Fostering the Resiliency of Urban Landscape through the Sustainable Spatial Planning of Green Spaces

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper consists of two main pieces of work: 1) a review of published articles on urban green space and 2) the mapping of urban green spaces in Lecce, Italy and the calculation of several urban green indices. The main finding of interest as I see it are the network map of terms used in the published literature (also a very attractive graphic), which I think could be useful at least for educational purposes. It is unclear what a broader audience learns from calculation of green indices for a single city (although it is no doubt useful for planning applications in that city). IF the indices are novel (I’m afraid I’m not as current on my landscape metrics calculations as I should be in order to ascertain this), then that should be the focus of this paper: the novelty and utility of these new metrics. IF they are not novel, then the authors need to think more deeply about what has been learned through these calculations that could inform a global scholarly community.

The most problematic thing about this paper is that it is essentially two papers, and they don’t blend well together. What is the relationship between the calculation of green metrics for Lecce and the network analysis of research on green infrastructure? Is this paper a systematic review of the literature or is it a single-city case study demonstrating the calculation of some urban landscape sustainability metrics? What statements made in the Discussion and Conclusions are actually supported by evidence from the Methods and Results sections?

I think that in order to be published, these fundamental questions need to be answered and the paper or papers need to be rewritten.

What follows is a few additional comments by section, although these are largely repetitive of what has been said above.

Introduction:

The introduction does not set up the research objectives, which are given as:

“(1) a systematic review to identify the main research items related to green areas and urban landscape services, and to analyze how these items are interrelated through network analysis; (2) the analysis of the amount of urban green spaces through the Urban Green Index at the municipality and urban district scale; (3) the analysis of the spatial composition and configuration of urban green spaces through the integration of three landscape metrics; and finally (4) the estimation of Urban Landscape Services Index.”

If these are the research objectives, the introduction should be indicating that 1) there is a need to identify the main research items related to green areas… why is this needed? What do we learn from the review? I would suggest posing this as a question and then using the review to answer the question. 2) what does this research objective tell us? What scholarly question is it answering that is of interest to others beyond, say, the Lecce planning department? 3) is this integration of three landscape metrics novel? If so, make a point of saying so, and why a novel metric is needed. 4) is the LSI novel? Why is it important? If none of the metrics is novel, what does a broader audience learn from your having calculated them for Lecce?

In sum, the introduction should be identifying a clear gap in knowledge and proposing to fill that gap. At the moment the Introduction does not do this. I recommend that the authors decide what the actual focus of the paper is and completely rewrite the Introduction.

Methods and Results:

I think the literature review/network analysis is interesting but again, it seems unrelated to the landscape analyses that were done. This paper needs to choose which is the focus – the network analysis of the literature, or the landscape analysis of Lecce. If it is the network analysis, you need to dig into it a bit more deeply, like divide it up by geographic focus areas for example, and tie that to different sustainability programs or discourses in those different parts of the world. Or find some other insight, which would start back in your introduction by identifying a question or gap in our knowledge that such a review and analysis would address.

If the focus is the landscape analysis of Lecce, you need to 1) make reference to existing metrics that you’re applying OR 2) if they are new you need to have provided a rationale for why they are useful.

Discussion:

The Discussion does not address the landscape metrics that were calculated, but really only covers the network analysis. On the other hand, the Conclusions section focuses only on the landscape metrics. But none of the content of this section actually refers to something we have learned from the research, it only refers back to the argument made in the introduction: that it is important for sustainability to study the spatial aspects of urban green spaces. What have we actually learned from the work that was done? What can a broader audience take away from this work? Can you tie the landscape metrics to actual evidence of provision of ecosystem services? Can you tie this research to actual planning or decision-making in Lecce? How does your calculation of these metrics actually support the importance of calculating them in the first place?

So, what this all comes down to is that I think some potentially interesting work has been done here but it is not properly packaged to communicate new knowledge to an academic community. It could potentially be two separate papers, but each one needs deeper thought and interpretation.

Author Response

 

Reviewer 1

All the edited parts are in red color

 

1. General comments

This paper consists of two main pieces of work: 1) a review of published articles on urban green space and 2) the mapping of urban green spaces in Lecce, Italy and the calculation of several urban green indices. The main finding of interest as I see it are the network map of terms used in the published literature (also a very attractive graphic), which I think could be useful at least for educational purposes. It is unclear what a broader audience learns from calculation of green indices for a single city (although it is no doubt useful for planning applications in that city). IF the indices are novel (I’m afraid I’m not as current on my landscape metrics calculations as I should be in order to ascertain this), then that should be the focus of this paper: the novelty and utility of these new metrics. IF they are not novel, then the authors need to think more deeply about what has been learned through these calculations that could inform a global scholarly community.

The most problematic thing about this paper is that it is essentially two papers, and they don’t blend well together. What is the relationship between the calculation of green metrics for Lecce and the network analysis of research on green infrastructure? Is this paper a systematic review of the literature or is it a single-city case study demonstrating the calculation of some urban landscape sustainability metrics? What statements made in the Discussion and Conclusions are actually supported by evidence from the Methods and Results sections?

I think that in order to be published, these fundamental questions need to be answered and the paper or papers need to be rewritten.

What follows is a few additional comments by section, although these are largely repetitive of what has been said above.

 

We strongly thank the Reviewer for this constructive general comment. We have modified the manuscript in the introduction, objectives, results, discussion and conclusions to make the two parts of the research and the different parts of the manuscript more linked and to better highlight how they are interrelated. We have highlighted the novelty of the framework and approach used starting from the knowledge gap, in order to be clear in terms of contribution of this research to the global community.

 

2. Introduction:

The introduction does not set up the research objectives, which are given as:

“(1) a systematic review to identify the main research items related to green areas and urban landscape services, and to analyze how these items are interrelated through network analysis; (2) the analysis of the amount of urban green spaces through the Urban Green Index at the municipality and urban district scale; (3) the analysis of the spatial composition and configuration of urban green spaces through the integration of three landscape metrics; and finally (4) the estimation of Urban Landscape Services Index.”

If these are the research objectives, the introduction should be indicating that 1) there is a need to identify the main research items related to green areas... why is this needed? What do we learn from the review? I would suggest posing this as a question and then using the review to answer the question. 2) what does this research objective tell us? What scholarly question is it answering that is of interest to others beyond, say, the Lecce planning department? 3) is this integration of three landscape metrics novel? If so, make a point of saying so, and why a novel metric is needed. 4) is the LSI novel? Why is it important? If none of the metrics is novel, what does a broader audience learn from your having calculated them for Lecce?

In sum, the introduction should be identifying a clear gap in knowledge and proposing to fill that gap. At the moment the Introduction does not do this. I recommend that the authors decide what the actual focus of the paper is and completely rewrite the Introduction.

 

We have followed Reviewer’s suggestion, so that we have rewritten the introduction and objectives of the manuscript.

“In this context, the aims of this research are:

• a systematic review through a network analysis approach to identify the main research items and knowledge gaps related to urban green areas and landscape services, and to analyze how these concepts are interrelated each other and with the spatial configuration of green spaces;
• to better focus the research on urban green areas planning: (a) a pilot study has been carried out in the municipality of Lecce to analyze the amount of urban green areas at urban and sub-urban (district) scale through the use of a simple Urban Green Index; and (b) the joint analysis of the spatial composition and configuration of urban green spaces has been carried out through the integration of three landscape metrics; and
• the Urban Landscape Services Index has been estimated and mapped at urban and sub-urban scale as a support urban green areas planning to foster the resilience of urban landscape.”

3. Methods and Results:

I think the literature review/network analysis is interesting but again, it seems unrelated to the landscape analyses that were done. This paper needs to choose which is the focus – the network analysis of the literature, or the landscape analysis of Lecce. If it is the network analysis, you need to dig into it a bit more deeply, like divide it up by geographic focus areas for example, and tie that to different sustainability programs or discourses in those different parts of the world. Or find some other insight, which would start back in your introduction by identifying a question or gap in our knowledge that such a review and analysis would address.

If the focus is the landscape analysis of Lecce, you need to 1) make reference to existing metrics that you’re applying OR 2) if they are new you need to have provided a rationale for why they are useful.

 

The systematic review is based on the specific knowledge gap now stated more in detail in the introduction. In few words, the spatial configuration is very often missing in the analysis of urban green spaces. This is evident from the systematic review and we propose a way to take into account the spatial configuration in a pilot study represented by Lecce municipality.

More in details, we have modified part of the introduction as follows: “Very often the contribution of green areas to the provision of LS is related to their presence and amount, by using green areas type (gardens, street trees, urban parks) as proxies of services’ flow (Seppelt et al., 2011; Martínez-Harms&Balvanera,2012). However, also the naturalness degree, diversity, size, shape, and, above all, the spatial pattern of urban green areas play a crucial role in determining the contribution of green areas to the provision of urban landscape services (EEA, 2010; Beninde et al., 2015; Asadolahi, et al., 2018). The last point is of particular importance as urban green spaces are, often, increasingly fragmented because of urban development (Fahrig, 2003; Mckinney, 2002) and there is still a lack of research on the role of their spatial pattern in guaranteeing equal social access. Landscape ecology theory has strongly recognized that spatial composition (amount) and configuration (spatial arrangement) of urban green areas are two interplaying landscape components that can affect urban landscape heterogeneity, given by the complexity and variability of the properties of a landscape in space and time (Li & Reynolds, 1993; Gustafson, 1998; Riitters et al., 2000; Neel et al., 2004; Zurlini et al., 2006, 2007; 2010, 2014; Proulx & Fahrig, 2010). Therefore, both landscape properties influence the way landscape services are provided (Petrosillo et al., 2010; Laterra et al., 2012; Turner et al., 2013, Mitchell et al., 2014), since they depend on the abundance and variety of green areas types, and on their spatial distribution in terms of spatial connectivity and/or fragmentation (Maimaitiyiming et al., 2014; Asgarian et al., 2015; Aronson et al., 2017; Jennings et al., 2017). Even if most green spaces are public, people access depends on distance (Chen et al., 2022), therefore, their spatial configuration plays an important role in the equal distribution of environmental benefits among people living in different sub-urban areas.”

 

4. Discussion

The Discussion does not address the landscape metrics that were calculated, but really only covers the network analysis. On the other hand, the Conclusions section focuses only on the landscape metrics. But none of the content of this section actually refers to something we have learned from the research, it only refers back to the argument made in the introduction: that it is important for sustainability to study the spatial aspects of urban green spaces. What have we actually learned from the work that was done? What can a broader audience take away from this work? Can you tie the landscape metrics to actual evidence of provision of ecosystem services? Can you tie this research to actual planning or decision-making in Lecce? How does your calculation of these metrics actually support the importance of calculating them in the first place?

So, what this all comes down to is that I think some potentially interesting work has been done here but it is not properly packaged to communicate new knowledge to an academic community. It could potentially be two separate papers, but each one needs deeper thought and interpretation.

 

Thank you very much, for your useful suggestions. We have completely modified the discussion and the conclusions

Reviewer 2 Report

In Figure 3, there are central nodes (not just small ones) that have no concept or term associated with them. For the larger ones, what are they?

For figure 4, I don't understand why district 6 has a high UGI (fig 4 b). Could you elaborate on how this is met in district 6?

It would be nice if the district boundaries were shown in the same way for figure 5 a.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

 

All the edited parts are in red color

 

1. In Figure 3, there are central nodes (not just small ones) that have no concept or term associated with them. For the larger ones, what are they?

 

We have modified the figure in order to show the names also for other nodes

 

2. For figure 4, I don't understand why district 6 has a high UGI (fig 4 b). Could you elaborate on how this is met in district 6?

 

The reason of this high value is due to the small extent of district 6: “The high value of UGI in the case of District 6 (historic center) has been linked to the presence of an extensive green area in a district that has shown a very small extent in comparison with others with the same amount of green areas like District 4 and District 3, but with a higher extent, and then with the lowest UGI, a result in line with other studies focused on other urban contexts…”

 

3. It would be nice if the district boundaries were shown in the same way for figure 5 a.

We have added the districts’ boundaries in the map

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read your paper.  Although interesting, I feel you need to explain further most concepts and sections of your paper.  Please see the attached document for more details.  In short, these are the general points:

- The lit review is not representative enough of the various associations between the terms used in this article.  It needs to be expanded if possible.  What is the gap that your work is trying to fill?
- The methodology needs to be explained more as well.  What terms were used in the review... years, why,...
- The results need to be explained further as well.  
- And I do not see anything relating to the implications of this research.  Why is it important for us to know this?  What planning implications can be derived from here?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 3

All the edited parts are in red color

 

1. General points:

- The lit review is not representative enough of the various associations between the terms used in this article. It needs to be expanded if possible. What is the gap that your work is trying to fill? The methodology needs to be explained more as well.  What terms were used in the review... years, why,...

The literature review has been explained more in details. We didn’t intend to analyze the whole literature on green areas and ecosystem services, but to investigate how much the spatial approach is present in the articles. Highlighted this gap, through the network analysis of keywords, and given the importance of the spatial approach (amount and spatial configuration) we tried to fill this gap with the pilot study, identifying possible landscape metrics useful in this sense.

- The results need to be explained further as well.

We improved the description of the results as well as the discussion

 - And I do not see anything relating to the implications of this research. Why is it important for us to know this? What planning implications can be derived from here?

We thank the Reviewer for this useful suggestion, we improved the conclusions underlining the possible planning implication.

2. Materials and Methods

• “Systematic review was analyzed through a Network Analysis among the keywords extracted from the collected articles” So if you do a review, you use your own keywords and then if you do a network analysis of keywords, you are not really able to get in varied focus areas -- its biased in a way

We agree with the Reviewer: if we select 4 terms to carry out the systematic review, those terms are the most commonly cited. However, only two terms of them are central nodes among the four clusters: green infrastructure and ecosystem services. From the literature review, however, two other nodes appeared: urban planning, and biodiversity. What is interesting, however, is that few are the key-words focused on spatial aspects (spatial planning, landscape planning)

• Table 1: I understand you cite the source of this table but you should include here a few lines regarding the scores indicated in this table. For example, why would forest and non-forests have a 1 in regulating runoff?  So I am understanding it as your forests and non-forests are both green areas and since both are green, they both would contribute to runoff regulation.  If this is right, you should explain it as such.  But then why would non-forest green areas play NO role is carbon seques?

Thank you very much for this comment: we have explained the different values of the table in the text. We have also corrected the table since there was a typing error in the contribution of “non-forests” green areas to carbon sequestration. It was not zero but 0.5 since there is a vegetation coverage therefore the carbon sequestration is present.

3. Results

• “from 2006 to 2020” Methodology section needs to be better explained. The time frame, data sources, keywords (you have mentioned these) and other parameters used for the review need to be explained there

The description of methodology has been strongly improved. We didn’t select the time window, we left free of time limits the systematic review, and the first article the systems registered was in 2006. So also the time frame is a result, this is the reason why it is reported in the results. However, we have changed the sentence in order to make clearer that the time frame is also a result. Now the sentence is: The systematic review has resulted in the collection of 671 articles published in a period ranging from 2006 to 2020.

• “services that in the 40% of the articles were represented by regulating services” different from what is shown in the graph below

We have changed the percentage.

• “The most frequent keyword has been "green infrastructure" (red cluster), a central topic for the research since it showed a greater weight and had the greatest number of elements (keywords) nearby (Figure 3).” that is obvious as it was one of the keywords used to pull the articles for the review

We have already solved this aspect in the first comments on the Results. However, we have described better the results.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic discussed is important, but the manuscript needs considerable improvement.

1) The article discusses a case study (Municipality of Lecce), and the current title suggests that this issue is discussed in general terms. I'm not entirely convinced about the title - the manuscript analyzes the landscape of the example municipality (as it stands), not the impact of sustainable spatial planning on the landscape. From the text it seems that actions in the field of urban greenery are planned (lines 77-82) and the analysis will show directions of sustainable spatial planning.

2) Abstract should be rewritten - firstly the aim of the research should be stated, secondly the research area should be indicated.

3) At the end of the Introduction section the research objectives are described, but there is no information on the spatial scope of the study (Municipality of Lecce).

4) Figure 5 - different colors on the map and diagram indicate non-forest area.

5) the structure of the manuscript should be restructured. Sections 2.1 and 3.1 Systematic Review should rather be part of the Introduction. Alternatively, Results (Section 3.1.) could be moved to Discussion. This is not the method by which the purpose of the study is accomplished.  Additionally, section 3.2 Spatial analysis of urban green areas and 3.3 Urban Landscape Services should be expanded. These sections present the actual results of the research, but in a very abbreviated manner. Another concern is section 4. Discussion. The discussion in this section basically does not address the results obtained (from sections 3.2. and 3.3.). It is a further part of the literature review and should be moved there. The discussion is basically only in section 3.1, which is the Systematic Review. This is where you should only discuss your results and possibly compare them to results obtained in other studies.

6) The conclusions in the abstract do not follow from the research - see the objectives formulated in the Introduction.

In conclusion, the manuscript needs a thorough revision and development of its main parts - results and discussion.

Author Response

Reviewer 4

All the edited parts are in red color

 

The topic discussed is important, but the manuscript needs considerable improvement.

• The article discusses a case study (Municipality of Lecce), and the current title suggests that this issue is discussed in general terms. I'm not entirely convinced about the title - the manuscript analyzes the landscape of the example municipality (as it stands), not the impact of sustainable spatial planning on the landscape. From the text it seems that actions in the field of urban greenery are planned (lines 77-82) and the analysis will show directions of sustainable spatial planning.

 

Since we have modified and improved the whole manuscript, we think that the title is coherent with the contents

 

• Abstract should be rewritten - firstly the aim of the research should be stated, secondly the research area should be indicated.

 

We have followed the indication of the Reviewer and we have modified the abstract accordingly

 

• At the end of the Introduction section the research objectives are described, but there is no information on the spatial scope of the study (Municipality of Lecce).

 

We have changed this part, describing better how the systematic review and the spatial approach are linked each other. Now the research objectives are reported as follows:

In this context, the aims of this research are:

• a systematic review through a network analysis approach to identify the main research items and knowledge gaps related to urban green areas and landscape services, and to analyze how these concepts are interrelated each other and with the spatial configuration of green spaces;
• to better focus the research on urban green areas planning: (a) a pilot study has been carried out in the municipality of Lecce to analyze the amount of urban green areas at urban and sub-urban (district) scale through the use of a simple Urban Green Index; and (b) the joint analysis of the spatial composition and configuration of urban green spaces has been carried out through the integration of three landscape metrics; and
• the Urban Landscape Services Index has been estimated and mapped at urban and sub-urban scale as a support urban green areas planning to foster the resilience of urban landscape.

 

 

• Figure 5 - different colors on the map and diagram indicate non-forest area.

 

We have modified the color in the image

 

• the structure of the manuscript should be restructured. Sections 2.1 and 3.1 Systematic Review should rather be part of the Introduction. Alternatively, Results (Section 3.1.) could be moved to Discussion. This is not the method by which the purpose of the study is accomplished. Additionally, section 3.2 Spatial analysis of urban green areas and 3.3 Urban Landscape Services should be expanded. These sections present the actual results of the research, but in a very abbreviated manner.

 

We have kept the actual structure of the manuscript as well as the systematic review in the result section, but, on the basis of the useful suggestion of the Reviewer we have balanced better the results of the review and those coming from the spatial analysis

 

• Another concern is section 4. Discussion. The discussion in this section basically does not address the results obtained (from sections 3.2. and 3.3.). It is a further part of the literature review and should be moved there. The discussion is basically only in section 3.1, which is the Systematic Review. This is where you should only discuss your results and possibly compare them to results obtained in other studies.

 

We have completely changed the discussion touching the results of both the systematic review and the spatial analysis

 

• The conclusions in the abstract do not follow from the research - see the objectives formulated in the Introduction.

 

We have changed the abstract

 

In conclusion, the manuscript needs a thorough revision and development of its main parts - results and discussion.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The new version is much improved and more coherent in its goals. It could still benefit from some proofreading for grammar and typos. 

Author Response

REVIEWER 1

 

The new version is much improved and more coherent in its goals. It could still benefit from some proofreading for grammar and typos. 

 

 

We have improved the grammar and checked typos.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for revising this article.  It reads much better.  I still have minor suggestions for improvement on the attached document

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

REVIEWER 3

We strongly thank the Reviewer 3 for the annotated manuscript.

 

Much better read. I have a few minor comments to be addressed

 

• Abstract: the main aims do not form the background for the research. Here you need to add context to what you did and why:

 

We have improved the background section of the abstract

 

• so your Intro is also your lit review?

The introduction is only part of the literature review, just setting the main research needs. A more detailed literature review is given by the systematic review presented in the results.

 

• Page 3 line 91: why? how?

The choice of the minimum cluster size is only representative of the network analysis result. It is a descriptive statistic, so choosing the size you choose the way of representation without changing the result. A minimum cluster size of 9 allowed us to represent the most significant keywords in only 4 clusters.

 

• Page 3 lines 99-100can you cite where this is mentioned in official documents?

There aren’t official documents because the administration of Lecce is still elaborating green areas’ plan, however we have added the priority actions set by the municipality administration

 

• Page 4 lines 114-123: please also mention the range for the indices and the final range (and minimum and maximum) for the GCI.

We have added the range for each index

 

• Page 4 lines 130-131: then mention in the GCI explanation above that you do this calculation for only 2 categories...forest and non-forest

We didn’t make the calculation of GCI only for forest or non-forest but for all green areas. Then after the reclassification of urban green areas into only two classes (forest, non-forest) we have calculated the GCI for each sub-class (forest, non-forest)

 

• Page 4 line 134: this sentence doesn't make sense

We have improved the sense of the sentence

 

• Table 1: is non-forest still all green areas though? Or does non-forest include urban areas with impervious surfaces too? i don't see how a non-forest area regulates run-off

non-forest class includes all green areas without trees like for instance grasslands that are able to provide runoff regulation service.

 

• page 5, line 148: not resulted....been conducted

Done.

 

• page 5, line 149: how did you get these? By using the keywords usually published with such articles or by extracting keywords through your software?

VOSviewer software extracts keywords by author keywords published on articles.

 

• Figure 4: it's odd that District 6 has a high UGI when there is barely any green space there....

The high value of UGI in District 6 is due to the small area that characterizes District 6

 

• Page 5, line 186: so just because 6 is a small area, it has a high index? ..because the patches of green might be small and not discernible on the map... so are you saying the greens in this district are more of private urban gardens and green roofs?  if not, then what are these small patches of green (that we cannot see on the map)?

 

Yes, this is the reason why District 6 with only 2 green areas show a high index. We are carrying out more detailed research on private urban gardens and green roofs but they are not part of the present research

 

• Page 7 lines 203-205: pls add a few lines to explain these differences like you have done in previous results sub-sections....

 

We have improved the discussion of landscape services provision and districts’ level.

 

• Page 8, lines 221-222: I don't see how cultural diversity and social relations is shown in the 4 clusters

We have improved the discussion in terms of cultural services

 

• Page 8, line 228: contamination??

We have changed the sentence to make it clearly

 

• Page 9, lines 270-273: pls write a line explaining the SLOSS debate

 

 

Thank you for your suggestion we have added some lines to clarify the SLOSS debate.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

After the corrections made, it is much better. Authors should elaborate on the description in section 3.3. Urban Landscape Services - this section only consists of 3 sentences! - 2 before fig 5 and one before fig 6.

Introduction - I don't know why the whole section is marked red and only a few new fragments have been added (for example lines 28-32, 40-45).

Author Response

Reviewer 4

Thank you very much for all the suggestions that have been very useful to improve the manuscript.

1. After the corrections made, it is much better. Authors should elaborate on the description in section 3.3. Urban Landscape Services - this section only consists of 3 sentences! - 2 before fig 5 and one before fig 6.

We have detailed description of the provision of landscape services on districts level

 

2. Introduction - I don't know why the whole section is marked red and only a few new fragments have been added (for example lines 28-32, 40-45).

The part of the intro marked in red in the revised version is all the parts that we have changed to respond to reviewers’ requests.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf