Google Street View and Machine Learning—Useful Tools for a Street-Level Remote Survey: A Case Study in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and Ichikawa, Japan
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors represented good research, it needs more elaboration in terms of model comparison.
Quantitative results at abstract
Author Response
The authors represented good research, it needs more elaboration in terms of model comparison.
Response 1: Thank you very much for the overall very positive recommendation. We appreciate this valuable suggestion and accordingly revised the model coparison.
Quantitative results at abstract
Response 2: Thank you for this fundamental suggestion. We revised the abstract with more data.
Reviewer 2 Report
I read this manuscript with big attention because the topic is important and interesting and the proposed method combines effectively open-sourced data with simple tools and algorithms. The effects of this study could be useful as a supporting and low-cost tool to analyze the urban environment. The paper is well-written and well-constructed in general. I formulated some little remarks to improve the readability and quality. I also wrote about some found mistakes too.
The data in rows 118 – 120 are “not fresh” (came from the Year 2017). Is it possible to actualize these numbers?
Row 234: Therefore, another program was used to (…). What program? Please add some details.
I think, that subsections: 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 should precede the content of subsection 2.1 (description of the study area). Subsection 3.1 should be transferred to section 2, this is still a description of the methodology. So I propose the renumbering as follows:
to section 2 (Materials and methodology): actual subsections 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.1;
to section 3 (Results): actual subsections 2.1, 3.2, 3.3.
Rows 377, 378, 395 – there are incorrect references to the figures.
I think that the conclusions started in row 425 are rather hypotheses. Studies conducted only in one city from a developed country and one city from a developing country can’t be generalized. This needs more cities to research.
In the end, please comment on these specific conditions: pictures from GSV contain streets and their visible neighborhood, rather not the interiors of street quarters. IGS is often located in courtyards surrounded by buildings (especially in downtowns of European cities). Could the method presented here be useful to detect such IGS? What additional supporting tools would be potential to use?
Author Response
I read this manuscript with big attention because the topic is important and interesting and the proposed method combines effectively open-sourced data with simple tools and algorithms. The effects of this study could be useful as a supporting and low-cost tool to analyze the urban environment. The paper is well-written and well-constructed in general. I formulated some little remarks to improve the readability and quality. I also wrote about some found mistakes too.
Response 1: Thank you very much for the overall very positive recommendation. We have incorporated your suggestions point by point as follows.
The data in rows 118 – 120 are “not fresh” (came from the Year 2017). Is it possible to actualize these numbers?
Response 2: We appreciate this valuable suggestion and accordingly updated the data to 2022 (cover 16 million kilometers across 102 countries).
Row 234: Therefore, another program was used to (…). What program? Please add some details.
Response 3: Thank you for your recommendation. We added more explaination on row 195 and 196, and explain about the program in the next paragraph in the revised version. Please see the attachment.
I think, that subsections: 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 should precede the content of subsection 2.1 (description of the study area). Subsection 3.1 should be transferred to section 2, this is still a description of the methodology. So I propose the renumbering as follows:
to section 2 (Materials and methodology): actual subsections 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 3.1;
to section 3 (Results): actual subsections 2.1, 3.2, 3.3.
Response 4: Thank you for this fundamental proposal. We also recognized that the content of the subsections are not logical. Thus, we move a part of subsection 3.1 (Figure 6 and its explaination) to Methodology part as your suggestion while move the parts related to results in subsection 2.1 to section 3.
Rows 377, 378, 395 – there are incorrect references to the figures.
Response 5: We agree with your view that the figures and their references are not match and we also revised it.
I think that the conclusions started in row 425 are rather hypotheses. Studies conducted only in one city from a developed country and one city from a developing country can’t be generalized. This needs more cities to research.
Response 5: These are critical suggestions that are useful for further expanding the conclusion. We also recognize that only two cities could not be generalized. Hence we changed it according to your suggestion, into a hypotheses that need to further research.
In the end, please comment on these specific conditions: pictures from GSV contain streets and their visible neighborhood, rather not the interiors of street quarters. IGS is often located in courtyards surrounded by buildings (especially in downtowns of European cities). Could the method presented here be useful to detect such IGS? What additional supporting tools would be potential to use?
Response 5: Thank you for your questions. We researched IGS based on their open access characteristic to be used as a retrofit for urban green space (formal green space). And in cases IGSs are located in courtyards, where GSV could not detect IGS, they probably could not be seen by most people since GSV provides pedestrians’ perspective view. As a result, the open-access characteristic is not satisfied, so they (IGS in the courtyard) will be excluded from the scoop of this study. However, in our opinion, those IGS could be surveyed by photos provided by drones with a top-down view. And the study area should be shrunk down to a ward or small regions instead of the whole city.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
Please refer to the attached PDF copy of your paper, which contains section-specific comments/suggestions.
Below are my overall thoughts on your submitted paper that I would like you to address:
1) The paper has not clearly distinguished the key differences (and similarities, if any) between urban green spaces (UGSs) and informal green spaces (IGSs). I would like to see these clearly outlined.
2) Why is the paper particularly focused on IGSs? This question should be addressed early in the paper.
3) The literature review lacks a clear structure. Thematic sub-headings should be used to remedy this issue.
4) The comparison of your IGS map with Kim's (2020) map needs to be more detailed and clearer. What did your research and Kim use as criteria for identifying IGSs?
5) There are several grammatical errors and unclear expressions throughout the paper that need to be addressed.
6) There is a lot of information being repeated throughout the different sections of the paper. These repetitions need to be trimmed out.
7) A lot of the information in the discussion section should be in the conclusion section. The discussion section should focus more on your own findings, i.e. the mapping results.
7) The research has potential contributions to the literature, but the above suggestions, some of which are major in nature, need to be addressed so that your results and arguments are presented in a clearer, more compelling manner.
Kind regards,
Reviewer
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear authors,
Please refer to the attached PDF copy of your paper, which contains section-specific comments/suggestions.
Below are my overall thoughts on your submitted paper that I would like you to address:
Response 1: We have incorporated your suggestions point by point as follows.
1) The paper has not clearly distinguished the key differences (and similarities, if any) between urban green spaces (UGSs) and informal green spaces (IGSs). I would like to see these clearly outlined.
Response 2: We appreciate this valuable suggestion and accordingly revised the introduction by adding the appropriate definition. The definition of USG was provided, and formal green space’s definition was also added, from rows 32 to 35, to differentiate formal green space and IGS. A key difference was also mentioned in rows 52 – 54. Please see the attachment.
2) Why is the paper particularly focused on IGSs? This question should be addressed early in the paper.
Response 3: Thank you also for this comment. We revised the paper to clarify this study’s purpose in the first subsection 1.1, rows 47-49. The purpose of studying IGS and its benefits was also mentioned in rows 57-59. Please see the attachment.
3) The literature review lacks a clear structure. Thematic sub-headings should be used to remedy this issue.
Response 4: Thank you for this fundamental suggestion. We also recognized that it could be more precise in structure, so we divided section 1 into three subsections. Please see the attachment.
4) The comparison of your IGS map with Kim's (2020) map needs to be more detailed and clearer. What did your research and Kim use as criteria for identifying IGSs?
Response 5: These are critical suggestions that are useful for further expanding the result in subsection 3.2. We agreed that the comparison was insufficient to differentiate Kim’s study from this one. Thus, we added two paragraphs to explain more about the similarities and differences between our new map and the map from Kim’s research. Please see the attachment.
5) There are several grammatical errors and unclear expressions throughout the paper that need to be addressed.
Response 6: Thank you for your recommendation. As requested, we did English proofreading of the revised paper again before we submitted it.
6) There is a lot of information being repeated throughout the different sections of the paper. These repetitions need to be trimmed out.
Response 7: We agree with your view that many parts are repeated in sections 2 and 3. Thus we deleted the possibility of duplication and added some explanations to make it more comprehensive. It could be seen from rows 249 to 273. Please see the attachment.
7) A lot of the information in the discussion section should be in the conclusion section. The discussion section should focus more on your own findings, i.e. the mapping results.
Response 8: Thank you for this comment. We recognized that some parts should be moved to the conclusion. Hence, we moved a paragraph from the discussion section to the conclusion section, with rows 460 – 474. In addition, we accordingly revised the discussion section with very minor amendments. Please see the attachment.
The research has potential contributions to the literature, but the above suggestions, some of which are major in nature, need to be addressed so that your results and arguments are presented in a clearer, more compelling manner.
Response 9: Thank you very much for the overall very positive recommendation.
Kind regards,
Reviewer
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors implemented the suggested feedback. The manuscript shall be accepted based on Editor's feedback.
Thanks
Author Response
Thank you so much for your kind information about our revised manuscript. We are looking forwards to Editor’s feedback and hope this manuscript will be accepted soon. Best wishes.Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you for your efforts in revising the paper as per my feedback provider earlier. The paper is more structurally presented.
My only, minor suggestion in this round of feedback is to provide a separate Introduction section (about half a page long) with a few paragraphs covering:
-context of the research
-methodology employed
-research objectives
-paper structure
Author Response
Dear authors,
Thank you for your efforts in revising the paper as per my feedback provider earlier. The paper is more structurally presented.
My only, minor suggestion in this round of feedback is to provide a separate Introduction section (about half a page long) with a few paragraphs covering:
-context of the research
-methodology employed
-research objectives
-paper structure
Response 1: Thank you for your comments. We agreed that our paper needs a clear introduction to present to readers comprehensible content. Therefore, we revised sub-section 1.3 and added more information to include all your suggested topics. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
