Development of a Decision-Making Model to Support the Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Revision of the Municipal Plan of Turin (Italy)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
the main critical issues have been resolved. the overlap of the research with the corresponding author's thesis remains. the source of the figures must be included, in order to distinguish what was done for this paper from what was previously elaborated by the authors
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his cooperation. We have responded point by point to the requests for clarifications and/or additions, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
The authors attended to the questions proposed by the reviewers.
The quality of this version is quite better than the first version.
Congrats!
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his cooperation. We have responded point by point to the requests for clarifications and/or additions, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
1. The manuscript explores the use of a decision-making model in assessing sustainability plans in Turin, then outlines some policy recommendations and suggestions that might be helpful for future city development. The manuscript itself is rather long but comprehensive, and definitely it should be shortened in different parts, for example, the Introduction and Conclusion.
2. Furthermore, the Conclusion should be divided into Recommendations for Future City Development and the real "Conclusion"
Moreover, there are some scientific weaknesses of this manuscript (as a research article), because some parts look like a literature review report rather than a research paper. The main points to be addressed and key modifications needed are as follows:
(1) Section 1 (Introduction): It looks like a literature review and historical evaluation of sustainability / environmental assessment currently. Please state clearly the weaknesses of previous research methodology in this field, as well as the research deficiency observed so far.
(2) Lines 101-102: "the set of guidelines for the sustainability..." Have these guidelines been validated?
(3) Lines 128-133: Again, what are the deficiencies of existing methodologies? Also, what are the scientific gaps being filled or addressed within this study?
(4) Table 1: Could the authors add a paragraph, explaining why these datasets are relevant to the research and goals of this study?
(5) Equations (2), (3) and (4): What are the purposes and main uses of these indices? Give some background information and relevant use in previous research.
(6) Lines 314-315: "Bologna requires the periodic updating of sets of indicators" - why? Give some rationale of these updates, and reasons for such decision? In practice, if the indicator is good for sustainability assessment, it shouldn't be changed that often.
(7) Line 375: "relationships and connections" - in what perspectives? Explain clearly.
(8) Tables 6-10 and Figure 11: What do these trends tell us? What can you observe and conclude from the data obtained. Some descriptions and conclusions should be made in each context.
(9) Table 147 should be Table 14 instead. Further, it is highly unclear of how you can obtain the correlation scores? Proper methodologies should be provided.
(10) In Tables 14-18: What are the social implication etc. of the high / low correlations obtained? Explain and show your comparisons etc.
(11) Section 4: The discussion of results and insights mentioned are rather short. Extended and more thoughtful discussions based on statistical data obtained should be included in the revised version of this manuscript.
(12) For Table 19 and the discussion of Green City, resilience of a city etc., the authors should also connect greening with the enhancement of urban spatial features and liveability, which would eventually benefit residents of the City of Turin. Some references that the authors should refer to are as follows:
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8781
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866722001273
https://edepot.wur.nl/570858
(13) Before showing Table 19, the authors should define what does it mean by "resilience" and "a participatory city".
(14) Line 585: How is the extrapolation being conducted? Suggest some methods. Further, within this paragraph, liveability and sustainability of a city / spatial region should also be considered and discussed.
(15) Lines 598-605: How can "permeable surface" be quantified and measured within a city?
(16) Some paragraphs within Section 5 (Conclusion) are actually ways of improvement and suggestions. Therefore, Section 5 should be separated into 2 sections. Conclusion should only include a brief summary of what has been done and advanced within this study, and what are the potential room for improvement etc.
(17) Conclusion: Is there any problem that concerns with the availability of datasets and information for conducting large-scale spatial assessment within the City of Turin? If so, please describe and mention in Conclusion.
Minor modifications
Line 29: tha --> the
Line 171: after updated, should be a full stop
Line 183: "Decision Makers quantitative"- grammatically wrong
Line 185: provides --> provide
Line 206: sofisticated --> sophisticated
Line 245: used --> widely adopted
Table 2 can be removed, as there are many similar tables within this manuscript.
Line 338: It is also known as the...
Lines 363 and 365: amounting --> which amount
Line 371: after consumption, it's a full stop.
Tables 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10: All commas within percentages should be full stops.
Line 384: there should be "five" most synthetic and representative indicators?
Line 475: center --> centre
Line 477: part of shared planning processes
Line 556: full stop after "as well"
Overall, the idea of this manuscript is good and clear, but many parts have to be written in a more professional manner, and the aforementioned major and minor points and comments should be addressed before its publication.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his cooperation. We have responded point by point to the requests for clarifications and/or additions, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The manuscript is of much better quality now, and just some further minor comments have to be addressed before publication:
(1) Table 2 can really be removed, there is no point to provide a blank table format, then produce a lot of similar tables afterwards.
(2) Line 144: "2. Materials and Methods" should be a heading.
(3) The Introduction has NOT yet been shortened. In particular, Lines 45-82 should be shortened.
(4) In the last part of the Conclusion, regarding the smart utilization and future enhancement and sharing of environmental, land use and humanistic datasets, please associate it with future city / governmental development and data openness / sharing. Some references are as follows:
(a) Section 4.1 of https://www.jlfc.hku.hk/_files/ugd/25f7bc_95f36b8043a948a78d066f2eadbb30d6.pdf
(b) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=7857288&tag=1
(c) https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/9/1552
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his cooperation. We have responded point by point to the requests for clarifications and/or additions, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
even if this is an application case, the references should be expanded, e.g. by integrating papers/researches of other similar review processes in other metropolitan cities
it is not clear what the output of the flowchart in figure #1 is
why are only the socio-economic indicators shown? and why only these 4? for cities of this size and complexity, the indicators are actually much more and cover more dimensions and sub-dimensions, not just the one mentioned. it needs to be better explained on the basis of which references it was chosen to simplify so extremely the analysis
the structure of table 6 and 7 is not so clear: what are represented in the columns and rows? in the text the strategies of the PTR and PPR are not broken down into sub-objectives/actions... clarify by adding a table or diagram linking the text and the correlation matrix
the statement " qualitative approach considering 327 a class of values ranging from dark green, for high correlation, to dark red, for high 328 discrepancy" needs to be more strengthened: the following two sentences do not enable one to understand how authors arrived at the 'colouring' of individual cells..
discussion and conclusions should definitely be improved. the discussion does not make it clear what information the interpretation of correlation matrices brings to the review process and how it affects the guidelines
the conclusions must show what point in the flow chart has been reached with the paper and what next steps will be taken in what timeframe
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper, but in essence a new tool, the result , is relevant to the practioners, but in an academic view the authors should expand the theoretical underpinning.
The paper begins with generical references about world environmental problems and do not go deeper in the urban planning thematic.
The author should present other academic studies (papers) with the similar discussion in other Europeans (or Global) cities. From what theoretical basis are the indicators proposed in page 5 come? Which are the indicators usual used? What is new with this tool? In which base the cognitive analysis (3.1) are developed?
The authors must go beyond Sugonni (2022) – the master dissertation of one of the author, i.e. the must bring to the papers also de academical references behind. There is a big gap in the theoretical underpinning because the lack of references in urban planning, environmental planning, even in discussion about environmental urban problems
I suggest also that the EU directive, PTTP, PG should be included in References, not just in footnotes.
My main point to revision is to bring a section reviewing the state of art of this urban/environmental/land problem in the cities of Europe or Globally. It is more important than the generic inicial discussion on Global Problems … Brundtland, etc.
Reviewer 3 Report
Is this paper different from the architect Sugoni thesis, or it is just a short version of it?
Please find the comments in the attached PDF file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
