Mitigation and Resilience of Local Climatic Zones to the Effects of Extreme Heat: Study on the City of Barcelona (Spain)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript “Mitigation and resilience of urban areas to the effects of extreme heat. Study on the city of Barcelona (Spain)” addressed heat stress related to urban land cover features in the city of Barcelona (Spain).

Several issues need further clarification:

- The title of the manuscript does not reflect in the best the treated topic.

- It is similar to abstract. Shortening is necessary, keeping only what's relevant to the study.

- Authors should pay attention to terms and abbreviations, eg. Local Climate Zones (LCZ) and Land Cover Zones (LCZ). For readers, this can be very confusing.

- Drawing conclusions using climatological data for only one month can be very questionable. Explain in more detail why you only used one month and the disadvantages of such an approach.

- Figure 1. I recommend using decimal degrees for presenting coordinates.

- Figure 3 and 4- put the names of LCZs classes in the legend.

- Figures 8, 9, and 10. I don't find it necessary to have the fisrt part of the figures (under a)).

- Figure 11 is not readable.

- Discuss about limitations and shortcomings of the used methodology and data sets.

Author Response

All suggestions have been corrected. Please consult attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review comments:

1.      Lines 10-11. Provide necessary citation

2.      Lines 23- 27. How are the results from your work different from the works done using average temperature?

3.      In abstract, emphasize the significance of your work.          

4.      Lines 64-67. The existing studies have already reported your inferences mentioned in Abstract - what is new inference that you made?

5.      Lines 67-69. There can be correlation between LULC and heat stress. but not always positive. For example, green spaces and water bodies will have negative correlation. Recheck the statement.

6.      Line 69. When you use abbreviation first time, provide its full form.

7.      Lines 107-108. In literature review, you have already mentioned that there is correlation between LULC and heat stress. how does this research question become significant?

8.      Lines 149-151. Rewrite the statement. Resampling is different from pan sharpening. Pan sharpening is resolution merge technique.

9.      Mention what method of pan-sharpening and resampling technique used and why?

10.  Equation 2. Check the equation. Even in the ref [33] you mentioned, they have used TM5 - TM4, which is SWIR-NIR.

11.  Line 182. Did u mean Land Surface Atmosphere Interaction Calculation?

12.  Line 194. ‘formula 5’ seems irrelevant in this context. Did you mean 'equation 3'?

13.  Line 204. How are these average values computed. Since the NDVI range is -0.112 to 0.458, average value can't be 0.155

14.  figure 5 and 6. NDVI and NDBI must range from -1 to +1. In legends, replace comma with decimal points.

15.  Line 216. From figure 7 highest rural zones are A, B, G, 9, C

16.  Similarly in lines 217-218. Lowest values are found in E, 3. 8, 10, 2. Recheck inferences made from your graphs.

17.  Lines 250, 306, 339. How are these average values computed.

18.  In discussion, compare your results using extreme temperature with other works using average temperature.

19.  Lines 418-420. The discussion on NDBI is meaningless since the index is basically used to enhance built-up feature.

 

20.  Add limitation and future scope of the study in your conclusion.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

All suggestions have been corrected. Please consult attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The aim was to assess the thermal stress index within various Land Cover Zones (LCZ) in the city of Barcelona, Spain, during the summer of 2017, encompassing periods of both average temperature conditions and extreme heat events (characterized by temperatures exceeding the 90th percentile).

The procedures were adequately detailed and the results confirm information present in the literature on the subject.

It is important to review the maps prepared, among the necessary changes the following stand out: standardization of the colors of the legends (different temperature and humidity values appear with the same colors); maps must have cartographic conventions, such as coordinates; the colors of the NDVI maps are not appropriate – densely built-up areas with the lowest NDVI appear dark green. You need to create a color palette by cartographic conventions for what you want to represent. The same applies to NDBI. The NDVI should range from green (highest NDVI) to shades of red (lowest NDVI).

Author Response

All suggestions have been corrected. Please consult attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf