The Role of Spatial Information in Peri-Urban Ecosystem Service Valuation and Policy Investment Preferences

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I can approve that the manuscript has been significantly improved and I recommend it for publication.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

I can approve that the manuscript has been significantly improved and I recommend it for publication.

We want to extend our gratitude for serving as reviewer and for taking the time to read our revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear colleagues!

Allow me to thank you for the work you have done.

Working on the reviewers' comments made it possible to see the work in a much improved form. Many results have been explained and presented more competently, clearly and visually.

However, I must note that I still did not see value in the calculated correlation coefficients presented in Table 3. I understand that it would be valuable if the hypothesis of a relationship between respondents' age and their willingness to participate financially in environmental conservation and restoration were confirmed. However, the correlations found are too weak, even the ones you note, to indicate a meaningful close relationship. You can, of course, leave it in the article, but in my opinion, this information is confusing and prevents you from assessing the other, more significant results of the study. Therefore, my suggestion is to remove Table 3 and its interpretation (L351-365) from the manuscript.

I wish you good luck in your further research.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Allow me to thank you for the work you have done.

Thank you for serving as reviewer, and for providing your comments and suggestions throughout this process. We are very gracious for the time and energy you have spent with this manuscript.

Working on the reviewers' comments made it possible to see the work in a much improved form. Many results have been explained and presented more competently, clearly and visually.

Thank you! We also believe that responding to the reviewer comments has resulted in significant improvements in how the manuscript has been communicated.

However, I must note that I still did not see value in the calculated correlation coefficients presented in Table 3. I understand that it would be valuable if the hypothesis of a relationship between respondents' age and their willingness to participate financially in environmental conservation and restoration were confirmed. However, the correlations found are too weak, even the ones you note, to indicate a meaningful close relationship. You can, of course, leave it in the article, but in my opinion, this information is confusing and prevents you from assessing the other, more significant results of the study. Therefore, my suggestion is to remove Table 3 and its interpretation (L351-365) from the manuscript.

After careful consideration and after reading through your comment as well as the manuscript, we have decided to remove the correlation table and its interpretation from the main manuscript as you suggest. Instead of removing it entirely, we have decided to place it in its own appendix section (now Appendix A.2.). In this way, we have increased the clarity of the main manuscript, while still being transparent about our results. The reference to the correlation table in the empirical section has been removed, and lines 275-280 now read:

“To model IP a combination of a multivariate non-linear probit models and a multivariate Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression were used. Results from the probit model were then incorporated into the OLS regression in order to control for respondents’ category selection. A multivariate OLS regression was then used to model WTP. For these analyses, we used R version 4.0.2 [51] and R studio version 1.3.1093 [52].”

Furthermore, we have edited the introduction to our results section to only point the reader to where the correlation table can be found.  The edited portion of the results section (lines 342-351) now reads:

“The estimation of equations 1-3 (subjection 3.1) and equation 4 (subsection 3.2) provided results regarding which variables were statistically significant determinants of IP and WTP. The R2 obtained from estimating equation 1, 3, and 4 were low. Although these models should not be used to predict the WTP or magnitudes of IP, the aim of our econometric-based analysis was to understand the marginal effects of spatial literacy, as well as the other control variables, on IP and WTP. Thus, as is typical in econometric analyses, the R2 value was a secondary concern relative to the statistical significance and magnitude of the explanatory variables’ coefficients. A preliminary analysis that examined the correlations between IP variables, WTP, and sociodemographic variables can be found in Appendix A.2.”

The discussion of the correlations, and the correlation table itself (now Table A.2.) has been removed from the main text and can be found in Appendix A.2. All appendix section titles that follow have been updated, along with their in-text citations. Thank you for this comment since it has has made the manuscript clearer in its presentation of its results.

I wish you good luck in your further research.

Once again, thank you for serving as a reviewer for our manuscript.