Historical GIS as a Tool for Monitoring, Preserving and Planning Forest Landscape: A Case Study in a Mediterranean Region
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The study presents the forest landscape dynamic evaluation in the chosen Mediterranean region of southern Italy from 1860 untill now. Authors applied methodology based on historical GIS that allows the integration of different types of geodata. The study showed that after a significant decline in the first half of the 20th century, the area of forests today reaches almost the same area as in 1860. However, the current forests are positioned at higher altitude and slope than in 1860, only 33% of the forest areas cleared before 1950 have returned to forest.
Strengths:
Previous studies of landscape dynamics mostly use satellite images, which, however, have only been available for a few decades. Authors applied an inventive methodological procedure that allows combining remote sensing data with historical aerial photographs and historical maps. In this way it is possible to study the occurrence of forests in periods of markedly different driving forces for land use as they were from 1860 to 1950. A long term comparison of the area and geographical conditions of the forest occurrence in the Basillicata region provides interesting information on how forests are changing and today they reach almost the same area as in the beginning year of observation, but in a different quality.
Similar natural conditions and socio-economic and social history as in the studied region in the south of Italy can be found in the mountain and foothill areas of the whole Mediterranean, therefore the impact of the presented results is significant.
Weaknesses:
I have not found.
Comments to individual parts:
54, 70, 106, 135, 136 - incorrectly used hyphens (al-ways, diver-sified, geo-graphic etc.). I recommend checking the whole text of the manuscript
Table 4 – “% of changes” is a variable based on the different length of the period between individual years, so it does not provide real information about the change. In this sense, I recommend commenting briefly on this particular variable
Fig 5 – mainly the map of geomorphology is hardly readable.
363-364 “This is also due to the fact that no distinction was made between species for which the starting dataset is generalized”. What did the authors mean when they used the term “species”?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your comments that allowed us to improve the article.
Below I have included comments specific to the points you mentioned:
-- 54, 70, 106, 135, 136 - incorrectly used hyphens (al-ways, diver-sified, geo-graphic etc.). I recommend checking the whole text of the manuscript
we have corrected all these errors in the text
--Table 4 – “% of changes” is a variable based on the different length of the period between individual years, so it does not provide real information about the change. In this sense, I recommend commenting briefly on this particular variable
in the text, we have added another sentence to better explain the concept
--Fig 5 – mainly the map of geomorphology is hardly readable.
Considering the size of the original figures and the space available, we opted for this arrangement.
When it will be published, using the figure browser provided by Land, it will be possible to zoom in on the figure.
Moreover we have indicated at the end of the article the possibility to ask for data
--363-364 “This is also due to the fact that no distinction was made between species for which the starting dataset is generalized”. What did the authors mean when they used the term “species”?
we have added another sentence to better explain the concept
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors of the article took up a very interesting and important research problem. I believe that the work is worth publishing in an almost unchanged form. Below are some critical remarks:
I suggest adding the word Italy or Southern Italy to your keywords.
The authors should describe in more detail how errors resulting from large scale differences of historical maps used in the work have been minimized.
The literature on the topics discussed by the authors is very rich, I think that the discussion and introduction to the research topic should be more extensively documented with papers (also from other regions of Europe and the World)
e.g.:
a) Ostafin, K.; Iwanowski, M.; Kozak, J.; Cacko, A.; Gimmi, U.; Kaim, D.; Psomas, A.; Ginzler, C.; Ostapowicz, K. Forest cover mask from historical topographic maps based on image processing. Geosci. Data J. 2017, 1, 29–39.
b) Sobala M (2021) Do historical maps show the maximal anthropopressure in the Carpathians?. Journal of Mountain Science 18(). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-021-6680-z
etc.
In addition, I suggest that you read the text carefully again before submitting it for publication. There are typos at work, e.g. the way of quoting - line 457
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you for your comments that allowed us to improve the article.
Below I have included comments specific to the points you mentioned:
--I suggest adding the word Italy or Southern Italy to your keywords.
we have inserted an additional keyword
--The authors should describe in more detail how errors resulting from large scale differences of historical maps used in the work have been minimized.
in the discussion section, we have included a part to go into even more detail about this issue
--The literature on the topics discussed by the authors is very rich, I think that the discussion and introduction to the research topic should be more extensively documented with papers (also from other regions of Europe and the World)
we have inserted also the examples that you have indicated regarding the east europe
--In addition, I suggest that you read the text carefully again before submitting it for publication. There are typos at work, e.g. the way of quoting - line 457
after a re-reading, we made other corrections
