Geoheritage and Geoconservation, from Theory to Practice: The Ghost Town of Craco (Matera District, Basilicata Region, Southern Italy)
, Eva Pescatore 1, Marco Piccarreta 1, Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi 2, Nicola Masini 2 and Salvatore Ivo Giano 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIt is missing something after line 347.
Spaces are missing between words. Please, review the manuscript.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageNo comments.
Author Response
The Reply to Reviewer 1 is in the attached file.
Best Regards,
Salvatore Ivo Giano
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript entitled “Geoheritage and Geoconservation, from theory to practice: the ghost town of Craco (Matera district, Basilicata region, Southern Italy)” deals with a possible proposal of a procedure to analyse and manage geoheritage that include a strong anthropic component. The topic is extremely interesting for managers, be they in the public entities or as private citizens and professionals. The manuscript is well written, but I suggest a general careful reading to delete some typos along the text, in the tables and figures (e.g., stakeolders, hazzard, it concern).
Some general comments regard the structure as follows:
i) The discussion of the terms to be used (geoheritage, geosites, compound sites) is sparse along the text, both in the Introduction and in the Methods. What about discussing all together in one of the 2 chapters or create a dedicated section?
ii) The different steps of the procedure are described as single chapters. I suggest to provide a general overview on the steps in the Method section and after that to show the application in the Craco specific study site. I do not like very much the idea of starting with a Step 00 instead of a Step 1. Moreover, in Figure 3 (Table?) the ellipsis (…) should be avoided.
iii) The description of the area is too detailed and suitable for a technical report. In the manuscript you should provide an idea of the potential application to a specific area.
iv) The Discussion contains again and in a too detailed way the description of the steps. You could transfer the summary of the procedure to the methods as suggested before (ii).
v) What I missed most are the boundaries of the geosite. In a recent paper (Coratza et al. 2021; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011538) by the Italian scientific community, the proposal of bordering the geosite (of geomorphological interest but it can be applied also to geological s.s. ones) following specific criteria has been proposed. You mentioned the CARG along the text, but also in your geological map, you can try to propose the boundaries for geoconservation and territorial planning. You write vaguely about the hydrographic basin as potential boundary but I think a graphic representation could be useful also to accompany the form.
vi) Terms use and proposals (see also point i):
- In the same suggested paper by Coratza et al., the classification of sites in simple, composite and complex is also suggested. What about discussing your proposal of compound site with this? Why don’t you consider to use an already existing term instead of proposing a new one?
- Concerning once again the definition of sites related also to human activities, in Bollati et al. (2023; https://dx.doi.org/10.14712/23361980.2023.10) a summary of the terms proposed for sites of cultural interest is reported. Why don’t you consider to use an already existing term instead of proposing a new one?
- Finally, in the paper by Garcia-Ortiz et al. (2014; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pgeola.2014.06.003) you may find the definition of sites undergoing threats by natural and human processes. You might consider this terminology too. This could be really important in order to possibly apply in the future one of the degradation index among those proposed in literature (e.g., Selmi et al., 2023; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14074262).
In the complex, it is a very valuable work.
Best wishes
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe manuscript is well written, but I suggest a general careful reading to delete some typos along the text, in the tables and figures (e.g., stakeolders, hazzard, it concern).
Author Response
The Reply to Reviewer 2 is in the attached file.
Best Regards,
Salvatore Ivo Giano
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors, the paper is overall very good, but you need to improve some parts and to improve English. I send you the word file with the comments and suggestions.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
English language must be improved by the native English speaker, there are many technical issues (you can use Grammarly or similar software also).
Author Response
The Reply to Reviewer 3 is in the attached file.
Best Regards,
Salvatore Ivo Giano
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors,
I believe that the manuscript mainly presents a project for implementing a geoconservation strategy in a specific site (Craco). This is particularly well explained by the authors. There is a good characterisation of the study area and its heritage values. Nevertheless, I think the reason for the site's value as a geosite (or geodiversity site) should be better explained. The site has a high cultural value, and its high geoheritage value derives from this relationship between geological processes (especially landslides) and cultural aspects.
In any case, I believe that, in its current state, the work does not offer results that deserve to be published. The title of the paper ("Geoheritage and Geoconservation, from theory to practice") makes it seem as if geoconservation initiatives have been implemented on site. However, as the authors themselves recognise, this text only presents the preliminary results of the approach to the Craco case study ("Currently, the abBandono vErsus riGenerazIoNe (BEGIN) Project (POR FESR Basilicata 2014-2020 interregional and transnational cooperation project) is in progress in this area"; in the abstract).
In fact, only the results of characterising the geosite are presented, by filling in the ISPRA forms (in this regard, I also think that the original forms - figures 13 to 16 - shouldn't be part of the text - figure 17 would suffice). The authors state that "Currently, the BEGIN project is still under development. The initial data collection phases (Step 00 and Step 01) have been completed, and the Step 02 and Step 03 phases are underway" (lines 910-911) and that they are now "focussing on i) the development of educational and tourist routes and ii) the possibility of using mixed techniques to strengthen and consolidate the security of some zones in the study area" (lines 912-914). However, this type of consideration shows that the data is still very preliminary and that the real work of geoconservation has yet to be done. I consider that characterising a geosite by filling in a form is not enough to produce a scientific paper on geoconservation practices.
Since these geosite management initiatives are still underway and cannot be integrated in a revised version, I propose that the rejection of the manuscript and the encouragement of the authors to submit it when these initiatives are developed.
Regards
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper needs an English revision.
There is an excess of items and sub-items that makes reading difficult.
The title doesn’t fit the text very well. I suggest removing “from theory to practice”.
Figures are missing. Add photos of each physical landscape component (at least, one example of each).
The citations are confusing with numbers, authors and dates mixed.
Review the links of the paper, some of them are not available. In fact, there are too many links!
Lines 33 and 34: the bond between the concepts is not close. These terms are intrinsically related.
It was not clear how the tables in figures 13 to 15 would be completed. This appears later in the text. Perhaps these tables could be placed in supplementary material or in appendix.
There are several considerations in the attached pdf that authors should consider.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The paper needs an English revision.
