Research on the Impact of Carbon Emissions and Spatial Form of Town Construction Land: A Study of Macheng, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript (land-2482464) tries to focus on the town of Macheng in Bengbu, China as the research subject, spatial elements were selected and quantified to characterize and account for the carbon emissions from town construction land in terms of building energy consumption and to explore the relationship between the spatial form of town construction land and carbon emissions. Although the study fits the aim and scope of this journal and the amount of the work is enough, its contribution to urban carbon emissions research needs to be highlighted throughout the manuscript. Another concern is that some related latest studies have been neglected. Therefore, a “Major Revision” is required. My detailed suggestions and comments are presented as follows:

- 1. The scientific question or research gap is totally missing in the Abstract, which described the study area directly at the beginning. Similarly, the introduction section is weak because the authors failed to raise a fundamental scientific question or gap. Therefore, potential readers can hardly identify the need that the authors should have to provide a new solution from an international perspective. Note that the analysis of the influences of spatial form/building structure on urban carbon emissions is not a new attempt in carbon emissions research.

- 2. The authors need to explain clearly the definition of the "Town construction land".

- 3. What are the real differences between town carbon emissions and city carbon emissions?

- 4. Figure 1 should be moved to the Section 2. Materials and Methods.

- 5. From Line 74, the authors have listed a number of previous related studies, but without mentioning what are the limitations and disadvantages of previous research (see below for examples). Therefore, the main objectives of this study are just related to this specific study area.

A parametric approach to optimizing urban form, energy balance and environmental quality: The case of Mediterranean districts. Appl. Energy 2019, 254, 113637

Empirical analysis of building energy consumption and urban form in a large city: A case of Seoul, South Korea. Energy Build. 2021, 245, 111046.

- 6. The authors need to explain clearly why urban land has only been classified as "residential land" and "public land". What about the other types of urban land, such as industrial land?

- 7. In the Introduction Section, the authors mentioned that: "Although previous studies have extensively examined the relationship between carbon emissions and spatial form from different perspectives, most research has focused on cities [26] or residential areas [27]". However, some studies have examined the relationship between carbon emissions and spatial form at many other scales. Please refer to the below references.

Analyzing the impact of three-dimensional building structure on CO2 emissions based on random forest regression. Energy, 2021, 236: 121502

On the Scale Effect of Relationship Identification between Land Surface Temperature and 3D Landscape Pattern: The Application of Random Forest. Remote Sens. 2022, 14, 279.

- 8. Figure 2. Location of the study area. The coordinates should be included.

- 9. Table 2. System of spatial form elements and Table 3. Methodology for measuring spatial form elements, the introduction of these metrics should base on some convincing references.

- 10. In Section 2.2.3. Calculation of carbon emissions: the authors should explain clearly how to separate building carbon emissions and other carbon emissions.

- 11. The authors should clearly explain why these and why just these factors have been taken into account in this study.

- 12. Only Pearson's correlation analysis and scatter plots may not be enough. More advanced non-linear machine learning methods, such as the random forest, have been widely utilized.

- 13. From Table 6, we can see that there is no specific or regular rule for the changing in urban carbon emissions (sometimes increasing, and sometimes decreasing).

- 14. Line 228: Check "Error! Reference source not found".

- 15. The authors should condense the actual details of the Materials and Methods and Implementation and Results sections as the information is quite dense. In this respect, the document reads more like a dissertation or thesis. Simplify and make the information more concise.

 Extensive editing of English language required.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors set out to determine to what extent various town construction characteristics are associated with levels of carbon emissions.  The motivation for this is that carbon dioxide concentrations are thought to be the major factor in human induced global warming, which could lead to catastrophic climate change.

 

The authors have an extensive Introduction where they describe building patterns and the literature.

In section 2, Materials and Methods, the authors describe their study area in China, along with a map, and also identify spatial form elements, along with the methodology for measuring such elements.

 

In section 3, Results, the authors describe the Pearson correlation coefficient as the tool they choose to measure the relationships between building patterns and emissions.  This could have gone in the Methods section, but I think it is okay to keep it here at the beginning of results.  The authors state that among other things, the Pearson coefficients can serve to help specify a multiple regression, and that is true.  I almost expected the manuscript to contain such a regression, but it did not.  Perhaps that will be the focus of a future analysis.

In any case, the correlation coefficients are presented in Figure 4 and Table 5.  Figure 4 is pleasing because of the colors, but it is difficult for me to read its contents because of the size of the font.  Perhaps these numbers will show up bigger in the journal.

 

In any case, the items in Tables 6 and 7 are much easier to read and they reveal a lot about the relationships the authors are investigating.  The authors include detailed numbered discussions of each of the nine significant factors on residential land and then six factors on public land. However we appear to have a glitch here – perhaps just a typo.  The authors label both of these sections 3.2.1  It seems that the correct 3.2.1 refers to residential land and is on line 242.  But the authors repeat 3.2.1 on line 324, which seems to me should be labeled 3.2.2.  Please check this and correct it.

They organize their findings well in the Discussion section (4) and use bullets to emphasize highlights.  The items in this section follow from the results.

Likewise the Conclusions and Suggestions section is well laid out and flows from the results.

This submission gets the reader to think about ways of mitigation of carbon dioxide which I have found to be lacking.  So I think it makes a useful contribution to the literature.  The glitches I found were: the font appears small on Figure 4 and the authors repeat section 3.2.1 on line 324.  So I am calling for extremely minor revisions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for incorporating my comments and suggestions.