Research on Social Service Effectiveness Evaluation for Urban Blue Spaces—A Case Study of the Huangpu River Core Section in Shanghai

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

PAPER: Approach Research on Social Service Effectiveness Evaluation for Urban

Blue Spaces—A Case Study of the Huangpu River Core Section in Shanghai

 It is a complete manuscript and fits the aims and scope of the journal’s topic.

Therefore, at least a ‘’Minor Revision’’ is required to substantially improve this

manuscript. Specifically, the reviewer has the following comments:

POINT 1: Abstract: You may consider providing a more detailed explanation of the theoretical gap you intend to contribute to. Additionally, it would be beneficial to include information about the methodology employed and how the data was analyzed.

POINT 2: A thorough proofreading is necessary to identify and correct any typos. For instance, in the phrase "PSPL (public space & public life)," a space is missing.

POINT 3: It is recommended to include the search structure in the last paragraph of the introduction to provide a clear outline of the study's approach.

POINT 4: Most of the figures appear to be unclear. Consider replacing them with higher-resolution graphs or visuals that enhance the clarity of the information being presented.

POINT 5: Please specify the version of Python that was used for data scraping from Dianping.

POINT 6: The social and practical implications of this study are currently absent. It would be valuable to include a discussion on the broader societal and practical implications that arise from the findings.

POINT 7: The main added value and contribution of this study to the existing literature should be explicitly addressed. Highlight how your research expands upon and enhances the current body of knowledge.

POINT 8: The conclusion section is too brief. Consider summarizing the key findings in this section to provide a comprehensive overview of the study's outcomes.

POINT 9: While the format of the references adheres to the journal's requirements, the references list should be expanded. Consider comparing your results with previous research in the discussion section and including additional references to provide a more comprehensive context for your findings.

Suggested papers:

http://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-021-00502-1

and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268047

and

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00261/full

Etc.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3650

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, I have revised them according to the comments. I have adopted the revision mode in the document, you can open the modification record and clearly see the changes I made in this revision.

Response 1:

I perfected the Abstract part. Mainly increased the introduction of methods, conclusions and research purposes, and deleted some redundant content.

Response 2:

Thank you for your careful reading, I have re-checked the format of the article and the spelling of words, and corrected some spelling mistakes.

Response 3:

I re-edited the introduction part and added a technical roadmap at the end, you can check it in the revision.

Response 4:

I replaced the picture with higher resolution. I don’t know whether office will automatically compress the pictures, so I adjusted the size of some text and legend, and organized all the pictures in the text into a compressed package, which will be uploaded together with the document. If the pictures are still vague, please check it in the package.

Response 5:

I have added. The python version used in the research is python 3.0.

Response 6:

Part 4.3 of the article is suggestions for Improving the social service effectiveness. This part puts forward some suggestions for the planning and design phase and the management and maintenance phase. It tries to solve the existing problems in the core section of the Huangpu River, and it is also an exploration of the application value of the evaluation system. This part proposes improvement strategies for the performance status of the core section of the Huangpu River, including three points: ① Suggestions for upgrading low-efficiency sections; ② Suggestions for adjustment of unbalanced sections; ③ Suggestions for the development model of new planning sections.

In this round of revision, I have improved the content of part 4.3, combined with some research and cases on UBS planning and design, and proposed some more practical methods. Hope such modification is effective.

At the same time, in the conclusion part of the article, I added a brief discussion on the application value of the research, so that when you browse this article quickly, you can also get a general understanding of the practical significance of the evaluation system.

Response 7:

I added this part of the modification to the Discussion, you can see it in 4.4 Innovations and limitations. In this round of revisions, I substantially revised the discussion section and added some literature to illustrate the continuation and supplement of this study to existing research.

On the basis of the existing research, the article emphasizes the influence of management publicity factors on the efficiency in the part of the analysis of the influencing factors. Through more accurate data statistics methods, it supplements and improves the characteristics of the time-varying changes in the service efficiency of waterfront spaces in the existing research. At the same time, the research results of the article also support some existing viewpoints, which are also mentioned in the discussion section.

In the 5 Conclusion part, some content about the expansion and improvement to the existing system is also added.

Response 8:

I revised the 5 Conclusion section, and you can check it in the revised manuscript.

I combined the main conclusions with innovations into four points, including: ①Establish an evaluation system and build the concept of "efficiency-effect balance". ②Empirical case studies, analyzing the characters of time and space, and locating the existing problems in the core section. ③ Correlation analysis of influencing factors, emphasizing the role of management publicity factors and accessibility factors in the effectiveness mechanism. ④ Put forward improvement strategies according to the influencing factors.

Response 9:

Thank you for the recommended references, I have read carefully and checked some articles on UBS tourism economy, this topic has really inspired my research.

In this round of revisions, the Introduction part was revised first: the content related to tourism economy was supplemented, and the research purpose and hot issues of research attention were improved.

In addition, relevant references are also supplemented in the discussion part to supplement my research basis and research conclusions. This part is mainly about the research on the vitality and satisfaction of public space. When proposing improvement strategies, I referred to some planning and design cases and theoretical studies.

Reviewer 2 Report

Your abstract seems well organized, but the results part in the abstract lacks data, not recommended to use text only.

 

General comment on the Introduction section: my main suggestion is to to make a deeper analysis of the most recent literature.

 

The research method is novel and clear.

 

The format of the paper needs to be further modified according to the template of the journal. For example, Figure 1 is not clear enough and needs to be updated.

 

Your discussion part is very well written.

 

Conclusions: Further focus on your results/findings.

I have no strong plagiarism checker and you should do that.

Author Response

Response to the paragraph 1:

Thanks for the suggestion, I've revised the abstract section, and now it's more explicit about its methods and conclusions. I put the proportion of the section mentioned in the article into the abstract, but because of the limitation of the threshold range of the overall efficiency index and efficiency balance index discussed in the article (not applicable to other waterfront spaces), I think it may not be appropriate to include This part of the data is placed in abstract.

Response to the paragraph 2:

I have expanded the scope of the literature review and mainly added some literature research on tourism economy. These studies are more relevant to the research content of my article and can help me explain the purpose of the evaluation system.

Because there are few discussions on space efficiency at present, I dismantled my research object into multiple keywords in the introduction part, and conducted literature reviews separately. The first is the social service value of UBS. After clarifying its social service value, it is meaningful to discuss the effectiveness of UBS' social service. Next, it summarizes the research methods of effectiveness, and interprets its concept and connotation; combined with the research content of effectiveness, it summarizes the relevant research methods. Finally, combined with my research area, I summarize the research related to the Huangpu River.

Response to the paragraph 4:

I've modified the size of the frame and legend text. Meanwhile, I have provided a compressed package of high-definition pictures with this revision, please check it out.

Response to the paragraph 5:

Thank you. In order to make it more scientific, I added some related research to supplement my research results and opinions.

Response to the paragraph 6:

Thank you for your suggestion, the Conclusion section has been revised: a summary of the conclusions of the article has been added to obtain the research results more clearly; combined with the limitations of the article, possible future research directions have been supplemented.

Reviewer 3 Report

See the attached file, please.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, I have revised them according to the comments. I have adopted the revision mode in the document, you can open the modification record and clearly see the changes I made in this revision.

Response about the Introduction:

Thanks for the suggestion, I've edited for comments. I used the revision mode when making revisions, and you can open it in word so that you can clearly see the changes I have made in this revision.

In the Introduction section, I reorganized the writing logic and adjusted the order of the paragraphs to: the research background - the concept of effectiveness - the social service function of UBS and the concept of its social service effectiveness - the current research on the public space of the Huangpu Riverside - my research purpose and research structure. I also added a technical roadmap in the end of Introduction, you can check it in the revision.

In this study, I didn’t make hypotheses. My research is based on the known unevenness of vitality in the core section of the Huangpu River. The purpose is to clarify the segments that have problems, comprehensively evaluate the social service supply capacity and efficiency of the Huangpu Riverside public space, as well as if it is matching with the needs of tourists.

Response about the Results:

I partly modified the content of Results. The adjusted part mainly includes four contents: 1. The measurement results of various indicators; 2. The temporal and spatial variation characteristics of the overall effectiveness index (T); 3. The threshold and characteristics of the efficiency-quality balance index (B); 4. Impact Factor correlation analysis.

It is basically consistent with the order of the research methods. For the sake of space control, the two comprehensive indexes of T and B are mainly discussed, but the sub-indices are not classified and discussed.

Response about the Discussion:

Thanks for pointing out the problem with the manuscript, I've edited it substantially. In this section, I first moved the correlation analysis to the Result section to make the structure of the Discussion section clearer and more concise.

The current logic of the Discussion part is: according to the Result, point out the three existing problems in the current situation - analyze the causes of the problems respectively - propose improvement strategies based on the influencing factors - supplement the innovation and limitations of the article.

In terms of writing, this revision when discussing the influencing factors, references of relevant research are added to explain the continuation and my conclusions more clearly. In the section 4.4 Innovation and limitations, a brief review of the innovation points of the whole article is made, and the extension of the article to several core research literature is discussed, as well as the limitations of the article.

Response about the Conclusions:

The detailed limitations of the research is added in the part of 4.4 Innovation and Insufficiency.

The Conclusion section also has been revised: a summary of the conclusions of the article has been added to obtain the research results more clearly; combined with the limitations of the article, possible future research directions have been supplemented.

Response about the figures:

I've modified the size of the frame and legend text. But I don't know whether it is because of office's automatic image compression function. Therefore, I have provided a compressed package of high-definition pictures with this revision, please check it out.

Reviewer 4 Report

This is a novel and interesting paper, and on the whole it is well-written. It is an interesting methodological approach which is clearly explained, and thus could easily be replicated in waterfront spaces elsewhere. Some specific comments:

Page 1 first paragraph - 'popularity in different areas' - do you mean popularity (i.e. being liked by many people)? If so it should be popularity of different areas. 

The concept of 'urban living room' requires explanation, as it is not in common usage. What does it mean - what are its characteristics?

The figures are of poor quality, such that some of the captions are illegible. Is it possible to provide higher resolution images?

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and suggestions, I have revised them according to the comments. I have adopted the revision mode in the document, you can open the modification record and clearly see the changes I made in this revision.

Response to the comment 1:

Thank you for your careful reading, this should indeed be 'popularity of different areas'. I have made modifications. In this round of revision, I asked other authors to recheck the full text to ensure that the semantics of the article are correct.

Response to the comment 2:

I supplemented the meaning of the three functional sections in the corresponding paragraphs of the article (Part 2.1), and their characteristics are presented in Table 2. It is hoped that it will be presented in the form of a separate paragraph, and the definition of the functional area is clear enough.

Response to the comment 3:

I've modified the size of the frame and legend text. But I don't know whether it is because of office's automatic image compression function. Therefore, I have provided a compressed package of high-definition pictures with this revision, please check it out.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for considering my review.

Minor editing of English language required.