Representative Group Decision-Making in Forest Management: A Compromise Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has a good potential, but a lot of shortcomings. The topic is relevant, and the idea is interesting, but still there are some modifications that has to be done. The biggest concern is the research design, methodology and grouping of stakeholders. Here are more specific points: 

1. Lines 214-223 combining text and formulas should be rewritten and more clear.
2. Lines 246-263, it is rather unclear how the groups had been formed. 
3. Table 2, after grouping 9 sh groups into 4, it is hard to keep up with the values in the table. It has to be rearranged, now numbers seems pretty messy and random.
4. Tables 3 and 4, the labeling in these two differ, for example (Land¹and then Land²) - and you don't need superscripts at all.
5. Table 5 does not read nicely. The matrix should be symmetrical so filling just upper triangle of the matrix is fine, but the names of columns and rows do not match (and they should). Again, the labeling is confusing. 
6. Lines 392-393 instead of posting two lambda values, you can explain what they mean in VP methodology. 
7. Revising the results section is necessary.    

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors compared two methods for deriving importance of groups of stakeholders. The study is interesting, but some questions should be addresses in more detail.

Major issues:

There are many methods for determining importance weights for stkeholders [1]. The introduction lacks a literature review of these methods. Why did you compare only two methods? Why were these two methods selected?

[1] Koksalmis E, Kabak Ö. Deriving decision makers’ weights in group decision making: An overview of objective methods. Information Fusion. 2019;49:146-60.

What is the aim of the paper? Explain in more detail. What gap in the literature do you try to fill with your study? Where can the results of your study be useful?

The degree of inconsistency in AHP is measured by CR and not CI. Its definition is missing. You should give the values of CR for matrices in the Case study. Why did you choose the threshold 0.2 for CR instead of 0.1 (as in most studies)?

Minor issues:

Why did the stakeholders use only numbers 1,3,5,7,9 in AHP and not the intermediate values 2,4,6,8?

Eq (1): M is not necessarily consistenty and therefore it cannot write as a matrix of ratios w_i/w_j.

page 5, lines 176-180: The descriptions of symbols/indices are a bit confusing. As I understand it, you have a total of t stakeholders in m groups. n_1, n_2,…,n_m are the number of stakeholders in each group, therefore n_1+n_2+…+n_m=t. You can write t in line 206. Please correct everything to make it clearer.

Table 2: How many stakeholders participated in the Case Study? In Appendix you have 33 (not 32!) pairwise comparison matrices, but in Table 2 you have 30 stakeholders. How can you have 8 Professionals and 2 Landowners in Group 1 and 7 Professionals and 3 Landowners oin Group 2?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The edits have addressed all suggestions, and the paper is significantly improved. I would advice its acceptation in current form. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have considered all my comments and improved the paper.