Landslides and Cultural Heritage—A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID: heritage-2625122
Type of manuscript: Review

 

Title of the paper: Landslides and cultural heritage – A review

Authors: José E. Bonini, Bianca C. Vieira, Antonio C. de B. Corrêa and Mauro Soldati 

 

The paper aims to review the studies done around the world on landslides involving cultural heritage, giving an overview of the temporal distribution of publications, selection methods, geographical and climatic contexts and the type of landslide.

The work is of great interest because it addresses the problem of landslide danger in areas where the cultural heritage, involved by gravitational movements, determines well-being in the populations since they are generally very frequented by tourists.

The method adopted for the review and validation process of publications is shareable. The keywords used to search for articles regarding the topic covered, both on Web of Science and on Scopus, are all those possible to intercept publications regarding landslides involving cultural heritage at a global level.

During the process of reviewing and classifying the publications, it emerges that the geology of the areas studied was not taken into proper consideration, instead considering the geographical distribution, the climatic context and the type of landslides.

The main results of the work are reported clearly and provide a framework of knowledge on the scientific publications that have affected the different areas of the world, the approach and the different techniques used.

In the chapter dedicated to the discussion, the work highlights the areas where studies concerning landslides, which involve cultural heritage, are scarce or even absent and which therefore over time could seriously endanger sites of great cultural interest. This information is very useful to draw the attention of the global scientific community to fill this gap so as to secure sites of great cultural interest and the work also suggests how to do it.

The authors, in the conclusions, clearly report the results of the analysis of bibliographic databases and further highlight the fact that in Africa, Latin America, etc. few studies have been carried out, just as few studies have involved some climatic areas. The authors also report examples of studies carried out in the context of cooperation between scientists from different countries, convinced that it is the right path to follow in the future, because it is known that studying a site means taking the first steps to conserve it for future generations.

 

Suggestions for authors:

 

2 – Materials and Metods: Come riportato in precedenza si ritiene che nel sotto capitolo 2.2 – Pubblication Review and Classification, andrebbe presa in considerazione anche la geologia delle aree investigate.

 

 

Figure 4 and 5 – To facilitate reading the figures, report the meaning of: LAC, ARB, ASA, etc.

 

Authors are advised to read the following works:

·      Pescatore E., Bentivenga M. Giano S.I. & Siervo V. (2019) Geomorphosites: Versatile Tools in Geoheritage Cultural Dissemination. Geheritage J. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-019-00378-x

Monge-Ganuzas, M. (2023) Geoconservation in Spain: history, legislation and future challenges. Geographical Heritage 15, 95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-023-00864-3

Bétard, F., Rouget, I., Hobléa, F. et al. (2023) Geoconservation in France: history, key policies and current tools. Geographical Heritage 15, 52. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-023-00824-x

 

 

Author Response

Please, see the attachment for the response to Reviewer #1 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is acceptable in the present form.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment for the response to Reviewer #2 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

First of all, I would like to thank authors for contributing to literature with this review. I suggest authors to revise their work.

Abstract Line 23-24 English

Abstract the aim of this review is not really explained clearly. Is it to identify the landslide types? Or is it to assess the landslide risks on cultural heritage? Because line 14-15 only mentions what determinants the authors analyze within the review without explaining the aim of this review.

 

Introduction line 40 explanation of cultural heritage in the first sentence needs a revision. It does not capture the meaning of cultural heritage. Please refer to the Unesco definition.

 

Line 57-58 in the introduction there are a lot of review just in the intersection of climate change and cultural heritage and the authors should give reference to “Are cultural heritage and resources threatened by climate change? A systematic literature review” and “Climate Change and Cultural Heritage: A Systematic Literature Review (2016–2020).” Then explain that the existing literature reviews do not fill in the gap of identifying the potential landslide tthreats on cultural heritage…

 

I think that introduction section could be more elaborated as it currently lacks contextualization of the topic. There is not only literature missing but also reports from UNESCO that could state the landslide threats.

 

Materials and methods section lacks the method of literature review greatly. The authors first should explain what a literature review is and what type of literature review they are conducting. I presume that it is systematic literature review. In this case, here they should explain the steps of it and why it is important to use it (to inform policy makers in research gap etc). And they need to refer to how the use of review could contribute to landslide science literature. 

 

Figure 1 is very simple scheme of the steps the authors followed. These could include numbers like duplicates (n=10)… Even if they do not follow this path, they could revise the figure to make it a little bit more elaborated.

 

Line 103 states that “All publications were checked for their 102 appropriateness to ensure database consistency.” What does make them appropriate? Do the authors mean the content focus of the papers have to include heritage and landslide? If one mentioned and the other not, they found to be outside the scope of this review? Similar case is with the term eligible. The authors should explain what eligibility criterias they applied for the review. For instance, document eligibility criteria is not explained (are only articles included or articles, conference papers, and books and book sections are also included?) Please state document eligibility. Also, if only English written documents are included, please state the language eligibility. With that there would be limitations of the study which should also be mentioned. Without this it is hard to understand how the authors did the selection of papers and based on which criteria.

 

The section 2.2 Publication Review and Classification is not really clear on what it is explaining. Because the terminologies explained such as risk, vulnerability etc should be explained in the introduction, I think. The authors should explain what approach-based categories is and give reference to it if possible. Because I have never heard such analysis method. If these are based on the methodology used in these papers, what is the method that authors use in the analysis of the papers in this review? Thematic analysis? Or content analysis? Is the analysis qualitative or quantitative or mixed? These should be explained. What is the total number of included and excluded papers? 

 

And if these are based on the methodology used in these papers, the authors should explain what geomorphological approach entails and others (index-based …) in a table or figure. Even though they refer to it in the text, it would be better to give these beforehand. From this analysis, I understand that studies with qualitative research or mixed research are not included. This eligibility criteria should be also explained earlier to explain that the authors focus on the studies which includes quantitative data analysis. Because then it makes sense why some papers are not included in this review such as Detection of Disaster-Prone Vernacular Heritage Sites at District Scale: The Case of Fındıklı in Rize, Turkey.

 

I also did not understand why the authors merged Publications by year, study scope and approach-based categories as the first one refers to the characteristic of the publication and the second is already explained in the introduction and the last one is content analysis. In this sense, structure of the paper is a bit off. Case studies geographical distribution, climatic context and landslide types should be also content related so content related and publication characteristics related determinants should be separated. 

 

I think conclusion is missing greatly what tools and methods are needed in the analysis of landslide threats in the future on cultural heritage. Virtual technologies what do authors mean by that please give an example. Do we need more GIS analysis or mixed approaches? Or how can we measure or assess the climate-induced landslides and to what extent the effects of landslides are accelerated by climate change on cultural heritage?

English of the text at times is difficult to understand. It could be revised moderately. I suggest authors to check it with someone native speaker.

Author Response

Please, see the attachment for the response to Reviewer #3 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors addressed the main concerns I had about their paper. So I would like to thank them for their work to revise it.