Lessons for Coastal Applications of IMTA as a Way towards Sustainable Development: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is a review of publications on different aspects of integrated multitrophic aquaculture. The authors analysed environmental, economic and social aspects of this practice. I believe the work is original and very ambitious for the mole of papers available and factors involved. I can see a high number of papers was reviewed and included in the work and I believe the review is pretty comprehensive.

My main comment on the work is about the structure, that results sometimes awkward and about the redoundancy of some of the aspects. I understand that the great amount of information available makes it difficult to organize the sections and that some of the aspects overlaps and can be mentioned in different sections. Nevertheless, a bit more effort should be put into organizing the text and the paragraphs in a  way that makes the reading of the paper more pleasent.

Please, see below some more specific comments.

Introduction

A bit repetitive, I would suggest to not going back to a concept after moving on. Also, you should state clearly the aim of the study and link to it in your conclusions.

Line 46: 'make up' is not very scientific, try find alternative term.

Lines 64-65: confusing, I don't know how to link it to the previous text

Line 66: Alternatively to what?

Line 72: what type of energy are you talking about? Explain better

Methodology

The methodology is missing. What search engine was used? what keywords?

Environmental sustainability

Line 121: 'the organic enrichment may increase the harmful microbes' very generic, explain better

Lines 139-142 References missing

Economic sustainability

Lines 158-160: isn't this environmental sustainability rather than economic?

Social sustainability

Lines 212-215: reference missing

Line 223: not only in industrialized nations

Lines 226-227: I don't understand how this links to the previous sentence

3 Discuss sustainability in the context of IMTA

Why a new section about it? I'd merge it with 2.1

4. Candidate species for coastal IMTA

You mention many other species in the following sections that should be mentioned here. I'd make this important section much more comprehensive and include all the species in the table, not just examples.

Line 285 latin name of sea cucumber? be consistent

5.2

It is unclear the differenc between financial and economic. Also, full section 5 should be merged with 2.2

5.2.1

This section should be separated by financial section, it's more environmental. Also, I'd give more info about removal rates of nutrients and water quality.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Thank you for the valuable comments and organized the manuscript with the new look.

Point 1: Line 46: 'make up' is not very scientific, try find alternative term.

Response 1: used the alternative word ‘contribute’

Point 2: Lines 64-65: confusing, I don't know how to link it to the previous text

Response 2: Omitted this statement as a single statement

Point 3: Line 66: Alternatively to what?

Response 3: other word used ‘On the other hand’

Point 4: Line 72: what type of energy are you talking about? Explain better

Response 4: ‘Carbohydrates’ energy

Point 5: Methodology

The methodology is missing. What search engine was used? what keywords?

Response 5: Added the methodology section as a new section 2

The literature search was performed with a Google Scholar web search. The specific keywords were used and searched for the documents (IMTA; coastal aquaculture; sustainable aquaculture; social development).

Environmental sustainability

Point 6: Line 121: 'the organic enrichment may increase the harmful microbes' very generic, explain better

Response 6: Omitted this statement

Point 7: Lines 139-142 References missing

Response 7: Reference added (Matos et al., 2006) for lines 139-142

Economic sustainability

Point 8: Lines 158-160: isn't this environmental sustainability rather than economic?

Response 8: lines 158-160 leave out from the environmental section and leave it in the economic section

Social sustainability

Point 9: Lines 212-215: reference missing

Response 9: Reference added (Stevenson and Irz, 2009) for lines 212-215

Point 10: Line 223: not only in industrialized nations

Response 10: other nation includes ‘In industrialized and developed nations’

Point 11: Lines 226-227: I don't understand how this links to the previous sentence

Response 11: Omitted this statement as a misinterpretation of the precious statement

3 Discuss sustainability in the context of IMTA

Point 12: Why a new section about it? I'd merge it with 2.1

Response 12: now 3. Discuss sustainability in the context of IMTA section is merged with section 2 (Sustainability potentials of IMTA)

4. Candidate species for coastal IMTA

Point 13: You mention many other species in the following sections that should be mentioned here. I'd make this important section much more comprehensive and include all the species in the table, not just examples.

Response 13: Other species are added to table 2

Like sponge, Porifera, other species of Echinoderms, Polychaetes

Point 14: Line 285 latin name of sea cucumber? be consistent

Response 14: Added latin name ‘Cucumaria frondose’ for sea cucumber

5.2

Point 15: It is unclear the difference between financial and economic. Also, full section 5 should be merged with 2.2

Response 15: Economic returns section and Financial viability section merged together. Now it is a single section (5. Economic value and financial viability from coastal IMTA)  

5.2.1

Point 16: This section should be separated by the financial section, it's more environmental. Also, I'd give more info about removal rates of nutrients and water quality.

 Response 16: Bioremediation by extractive/additional species section separated from financial section. Now it appears as an independent section.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper under evaluation albeit regards an interesting topic, such as the Integrated Multitrophic Aquaculture potentiality, need to be deeply revised and implemented.

In the scientific literature there are numerous reviews on this topic, and the present manuscript does not make a critical and innovative contribution to what is already available.

In addition, I found many leaks: authors do not consider the recent progress of the IMTA currently known at European level. Moreover, they do not consider all currently candidate species already experimented or under experimentation (e.g. Porifera, Ascidiacea).

Although I am not a native English speaker, I feel it is written in a very bad English form and needs to be completely revised.

I found numerous meaningless phrases and it looks like a repetitive collection of sentences from articles without a critical analysis of knowledge.

The section “References” is imprecise and need to be deeply improved also according to the journal style.

 

Overall, the manuscript was highly speculative and not very updated. It is not clear the analysis of the literature made and what objective it intends to achieve (for example, the current knowledge of IMTA at European, Asian, etc., level).

 

My suggestion is to reject the article and re-submit it by implementing and addressing its objective.

 

Other comments and suggestions are reported in the attached pdf file.

 

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions comments. We are thoroughly revising the manuscript and implementing the comments. We are considering all current candidate types that have been tried or are being experimented with IMTA. Importantly, we are working on the English language and completely revising the whole manuscript. References section are improved according to the journal style.

Overall, we are working on the whole manuscript again.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper provides useful information on coastal applications of IMTA and will be interesting to the researchers who are involved in the studies on the sustainability of aquaculture. The authors discuss the sustainability in terms of environment, economy, and society. Since some papers related to the review of IMTA have been published as below, I want the authors to clearly represent the differences from these papers and clarify the purpose of this review paper.

 Junbo Zhang, Shuo Zhang, Daisuke Kitazawa, Jinxin Zhou, Sanggyu Park, Shike Gao, Yuxin Shen (2019): Bio-mitigation based on integrated multi-trophic aquaculture in temperate coastal waters: practice, assessment, and challenges. Latin American Journal of Aquatic Research, 47(2), 212-223

 Leonardo Nicolas Zamora, Xiutang Yuan, Alexander Guy Carton and Matthew James Slater (2018): Role of deposit-feeding sea cucumbers in integrated multitrophic aquaculture: progress, problems, potential and future challenges. Reviews in Aquaculture (2018) 10, 57–74.

 Junbo Zhang, Daisuke Kitazawa, Chenxing Yang (2016): A numerical modeling approach to support decision-making on design of integrated multitrophic aquaculture for efficiently mitigating aquatic waste. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 21, 1247-1261.

 The other comments are as follows.

 Line 72: a period is required after ‘the aquaculture species’.

 Line 189: Social sustainability is described regarding aquacultural development, not IMTA development. Social sustainability induced by IMTA should be addressed in this section.

 Line 263: Table 1 is not referred in the text.

 Line 277: I cannot find Fig.2.

 Line 318: Since ‘significantly increased’ is not clear, quantitate the increase in kelp and mussels growth rates by introducing IMTA.

 Line 513: ‘chlorophyll A’ is ‘chlorophyll a’.

 Line 566: ‘A systematic’ is ‘a systematic’.

 Line 573: ‘were’ may be removed.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your comments 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Excellent paper, but the conclusion is inadequate because it is in the format under discussion, I recommend concluding and not discussing the subject.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your comments, which help me to conclude the findings

Author Response File: Author Response.docx