Empowering a Sustainable City Using Self-Assessment of Environmental Performance on EcoCitOpia Platform

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the contemporary world one of the most important process shaping the settlement structure is urbanization. It has its positive aspects which attract population to cities. In the same time it has some negative consequences we are trying to cope with. One of the crucial challenge here is the problem with the environment protection. Hence, the proposed paper perfectly fits the challenge and proposes some solutions.

The following paper aims to develop a platform for a self-assessment of an environmental performance index. The case study was developed on the basis of three Thai communes, i.e. Nonthaburi municipality, Hat Yai municipality, and Yasothon municipality. The scientific problem was well-outlined. The research areas were characterized broadly but I have impression that the reader does not know how the author/s selected the communes. As author/s said there are almost 8 ths communes in Thailand and in the study there was only three of them. In my opinion better explanation would be more than desired. I was impressed when I read the sub-chapter “2.2. Selection of indicators”. It is prepared in the very professional way (with details and proposed tables/schemes which enable to understand the discussed problems).  The empirical part was done in a good way. Anyhow, in my opinion the discussion should be extended. There is no literature references in this part. It is hard to do some research and not to try to discuss it without any other studies. Extending discussion would be additional value of the paper.

   

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

the topic of the paper is interesting, but in my opinion the main drawback is the physical significance of the environmental performance index. The title states "self-assessments of the environmental performance index on the EcoCitOpia platform". Thus, you took into account three municipalities and explained why those municipalities. In my opinion, for all three municipalities you should define the numerical value of the index based on the parameters and criteria for calculating the index. Based on the calculated index, assess the situation in municipalities. If you do not have a numerical value of the index then this is a theoretical paper that talks about a possible application in the future, but then the title of the paper should be changed. The data you used in the explanations in section 3.3. -what time period do they cover?

Section 2.2. is rather extensively written, Table 1 is more important than an extensive explanation in the text.

Line 159-162: The same sentence was written twice

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors improved the manuscript according to my suggestions and explained everything clearly in the answer, so my decision is acceptance of the manuscript in this form.