Exploring the Spatial Relationship between Urban Vitality and Urban Carbon Emissions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper reports on innovative research that analysed indicators sourced from databases. The study adopted the density of catering facilities to measure economic vitality. There was one reference to this approach but I was not convinced of how robust this statement is. Would not an area with large corporate offices have the highest economic vitality but such companies might provide their own on-site catering for their staff?

Whilst the research is fresh and innovative and addresses problems of great significance I was not sure of the conclusions drawn nor of the application. What evidence from the research can you present to decision-makers to help them make changes?

Author Response

We would like to thank the associate editor and the reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. The revised version of the manuscript has been significantly modified based on the reviewers' comments. We have tried our best to address all comments from the four reviewers by going through a substantial major revision of the original manuscript – reorganizing and rewriting many parts. The following describes the changes made in the revised version and/or answers the questions from the reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The study aims to identify spatial correlation and causal relationships between urban viability and carbon emissions in cities.
The relevance of the research topic is related to climate change and global warming on the planet, including due to deep urbanization.
The scientific novelty consists in establishing statistical dependencies (correlations) between the indices of urban viability and carbon emissions.
The materials and methods of the study are representative. However, there are the following observations:
1. In clause 3.1, the choice of indices for assessing the viability of cities is not justified. As part of the social component of the viability of cities, the social functions of the city (functional mixture) play an important role. Probably due to the inaccuracy of the translation, the authors imply a combination of objects of the spatial environment that perform certain functions of the city and implement functional processes. Therefore, in this context, it seems appropriate to mention the functioning of other objects of the spatial environment, for example, social infrastructure, and not just the road network, which is assessed exclusively by accessibility for the population. At the same time, there are a number of other most significant indicators of the transport network than accessibility.
2. A similar remark can be made to other indices that make up the viability of the city. For example, the normalized relative vegetation index — a simple indicator of the amount of photosynthetically active biomass (usually called the vegetation index) – is more an indicator of landscaping, rather than environmental safety.
3. The article does not investigate the mechanism of collinearity between factors, and such a relationship is obvious between carbon emissions and the NDVI index. It is assumed that the variables are clearly collinear if the correlation coefficient between them modulo exceeds 0.7. In the presence of collinear features, one of them should be excluded from the model so that there are no close links between the remaining factors.
P.S. In the future, it is necessary to quantitatively study various factors affecting carbon emissions and viability, as well as to further discuss them and analysis of the use of various tools.

Author Response

    We would like to thank the associate editor and the reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. The revised version of the manuscript has been significantly modified based on the reviewers' comments. We have tried our best to address all comments from the four reviewers by going through a substantial major revision of the original manuscript – reorganizing and rewriting many parts. The following describes the changes made in the revised version and/or answers the questions from the reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1.      Choosing Xuzhou as a case study requires a more comprehensive summary of Xuzhou's characteristics.

2.  In the Introduction section, the innovation of this paper needs to be further clarified.

3.    Figure 1 and Figure 2 need to be supplemented with latitude and longitude.

4.  Line 134, Line 141: When POI and ODIAC first appear, you need to write their full names.

5.  Line 201, Line 209, Line 217: The semicolon at the end is redundant.

6.  In Figure 6: Figure 6(a), Figure 6(b), Figure 6(c)……and Figure 6(l) need to supplement the map names.

Author Response

    We would like to thank the associate editor and the reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. The revised version of the manuscript has been significantly modified based on the reviewers' comments. We have tried our best to address all comments from the four reviewers by going through a substantial major revision of the original manuscript – reorganizing and rewriting many parts. The following describes the changes made in the revised version and/or answers the questions from the reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper deals with the important issue of the exploring the spatial relationship between urban vitality and urban carbon emissions. After analyzing the spatial distribution characteristics of urban vitality combined with spatial syntax and the TOPSIS model, this paper further investigated the influence of urban vitality-building factors on the distribution of urban carbon emissions based on the geo-detector.. The study helps to clarify the spatial correlation and influence mechanism between u-ban vitality and urban carbon emissions. Some suggestions were proposed to construct low-carbon and high-vitality cities. Remarks and suggestions: What was the trigger to choose the TOPSIS model for the analysis? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed method? On what base the indicators for evaluation index system of urban vitality were chosen? Add references to equations in case you did not propose them. The choice of reference can be considered with respect to the risk analysis in AHP method, which have been developed, line 483. Eg. Most Searched Topics in the Scientific Literature on Failures in Photovoltaic Installations. Energies 2022, 15, 8108). Please highlight the novelty of the paper. Please justify, as there are many MCDM tools ranging from fuzzy to simple one. Why this particular was selected?  Results should be discussed and compared with results of other similar studies.  

Author Response

    We would like to thank the associate editor and the reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. The revised version of the manuscript has been significantly modified based on the reviewers' comments. We have tried our best to address all comments from the four reviewers by going through a substantial major revision of the original manuscript – reorganizing and rewriting many parts. The following describes the changes made in the revised version and/or answers the questions from the reviewers. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The reviewer is quite satisfied with the authors' answers. Thanks!viewer is quite satisfied with the authors' answers. Thanks!

Author Response

We are humbled that our efforts have been well revived. We greatly appreciate the reviewer's valuable comments and positive feedback on our paper. These comments are of great help to the revision and promotion of the paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

1.      Line 102: “emission reduction” should be “carbon emission reduction”.

2.      Line 202: The typography of 3.1.1 Social Vitality is incorrect.

3.      Figure 6. Multi-dimensional vitality in Xuzhou. A. Comprehensive Vitality and CO2 B. Economic 441 Vitality and CO2 C. Social Vitality and CO2 D. Environmental Vitality and CO2 E. Comprehensive 442 Vitality and Economic Vitality F. Comprehensive Vitality and Social Vitality G. Comprehensive Vi- 443 tality and Environmental Vitality H. Social Vitality and Economic Vitality I. Social Vitality and En- 444 vironmental Vitality J. Social Vitality and Cultural Vitality K. Economic Vitality and Environmental 445 Vitality L. Economic Vitality and Cultural Vitality.

It is suggested to use the following forms: (A), (B), (C)......

4.      Line 522: The typography of 5.2 is incorrect.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper deals with the issue of the exploring the spatial relationship between urban vitality and urban carbon emissions. After analyzing the spatial distribution characteristics of urban vitality combined with spatial syntax and the TOPSIS model, this paper further investigated the influence of urban vitality-building factors on the distribution of urban carbon emissions based on the geo-detector.. The study helps to clarify the spatial correlation and influence mechanism between u-ban vitality and urban carbon emissions. Some suggestions were proposed to construct low-carbon and high-vitality cities. Remarks and suggestions: The manuscript is well-formated. Are you aware of any limitations associated with the method presented? Are you able to demonstrate the convergence or stability of that model? Does the use of applied methods under uncertain conditions have any limitations, pitfalls, or practical difficulties that should be discussed in an explicit manner? Try to underline the possible path for future studies, which include the following choice of reference, eg. Most Searched Topics in the Scientific Literature on Failures in Photovoltaic Installations. Energies 2022, 15, 8108 with respect to the information system based the multi-criteria decision analysis as the preferred approach in several researches because it involves a combination of multiple criteria in a weighted way and also produces visual results, important for decisions in the urban environment and understanding the changes of the environment. An impact assessment and a cost-benefit analysis have not been conducted in advance, and solutions have not been anticipated for potential consequences. Also very important issue is to compare the obtained results with other methods, as eg. AHP method and include the information about obtained results. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have carefully revised the paper according to the revision suggestions. I agree to publish it.

Reviewer 4 Report

Accept in the present form.