Evaluation Model of Urban Resilience in the Face of Public Health Emergencies: A Case Study of Xi’an
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Congratulation, this manuscript is very well-prepared and comprehensive. Just a few minor comments:
1. Does equation (6) in p8 need to emphasize n>1 or not? Because this will affect equation (7).
2. Please add the strengths and further study.
3. Please add limitations of this study.
The manuscript mentioned that expert scoring, AHP, and other methods are mainly subjective and might not be able to address the question. The question of this manuscript is not many emergency (objective) measures are available/established before a public emergency occurs. So, this manuscript is going to develop an objective method for these measures.
The topic used the SEIR-FAHP model, which is an objective estimation method compared with other methods.
The results are promising and need to be tested in the future.
One major concern is testing. It could use prospective data instead of retrospective data.
The references are appropriate. The figures and Tables are clear.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper tries to propose a unified framework to estimate the emergency resilience level of a municipality. Although the direction is interesting and seemingly potential, the proposed frameworks, research methods, and execution are poorly presented and executed. Therefore, I think the paper is not qualified for publication in Sustainability. Below are some of my comments.
- First, the Introduction section needs to be restructured by splitting the second paragraph into multiple paragraphs to ease the readability.
- Second, several minor points have to be clarified.
o “Currently, subjective, objective, and combined weighting methods such as expert scoring, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and other subjective weighting methods have obvious subjective arbitrariness” => this statement is unclear. How can objective weighting methods be subjectively arbitrary?
o “SEIR-FAHP,” “SIRS,” “SEIR” => What terms were abbreviated?
- Third, the description of the “resilience curve” is superficial. More detailed information on this concept is required. References for SIRS and SEIR models are needed for research integrity.
- Fourth, the study structure is poorly connected. It’s ambiguous about how sections in the study were linked to each other.
- Fifth, the origin of the proposed Indicator System Framework was described, but there are no rationales behind the selection of all the indicators. To me, it’s more like a ‘laundry list’ of indicators rather than a list of scientifically justified indicators.
- Sixth, how were Figure 3, Equation 1, the threshold for resilience level in Table 3 created and justified? They simply appear out of the blue.
The language is acceptable.
Author Response
Please refer to the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I appreciate the paper by its contents, methodology and the results obtained in the case study. The cities need to increase their resilient capacity to face a multitude of emergency situations. Taking into consideration the succession’ speed of emergencies, the urban agglomerations should immediately react and protect the population, infrastructure, goods, and environment.
My comments and suggestions are the followings:
a) The title of the paper reflects its contents, but I suggest replacing the “Urban Emergency Resilience” with “Urban Resilience”, to eliminate the redundant “emergency” word.
b) The Abstract well reflects the context, methodological steps, and the findings connected with Xi’an city response during the year-end epidemic of 2021 in the chosen case study. At the same time, the abstract offers readers a perspective to use the model in their future similar studies.
c) The Introduction is structured on some issues related to the paper topic, starting by different authors. I suggest structuring this section by main general ideas, which characterize the theoretical and practical framework of the topic, and not by authors! I would like to see in this section clearly defined the work hypotheses, too. Please, correctly cite the authors, because sometimes you cite them using the name, and not surname (see Daniela, on the three row – page 2!).
d) Another suggestion is to merge the next two sections in a Methodology one. This is justified by the first section, focused on concepts, and the second on methods. To keep the same logical approach, please, replace in the last box from the fig.2, “Removed” with “Rescued”. At the same time, simply redefine the current Section 2: “Indicators’ system and research methods”.
I have a comment related to the topological analysis: understanding the general importance of the graph from Fig.3, I observe that it is not correlated with the case study analysis. It could be interesting to build such a graph applied to emergency resilience and the response of local governance in the case of Xi’an city.
e) The most appropriate title of the current 3 Section could be “Results and discussions”, having two subsections: “Research object”, and “Evaluation Model” (grouping current 3.2. and 3.3.). Both include enough discussion elements, justifying the title of the new chapter 3.
f) In my opinion, the current subsection 3.4. could be included in the Conclusion section, maybe in its last part. Any case, please, reflect to this move, which highlights better this section and offer more elements, encouraging scholars to carefully look the applied methodology of your paper.
Regarding the “References”, my impression is that it is very superficial made, a container of incomplete and incorrect elements, which requires a huge and necessary attention. It was enough for me to look the list and verify just the first references to see that: Passi et al…. have not the issue of the volume, the second is Carlos J. (not V), but it is missing the first author (de Leon V), the number of volume (40), and the pages are 23-25! Then some references are written with “capitals”, others not! So, pay attention to this last chapter, which is very important for a published paper and for the journal which accepts it.
The English needs to have a moderate revision!
Author Response
Please refer to the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
1. In the background section, the content of the second and third paragraphs seems to be a bit repetitive, please consolidate it.
2. Could the author please explain how the criteria for assigning each level in the index came about?
3. Please review the description in the Results section of the Abstract.
Some language typos in the third paragraph of the article should be caught.
Author Response
Please refer to the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Although I acknowledge the authors' efforts in revising the manuscript, I'm still not persuaded by the approach the authors used to develop the indicator system for two reasons. First, synthesizing all the indicators from national standards, assessment tools, and previous studies without having clear selection criteria is not scientifically valid. Second, each urban area has its distinct environmental, socio-demographic, and historical-cultural characteristics, so it's hard to develop a one-size-fit-all resilience evaluation model. Even if there is, the model must be based on a set of selection criteria that are systematically designed to take into consideration the high variation among urban areas.
Moderate editing of English language required
Author Response
Dear Reviewer and Editor,
Thank you very much for your valuable feedback on the manuscript titled "Evaluation Model of Urban Resilience in the Face of Public Health Emergencies: A Case Study of Xi'an." We greatly appreciate your suggestions. In this paper, the selection of indicators was based on the focus on public health emergencies, resilience, and urban systems. During the screening process, the criteria were aligned with the research objectives. Discover commonalities in urban systems while considering differences between cities. Due to the limitations of the author's research expertise, it is acknowledged that the model construction may have certain shortcomings. However, future efforts will be made to continue studying and improving the model to address these limitations and supplement the research.
Reviewer 3 Report
I agree this new version!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your valuable feedback on the manuscript "Evaluation Model of Urban Resilience in the Face of Public Health Emergencies: A Case Study of Xi'an". We greatly appreciate your suggestions.
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
None.
None.
