Mapping Open Data and Big Data to Address Climate Resilience of Urban Informal Settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper focuses on the potential and limitations of open data and big data in urban environmental research, which is of great significance. However, it is recommended to make improvements in the following aspects:

(1) This paper mainly describes some projects and methods, but lacks systematic analysis and reasoning. Therefore, the final conclusion lacks strong support.

(2) This article does not give  explanations in combination with some specific regions, specific open  data and specific goals, and lacks the use of open  data and big data to demonstrate and demonstrate the conclusions of this article in combination with specific cases.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1, thank you for your reflections on our submitted manuscript. Attached you will find a detailed letter that explains our amendments. Best wishes, the authorship

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 24 - Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Line 30 - land cover

Line 39-40 - The main objectives of a basic urban structure (e.g. The Urban Basic Services program) are: housing, water and sanitation, learning opportunities - education, jobs etc.

Line 43 - the coverage surface (%) of informal settlements in relation to the inhabited area 

Line 60 - the data is significant for?

Line 62 - Georganos

Line 120 - instead of public participation you may include participatory design

Line 125, 128 - Big Data

Line 136 - references: e.g. A Survey on Big Data Analytics: Challenges, Open Research Issues and Tools, D. P. Acharjya 

Line 347 - World Wide Web Foundation as seen in the text

Line 349 - World Wide Web Foundation as seen in the text

Line 205 - Big Data

The research article is structured more like an informative presentation on the use of Big Data and has insufficient elements for linkage of main objectives analysed: land cover, dynamic of population, topography, soil etc. and the African settlements. Moreover, it is presented like a description, of the DREAM project and highlights the process and the main aspects that this project deals with.

If it were a bibliographic research, then it would be necessary to view a larger number of articles.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2, thank you for your reflections on our submitted manuscript. Attached you will find a detailed letter that explains our amendments. Best wishes, the authorship

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This research highlights the classifications, spatial extents, and time resolutions of publicly available spatial big data for cities in the Sub-Saharan region. Given that this region's urban centers are among the highest urbanization rates in the world, this project holds a lot of promise. The region lacks the spatial data essential for directing urban planning toward climate-adapted cities and equitable living conditions for vulnerable populations. Urban land cover, land use, environmental hazards and pressures, demographic and economic indicators, and other key publicly available data were therefore compiled for this study. However, I believe that the current version of the manuscript cannot be accepted for publication in its present form. My decision is based on the following comments:

Major comments:

-          I believe that this submission does not fit with the scope of Climate because it doesn't address any climate-related issues, especially those that pertain to the urban environment. It could be a good match for Smart Cities or Sustainability, two other MDPI journals.

-          The current iteration of this study cannot be classified as either original research or a review. It reads more like a report outlining the goals and framework of an ongoing project.

-          The current version lacks SSA-specific language, so in my opinion, many parts of the text can be applied to any other part of the world. The authors have made no attempt to illustrate the possibilities and limitations of the suggested cities with concrete examples from the SSA.

-          Importantly, the authors have not addressed the question of how interested parties and actual users can get their hands on these datasets. Do you plan to share it on any platform? If so, how would you like it organized, and in which format and structure? And how will the data be updated?

-          How will the authors take into account the possible discrepancies/uncertainties in the results that arise from combining blinded data from various sources, in various formats, and at varying temporal and spatial resolutions?

-          The use of acronyms should be revised, especially at their first appearance in the text (e.g. SDGs).

-          The style of the in-text citation is different from that suggested by the MDPI journals.

-          The authors need to provide a clear definition of “EO”, “open data”, and “Big Data”.

-          How these publicly available data will be checked against ground measurements to ensure their accuracy and applicability remains unclear.

Specific comments

-          L90: Please, specify these goals.

-          Title: “dynamics.” <> “dynamics:”

-          L22: There is a typo in “the in transdisciplinary”.

-          Keywords: Please, include Sub-Saharan Africa.

-          L41: “ibid” <> “2022”.

-          L138: “intra-year” <> “interannual and intrannual”.

-          L165: “These dataset” <> “These datasets”.

 

-          Tables 2-4: The spatial and temporal resolutions of some products should be revised.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 4, thank you for your reflections on our submitted manuscript. Attached you will find a detailed letter that explains our amendments. Best wishes, the authorship

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript can be accepted for publication in its present form.