Multi-Criteria Analysis of Investment Choices Following Flood Damage: The Case Study of Sustainable Citrus Farming in Sicily

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

About the submission with the title "Multicriteria analysis and economic evaluation of investments in agriculture: the case of sustainable citrus farming" I have the following comments:

 

The abstract needs to be rewritten with the main motivations, gaps in the literature that justify the research, objectives, methodologies, novelties and main insights.

 

Some figures were obtained from other sources and I am not sure about potential problems of copyright.

 

My main concern is about the data used and the methodology used. I suggest a better explanation about how the data for the research was obtained and a better explanation about the methodology considered. In addition, it is important benchmark the methodology used with other available, highlighting the adequacy of the methodology considered with the objectives of the study. For example, to assess investments there are indicators well known, such as net present value, internal rate of return, payback time, ... These approaches were not considered by these study.

 

On the other hand, the results need to be better linked with the methodologies used.

 

A discussion section is missing and the conclusions section should be improved with practical implications, policy recommendations and future research.

Author Response

you can see all changes made in the uploaded file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Multicriteria analysis and economic evaluation of investments 2 in agriculture: the case of sustainable citrus farming

The research aimed to investigate investment analysis to mitigate the flood damages to citrus farming. Three main possible investment alternatives are discussed. This is a good topic to investigate and the research theme is well suited to the journal scope. However, the manuscript is not well organized. The focus of the research is not reflected well in the title, or abstract. Generally, the methodology section is not sufficiently discussed. The authors have added a long discussion on some minor points while little on the focus.

Title: If it is a case study there should be a hint of the study location

Abstract: This is mainly about the background discussion, but the methodology, results, and implications are rarely discussed. The abstract also does not provide any information about the study, study location, type of data used, etc.

The manuscript discusses investment strategies based on flood impacts on citrus farming, but the term ‘flood damage’ hasn’t been used in the title, abstract, or keywords.

There is no focus on background information discussion. For instance, what is the point of adding more information to show climate change (Figure 2)? The authors discuss the flood’s impacts on citrus cultivation. What is the other methodology that has been used for similar analysis and how this is different?

Figure 1: The area bar is not clear. The authors can reorganize the figure by taking the Area value to other axes.

Figure 3: Illustrate extreme drought – more frequent and long duration. At the moment we are experiencing some impacts of climate change throughout the world. It is extreme weather events, such as extreme drought as well as extreme cyclones/ precipitation. This is a common prediction. This figure is contradictory to common expectations. If climate change is towards drought, why did you research flood impacts on citrus farming?

The research has used multicriteria analysis methodology, but rarely discussed the methodological or empirical contribution to the literature. Also, this is not an analysis for investment analysis of farming but it is an investment analysis following the flood that needs to be clarified in the introduction section. In the introduction section the authors have mentioned that the methodology they proposed can be ‘automatically introduced to farmer’s management’, but any applications are not discussed in the conclusion section.

There is a heap of missing information. Where is the study location? What is the particular importance of this topic to the study area? If it is Italy, what percentage of citrus damage is due to floods? The authors need to add criteria and sub-criteria that are used for the analysis. Who are the key target people that were used for the multicriteria analysis?

Author Response

you can see all changes made in the uploaded file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I suggest to create a section for discussion. 

Author Response

..

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Author/s have improved the previous version satisfactorily. 

Author Response

...

Author Response File: Author Response.docx