Decision Support Systems in Forestry and Tree-Planting Practices and the Prioritization of Ecosystem Services: A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsA brief summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper and its main contributions.
This paper reviews a number of decision support systems used in urban and agroforestry applications. It recommends using deep neural networks methods to improve DSS functionality.
Broad comments highlighting areas of strength and weakness. These comments should be specific enough for authors to be able to respond.
· The paper has catalogued basic information about a number of DSS, which could be useful.
· The title does not seem very accurate: the paper contains little information on the specific “silvicultural practices” these DSS include, nor how they prioritize ecosystem services.
· It is unclear why urban and agroforestry applications were both included but not other forestry applications. Perhaps focus on one or the other, or include some comparison between them.
· The overall structure and logical progression are poor (see subsequent comments).
· I recommend splitting section 2 into a Methods section and a Results section.
· The methods used to generate the list of DSS are not well described.
· The choice of assessment objectives [a) Climate resilience, b) Infrastructure/Space Optimization, c) Agroforestry, d) Ecosystem services, and e) Urban sustainability] need a clearer justification of how they were chosen and how they are defined/operationalized.
· Ecosystem services covers a very broad spectrum of services, so I don’t think it’s useful to simply say a DSS addresses ES or not. It would be better to identify specific ES and whether a DSS addresses them.
· There does not appear to be a section 3?
· Section 4 (Need for Ecosystem Services): the connections between this section and the DSS reviewed are not very clear. Linking to a table listing which DSS addressed specific ES would help, as would more description of the methods/models used. The tables assign a number to each DSS, using these in the write up could help. For example, “3 DSS addressed urban heat issues [5, 12, 14] but using different approaches….”
· Section 5 (Proposed use of DNN in DSS): There does not appear to be much relationship between this and the previous sections. No results from previous sections are referenced, rather this appears to be a brief literature review of the topic. If the authors wish to make this argument (which I find rather weak), previous sections should clearly demonstrate the need through review of currently used modeling methods and their limitations.
Specific comments referring to line numbers, tables or figures.
Table 1: the ” Software/language/framework” column does not seem particularly useful. The primary argument of the paper is for the increased use of DNN methods, so a more useful column or columns would address the modeling approach(es) that each system uses.
Table 2: The cursory “yes/no” classifications of these broad categories is not very useful. Each category should be broken down into more functional elements (types of ecosystem services) and then these followed with specific discussions in the text. If this task is too large, you may need to focus on just one column, such as the ecosystem services used in the title.
94 – There is some useful information here, but tables 1-2 should be introduced first and the write up focused on the specific elements in the tables.
176- This paragraph is about resilience to hydrologic conditions not the provision of ecosystem services.
252 – “In order to improve decision-making in Urban Forestry for sustainable and livable cities, AI has been increasingly used in recent years (Schepers 2023).” - I don't see any mention of urban forestry in Schepers 2023.
Author Response
A brief summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper and its main contributions.
This paper reviews a number of decision support systems used in urban and agroforestry applications. It recommends using deep neural networks methods to improve DSS functionality.
Broad comments highlighting areas of strength and weakness. These comments should be specific enough for authors to be able to respond.
- The paper has catalogued basic information about a number of DSS, which could be useful.
- Thank you.
- The title does not seem very accurate: the paper contains little information on the specific “silvicultural practices” these DSS include, nor how they prioritize ecosystem services.
- we have changed the phrase 'silvicultural practices' more specific to 'tree plantation'?
- It is unclear why urban and agroforestry applications were both included but not other forestry applications. Perhaps focus on one or the other, or include some comparison between them.
- This has been clarified now in the methods section that why standalone forestry application (forestry as a major objective) focused DSS are not included in analysis.
- The overall structure and logical progression are poor (see subsequent comments).
- now the overall structure and progression has been improved based on your recommendations.
- I recommend splitting section 2 into a Methods section and a Results section.
- the section has been now split into 3 sub-sections.
- The methods used to generate the list of DSS are not well described.
- Methods section now has more description added.
- The choice of assessment objectives [a) Climate resilience, b) Infrastructure/Space Optimization, c) Agroforestry, d) Ecosystem services, and e) Urban sustainability] need a clearer justification of how they were chosen and how they are defined/operationalized.
- This has been now addressed with citing Table 1 and references wherever required in Section 2 subsection 'Methods'.
- Ecosystem services covers a very broad spectrum of services, so I don’t think it’s useful to simply say a DSS addresses ES or not. It would be better to identify specific ES and whether a DSS addresses them.
- Now the specific ES has been identified from the respective literature and addressed in Table 2 and discussed further in results subsection as well.
- There does not appear to be a section 3?
- The typo has been rectified.
- Section 4 (Need for Ecosystem Services): the connections between this section and the DSS reviewed are not very clear. Linking to a table listing which DSS addressed specific ES would help, as would more description of the methods/models used. The tables assign a number to each DSS, using these in the write up could help. For example, “3 DSS addressed urban heat issues [5, 12, 14] but using different approaches….”
- One paragraph has been added with important citations addressing the connection between the sections titled i) Review of DSS... and ii) Need of Ecosystem
Services....the DSS addresing specific ES has now been added as another table column after idenitfication of ecosystem services from the same literature cited.
-In addition, the table with DSS numbers have been utilized in write-up now wherever required.
- Section 5 (Proposed use of DNN in DSS): There does not appear to be much relationship between this and the previous sections. No results from previous sections are referenced, rather this appears to be a brief literature review of the topic. If the authors wish to make this argument (which I find rather weak), previous sections should clearly demonstrate the need through review of currently used modeling methods and their limitations.
- The need of DNN has been discussed in Section 2 and additional citations are introduced linking section 2 with 'Proposed use of DNN in DSS' section. Added citations: Ciaburro and Venkateswaran 2017; Zaccone and Karim 2018; Vasiley et al. 2019; Rothman 2021 ;Chollet 2021
Specific comments referring to line numbers, tables or figures.
Table 1: the ” Software/language/framework” column does not seem particularly useful. The primary argument of the paper is for the increased use of DNN methods, so a more useful column or columns would address the modeling approach(es) that each system uses.
- the Software/language/framework column is important as we want to link the evolution of these frameworks for as the DSS for tree selection and the objectives it addresses evolved. DNNs are not all used until now....so we want to show the framworks...and show possibility that DNNs can be applied now as recently these DSS are more and more Python and R based which enable use of DNNs.
Table 2: The cursory “yes/no” classifications of these broad categories is not very useful. Each category should be broken down into more functional elements (types of ecosystem services) and then these followed with specific discussions in the text. If this task is too large, you may need to focus on just one column, such as the ecosystem services used in the title.
- A column listing specific ecosystem services has now been added.
94 – There is some useful information here, but tables 1-2 should be introduced first and the write up focused on the specific elements in the tables.
- The tables and write are now introduced earlier.
176- This paragraph is about resilience to hydrologic conditions not the provision of ecosystem services.
- Improved with new citations focusing more on provision to ecosystem services related to flood protection.
252 – “In order to improve decision-making in Urban Forestry for sustainable and livable cities, AI has been increasingly used in recent years (Schepers 2023).” - I don't see any mention of urban forestry in Schepers 2023.
- This citation has been replaced by Nitoslawski et al. 2019.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article is well structured and interesting. However, the conclusions would need to be implemented, perhaps adding the fallout and impact of this work and future development. Fig. 1 is of low quality; it would need to be improved.
Author Response
The article is well structured and interesting. However, the conclusions would need to be implemented, perhaps adding the fallout and impact of this work and future development. Fig. 1 is of low quality; it would need to be improved.
Figure 1 has been improved with proper description.
Conclusion is more broadened
Conclusion reworded.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsInteresting review. Can be useful for the future research and practice.
Author Response
Not included
