Building Information Modelling in Hydropower Infrastructures: Design, Engineering and Management Perspectives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper presents some unique findings. However, I will recommend the following to improve the paper:

1. The authors should strengthen the justification for the study. This can include a table showing the contribution from previous studies and the gap this current study seeks to fill. 

2. The authors should ensure citations are correct. Some of the citations are not consistent. For example, see "S. Zhang et al., 2017)". There is no need to add an initial. 

3. The justification for selecting papers over the last ten years is not strong enough. The authors should provide a stronger rationale. This is because the authors could have ignored some important papers. 

4. The authors need to explain why other important databases such as Emerald, Science Direct, and Web of Science were ignored. 

5. The discussion of results needs to be enhanced. Please discuss a wide range of literature. 

6. The research gap section of the paper needs improvement as well. You need to show a clear link to the review. 

7. The implications of research findings need to be elaborated. 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The use of English is fair. The authors should avoid long sentences. I also recommend thorough proofreading of the entire manuscript. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is effectively about BIM maturity so contextualizing the work against concepts in this area would strengthen the paper. The unique nature of hydropower projects in terms of size, budget, cost etc and well as the contractual complexity could also have been discussed. Are these national or international design teams? Are they collocated or virtual design teams?  You talk about Asite and Projectwise specifically mentioning the role and significance of common data enviroments would have helped. Hydro power projects may have security concerns which affect information access but this is not considered. The jump in publications in 2023 is not explained. Table 2 could have been done in author alphabetical order or Hydropower component. Some mention about ISO 19650 and its use or lack of use could have been considered. Is the demand for BIM coming from project need or organisation and national BIM mandates? Talking about future research (possibly interviews) in the conclusion would have been good. You do not mention the BIM AI integration and the potential role of the digital twin (whether stand alone or integrated with a bigger system of twins) could be discussed further. You could start with a definition of BIM. There are main but which have you used and why? Give versions of software were ever possible. Sustainability is in the title but how BIM creates more sustainable solutions is not explicit in the paper. Giving an explanation of what you mean by digital engineering would also help. Some letter are missing off Figure 3.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a review article. Overall, the paper is well-structured and presented. Below are some comments and suggestions for improvement:

 

The author needs to change the paper title. The content of this paper does not indicate "A Paradigm Shift Towards Digital Engineering and Sustainability". The phrase "Digital Engineering" cannot even be found in the content of this paper.

 

While Scopus and Google Scholar are utilized in this paper, there are several other popular databases widely used for systematic review.

 

Many figures are unnecessarily large, and some are not needed at all. Additionally, some tables are too large.

 

Many parts of the paper are too general with no focus on hydropower infrastructure.

 

The term "Research Gaps" is not appropriate in the heading of Section 5.

 

The authors should include rationales for how the bullet points or numbered points in Sections 4 and 5 are generated.

 

Section 6, Conclusions, contains seven paragraphs. The authors should focus on the conclusions of this paper in this section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have substantially modified the paper.