Land Resource Management Policy in Selected European Countries

Comments and Suggestions

Responses

Thank you for an interesting read! I think the manuscript is worth publishing, but I am suggesting some revisions to the authors. Before going into more detailed comments, I think that the authors need work towards condensing the text quite a lot and I invite authors to work towards a more compact presentation

We would like to thank you very much for your opinion and comments which helped us to improve the paper a lot. We highly appreciate your time.

We understand the need for condensing the text and providing a more compact presentation of it. However, it is not that easy and the study is quite comprehensive. Meanwhile, we revised the manuscript thoroughly according to the suggestions of the reviewer.

1 Introduction. The introduction starts from the existence of land policies and their nature across Europe. However, I feel that the alignment should be already from the beginning in the land resource management and not discuss about various concepts of land policies, because these ideas and literature discussed here is not revisited. I am also unsure, what the authors mean by “management of land-related resources” or “land resource management”. Both of the expressions are used, but neither one explained.

The literature review is revised, focussing more on LRM but not on various concepts of land policies. See lines 65-66 and Sub-chapter 1.2. The Sub-chapter 1.3. starts with an explanation/definition of LRM expression, indicating the reference to previous research. See lines 183-193.

Could be used both expressions as they are the same, however, we stay with one – land resource management (LRM).

1.3. The aim of the research sounds very strange. Why would someone aim to do the comparative study? The aim would rather be the latter sentence, how the land-related resources are managed and what policies support it. But I still have a problem with the latter sentence. What is meant by managing land-related resources? Managed by whom, etc. The overall aim is still missing, namely the contribution of the research.

To me, it seems that the authors are not describing the whole research setting here. Why is the research designed in this way? The justification of the studied countries needs to be much more clear and a systematic selection method with criteria should be presented. Stating that a country has a "relatively advanced land management system" does not create any credible basis for the selection.

I am also curious, where the research questions came from? They are not research questions per se, but rather questionnaire targeted for data collection in each country. For example, “Q1: Is there a common land policy in the country that combines/ integrates the implementation of active policies and plans of different sectors? If so, what characterizes it?” is not answering the aim of this research, but is only targeted to collect data. I suggest the authors formulate new research questions.

Moreover, some support of the drafting of the questions 1-10 should be given. Are they based on literature? Or the different dimensions of land policy from literature review? Now there is no explanation, where they come from. I think adding the definition for LRM and deriving the questions from that definition will help.

We reformulate the aim of the study, so it represents the contribution of the research. See lines 19-21 in the abstract and 645-647 (the last paragraph in Sub-chapter 1.3.)

We specify subjects of LRM. See lines 81-85 and 187-189.

The research setting is improved and demonstrated in Chapter 2. Materials and Methods. 10 questions (Q1-Q10) have been selected and responded to by authors due to study discourse completing a questionnaire and performing comparative analysis. See lines 645-651, the last paragraph of Sub-chapter 1.3.

The selection of participating countries follows previous research. See references [43,44 and also 13], lines 190-193, 78-85.

Q1-10 are from a questionnaire aiming to collect data for comparative analysis. This is described in Chapter 2. See lines 645-651, the last paragraph of Sub-chapter 1.3.

We reformulated the aim of the study. Please, see above mentioned.

Q1-10 have been designed considering reviewed topical scientific literature of different dimensions of land policy that contribute to the particular reflection on LRM.

We added the definition of LRM. The Sub-chapter 1.3. starts with an explanation/definition of LRM expression, indicating the reference to previous research. See lines 183-193.

Chapter 3 Results. To reach the research aim “How the land related resources are managed and what policies support it”, I do not feel necessary to list all the regulations and their details. I think here a condensed presentation of the countries would be better. More interesting is whether there are legal and/or policy tools, are they overlapping, who is using the administrative power. I hope the authors consider transforming the format of the chapter 3.

Because of the condensed presentation of the countries, the regulation and their details are excluded from the manuscript. Thus, the content of Chapter 3 has been reshaped and shortened. However, as institutional/legal frameworks are necessary to mention, the key laws and regulations should be presented.

We transformed the structure and widely revised Chapter 3 considering the reviewer's suggestions. See Sub-chapters 3.1-3.6.

Chapter 4 Discussion. This is a very interesting chapter, however, parts of it should be on chapter 3 (those that relate directly to the questions 1-10). This chapter should discuss about the interpretation of results, make new points of debate based on the results and compare them with previous literature. Finally, the list of suggestions for Latvian administration is not in line with the research aim, and makes the discussion unbalanced. I suggest the authors critically review the manuscript as a whole, checking that introduction is in line with research aim, and discussion adds to the existing literature, and conclusions (which seem to be still missing) are made bearing in mind the research aim.

The parts of Chapter 4 relating directly to Q1-10 are moved to Chapter 3, i.e Table 4 and Table 5 and corresponding to its text. See lines 1393-1402 and 1448-1474.

If considering also Reviewer #2, the final list of suggestions is a synthesis of the research outcome and is in line with further improvements in LRM.

Discussion (Chapter 4) adds to the existing literature and interprets the results of the comparative analysis in Chapter 3.

Conclusions are structured in separate Chapter 5 and link to the research aim, literature review and Q1-10.

Comments and Suggestions

Responses

I am very glad that I was one of the first to read this article, and I fully agree with the authors that although the conclusions apply to Lithuania, they can also be used in other countries.

We would like to thank you very much for your opinion and comments which helped us to improve the paper a lot. We highly appreciate your time.

We properly rearranged Chapter 5 – Conclusions. See lines 2496-2537.

I don't understand the selection of countries for comparison. I assume it's a more human factor than actual similarities in LRM and it's a shame that more countries were not included in the comparison.

The selection of countries followed the project (LandLat4Pol) and previous research. See references [43,44 and also 13], lines 190-193, 78-85.

I have only one comment on the article-it is too long.

We understand the need for condensing the text and providing a more compact presentation of it. However, it is not that easy and the study is quite comprehensive. Meanwhile, we revised the manuscript thoroughly according to the suggestions of the reviewer.

The following pages describing land policy in each of the four countries are very hard to wade through, and I would ask the authors to shorten them. For that, table 5 gave me absolute pleasure- great collected information! I would also look for more recent Land use data, from sources other than Eurostat.

We have put in the effort to strengthen the paper using the comments of the reviewer. Thank you very much for your very valuable to us comments. They helped to improve the manuscript significantly.

We transformed the structure and widely revised mainly Chapter 3 considering the reviewer's suggestions. See Sub-chapters 3.1-3.6.

We agree that more recent data from other sources could represent an updated situation and be more accurate, however, particular datasets have been chosen to use comparable data necessary to carry out the research including selected countries.

Comments and Suggestions

Responses

The manuscript has been revised and several improvements are done, thank you for that! To me, the manuscript contributes to the international scientific community. I have only some comments regarding the abstract which I think should be improved before publication.

We have put in the effort to strengthen the paper (in particular the abstract) using the comments of the reviewer.Thank you very much for your very valuable to us comments. They helped to improve the manuscript significantly.

rows 19-21 double-check that aim and objective are in line with chapter 1

Text in rows 19-22 and 694-696 is properly corrected.

row 22 LRM policy -> LRM policies

Text in row 22 is properly corrected.

row 24-25 sentence “To meet the aim …” can be removed.

The sentence is removed. See row 24.

rows 25-26 instead of just stating “Based on the study’s outcome…”, you could address some of the findings and main conclusion.

Text in rows 24-27 is properly corrected.

rows 26-29 the mentioning of National Research Program confuses the reader and should be removed.

The reference to the National Research Program is removed. See rows 24-27

I hope you find these comments useful and acknowledge the big work there is behind this manuscript!

We would like to thank you very much for your opinion and comments which helped us to improve the paper a lot. We highly appreciate your time. With all due respect, and thanks again!