methods called Literature Review or Conceptual Framework. That is another way for the authors to be intentional about the scholarly, conceptual or theoretical contribution their research makes. Right now this paper lacks a theoretical framing and all academic publications need this section.
Please try to write in the active voice rather than the passive voice. It uses less words for crisper and cleaner writing, making arguments easier to follow.
Abstract, as an example, “it can be concluded that” might be “we conclude that”. Writing in the active voice also adds more authority to the argument. Authors, take credit for your findings (“we found that” is much better “it was found that”).
Also, shorter sentences are better than long ones. To that end, always think twice about using a comma and try to use fewer words to express same idea For example:
“It is negative particularly in the long run, as it is true that the more advanced a civilization is, the more it interferes with the landscape, in particular in ways that have negative and irrevocable consequences.”
“It is negative particularly in the long run especially with economic development. Development transforms the landscape, in ways that can have negative and irrevocable consequences
It is unclear how lines 30-32 matter to the ideas expressed in the previous to sentences – how does decision making and science relate? I would remove the first paragraph entirely and start with the second paragraph and since participation is analytic important for this paper. And then participation should be integrated into the title.
Author Response
Komentář: Část 1 musí obsahovat výzkumné otázky, na které výzkumníci tímto dokumentem odpovídají, a jaké jsou cíle výzkumu (dokumentovat, porozumět atd.). A jaký je teoretický přínos této práce? Je to o „účasti“? Nebo je to článek o občanské vědě a o tom, jak může přispět mládež? Nebo je ten článek o emočních souvislostech s krajinou, jak je diskutováno na straně 14 a dále?
Answer: Regarding the research question and the objectives of the research, we have added text in this sense to the first section "Introduction" (line 61-67). The paper has ambitions to connect all of the mentioned topics within the roof one - public participation and participatory mapping which could be established by the emotional relationship to the landscape.
Comment: Whatever appears as research findings needs to be discussed conceptually ‘set up’ in the first section. When that is done it is clear to the reader how the findings contribute to the literature. I recommend the authors start by looking at their most important findings and then see how those findings make contributions to the literature. Then go back and rewrite Section 1 and situate or contextualize these findings. Often there will be a second section of a paper after the introduction and before the methods called Literature Review or Conceptual Framework. That is another way for the authors to be intentional about the scholarly, conceptual or theoretical contribution their research makes. Right now this paper lacks a theoretical framing and all academic publications need this section.
Answer: Thank you very much for the notice. We divided the Introduction text into two separate sections - 1. Introduction and 2. Literature review. For the theoretical context we have added these authors:
Ferretti, V.; Grosso. Designing successful urban regeneration strategies through a behavioral decision aiding approach. Cities. 2019, 95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.06.017.
Mitchell, B. Participatory partnerships: Engaging and empowering to enhance environmental management and quality of life? In Quality-of-Life Research in Chinese, Western and Global Contexts, Shek,D.T., Chan, Y.K., Lee, P.S., Eds.; Springer, Dodrecht, 2005, 123–144. ISBN 978-1-4020-3601-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3602-7_5.
Mouratidis, K. Urban planning and quality of life: A review of pathways linking the built environment to subjective well-being. Cities. 2021, 115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103229.
Amedeo, D.M., Golledge, R.G. Environmental perception and behavioral geography. In Geography in America at the dawn of the 21st century, Gaile, G.L., Willmott, C.J., Eds.; Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 2003, 133–148. ISBN 0-19-823392-2.
Yusoff, S. M., Yusof, F., Arshad, F. A. Effectiveness Form and Content of the Local Plan as a Tool for the Quality of Life in Urban Area. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2016, 222, 897-906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.226.
Comment: Please try to write in the active voice rather than the passive voice. It uses less words for crisper and cleaner writing, making arguments easier to follow. Abstract, as an example, “it can be concluded that” might be “we conclude that”. Writing in the active voice also adds more authority to the argument. Authors, take credit for your findings (“we found that” is much better “it was found that”).
Answer: Thank you very much for this advice. Somewhere, we have changed the passive voice to the active one. But somewhere we have evaluated the passive voice more suitable.
Comment: Also, shorter sentences are better than long ones. To that end, always think twice about using a comma and try to use fewer words to express same idea For example:
“It is negative particularly in the long run, as it is true that the more advanced a civilization is, the more it interferes with the landscape, in particular in ways that have negative and irrevocable consequences.”
“It is negative particularly in the long run especially with economic development. Development transforms the landscape, in ways that can have negative and irrevocable consequences
Answer: We have simplified the text. Thank you very much for the patterns.
Comment: It is unclear how lines 30-32 matter to the ideas expressed in the previous to sentences – how does decision making and science relate? I would remove the first paragraph entirely and start with the second paragraph and since participation is analytic important for this paper. And then participation should be integrated into the title.
Odpověď: Děkuji mnohokrát za tento komentář. Po zvážení jsme se rozhodli tuto pasáž v něm nechat - z důvodu obecného úvodu do problému. Text jsme ale zjednodušili a problematickou pasáž (vztah vědy a rozhodnutí) vypustili.
Reviewer 3 Report
A very interesting post about the perceived landscape environment. I have a few comments on the post:
- As this is an assessment of human behavior / perception in a literary review, it would be appropriate to supplement publications focusing on behavioral geography.
- The topic of the publication is related to the topic of quality of life, I recommend adding the relationship of research to the quality of life of the urban area.
- Fig.3 - they would distinguish which of the entered identified primary school students and university students
- - FIG. 4 - the authors distinguished a geological locality, a NATURA 2000 locality ........... but where are the rivers? The wetlands in this assessment are not the same, as the "bridges" are in the table but the rivers are not
- - It would be appropriate to evaluate at what distance from the center there are more problematic localities in the perception of primary school pupils and university students
- - Did the authors analyze the quality of life and the immediate environment where the respondents live?
Author Response
Komentář: Jelikož se jedná o hodnocení lidského chování / vnímání v literární recenzi, bylo by vhodné doplnit publikace zaměřené na behaviorální geografii. Téma publikace souvisí s tématem kvality života, doporučuji doplnit vztah výzkumu ke kvalitě života městské oblasti.
Odpověď: Do textu jsme přidali několik publikací. Konkrétně tyto:
Ferretti, V.; Grosso. Navrhování úspěšných strategií městské regenerace prostřednictvím přístupu napomáhajícího rozhodování o chování. Města . 2019 , 95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.06.017.
Mitchell, B. Participatory partnerships: Engaging and empowering to enhance environmental management and quality of life? In Quality-of-Life Research in Chinese, Western and Global Contexts, Shek,D.T., Chan, Y.K., Lee, P.S., Eds.; Springer, Dodrecht, 2005, 123–144. ISBN 978-1-4020-3601-9. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3602-7_5.
Mouratidis, K. Urban planning and quality of life: A review of pathways linking the built environment to subjective well-being. Cities. 2021, 115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103229.
Amedeo, D.M., Golledge, R.G. Environmental perception and behavioral geography. In Geography in America at the dawn of the 21st century, Gaile, G.L., Willmott, C.J., Eds.; Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York, 2003, 133–148. ISBN 0-19-823392-2.
Yusoff, S. M., Yusof, F., Arshad, F. A. Effectiveness Form and Content of the Local Plan as a Tool for the Quality of Life in Urban Area. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2016, 222, 897-906. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.226.
Comment: Fig.3 - they would distinguish which of the entered identified primary school students and university students
Answer: Figure should document the regional distribution of identified places including their character (valuable, problematic). We evaluated the differentiation of places according to the groups of respondents as insignificant due to the scale of the region. More, there is no regional correlation between groups of respondents and the particular location within the study area.
Comment: Fig. 4 - the authors distinguished a geological locality, a NATURA 2000 locality ........... but where are the rivers? The wetlands in this assessment are not the same, as the "bridges" are in the table but the rivers are not
Answer: Figure 4 has been poorly described. The graph only partially corresponds to Tab. 2 above. The graph in Figure 4 shows the most preferred landscape values selected by the respondents, but only in the open landscape.
Comment: It would be appropriate to evaluate at what distance from the center there are more problematic localities in the perception of primary school pupils and university students
Answer: We added a short text to 4.2 a 4.3 about the mapped localities. It is not possible to say what distance from the center the localities were. For example, the broader center of Brno city is quite large and the distance from the center could be in kilometres. On the other hand, the center of smaller municipalities is small, and the distance from the center could be smaller than the distance in Brno. The difference is in the possibilities of mapping for different groups – the lack of money partially limits the lower secondary school pupils to travel to more distant localities, moreover, they need the accompaniment of the parent. University students and experts have no limits to visiting more distant localities.
Comment: Did the authors analyze the quality of life and the immediate environment where the respondents live?
Odpověď: Tato kvalitativní analýza nebyla zahrnuta do popisu pozadí oblasti. Nebrali jsme ji v úvahu z důvodu zaměření na srovnání vnímání krajinných hodnot a konfliktů v závislosti na věku, vzdělání a profesních dovednostech.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors responded to all of my comments. Thank you very much. In my opinion, the article is ready for publication. I think that minor editing errors will be corrected during the proofreading.
