Proposal of a System for Assessment of the Sustainability of Municipalities (Sasmu) Included in the Spanish Network of National Parks and Their Surroundings

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article titled "Proposal of a system for assessment of the sustainability of municipalities (SASMU) included in the Spanish network of National Parks and their surroundings" proposes a methodological approach to assess the various components of sustainability (environmental, economic, and social). This method is then applied to Spanish protected areas, to assess whether any remarkable differences can be found between what the authors term "Socioeconomic Influence Zones"  of the national parks and areas in the proximity of the parks themselves.

While the manuscript is very well thought and prepared, I think the method is quite complex, not easy to replicate elsewhere, and has some weak points (such as the selection of the indicators and that of the target values), which, however, are acknowledged and discussed in the manuscript.

Below are some minor comments to be addressed.

1) lines 139-141 "This does not mean that their surface area is completely unprotected because it may be declared a PA under other figures. These figures have less demanding protection measures". I am unclear on the meaning of this sentence - what do the authors mean by "figures" here? This is not the word they want, I guess. Are the authors thinking of, say, Ramsar sites, Natura 2000 sites and the like? 

2) lines 267-268 "Z scores are designed in such a way that users know is a municipality falls". A typo here. "is" should be "if".

3) Sub-section 4.1 in my opinion is misplaced. It should go after current sub-section 4.4 and before current sub-section 4.5. This is because the "real discussion" (i.e. looking at the results through the lenses of current knowledge) is that in sub-sections 4.2 and 4.3, while sub-sections 4.4 and 4.1 provide some reflections on the methodological approach.

4) Figure 3 is illegible. I cannot read the numbers, not even zooming in quite a lot, and it is unclear whether the authors used the same shades scale of each color for the various parks. [if so, please apply what is suggested below for figures C1 and C2]

5) Figure 4 would be easier to read if accompanied by a table providing the three Z coordinates for each park, not just for the centroids of the clusters which are currently given in Appendix D. Maybe consider inserting a second table in this Appendix.

6) Figures C1 and C2 in the Appendices are illegible as well, as far as the legend is concerned. Contrary to what happens in Figure 3, however, I do see that the colour palette varies within each map belonging to a certain group, which  is quite misleading. Readers would instinctively tend to compare the maps, while a certain shade of colour has different values in the maps (say, for Environmental sust. dark brown is -1.148 in the first  map, -1.043 in the second, -1.502 in the third and so on in figure C1) I would suggest that the authors use, for each sustainability component,  a single colour palette that would allow for visual comparisons of the various maps.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This study of municipal sustainability in national park settings is novel and advancing. The indicators used to develop the sustainability indices were vetted by experts and stakeholders, the analysis is sophisticated and well performed, and the study has implications for policy-making and research. However, I have a number of questions/suggestions for the authors to consider before the study is ready for publication:

Abstract

Rather than highlighting the SIZ municipalities within the protected areas (PA) ranking more sustainably than those in the buffer zones outside the PA in the national park (NP) territorial areas, a more effective frame would reverse this statement since the situations in the territorial areas present external threats and pressures to sustainability, to use the authors' terminology.

1. Introduction

P1, L56-66: The "centrifugal gradient for sustainability" hypothesis is interesting, although environmental gradation seems more obvious in the study context compared to the economic and social dimensions. There may also be interesting tradeoffs among these dimensions, which could be better theorized in the introduction.

P2-3, L94-101: Authors discuss various models relevant for assessing sustainability such as monitoring, control, load capacity, and land use-land cover models, however it is unclear which approach the authors take. The authors' approach should be made more explicit so that, by the end of the introduction, the reader has a clear sense about what the paper will do to achieve its aims.

P3, L116: Socioeconomic Influence Zones (SIZs) should be defined.

2. Materials and Methods

P3, L127-128: Law 30/2014 should be explained.

P3, L129: IUCN category II should also explained and spelled out.

P3, L129-133: Do the NP classifications have consequences for the analysis at hand? That is, what if any variation among NPs exist due to differences in NP classifications?

P3, L137: Why 5 km for the buffer, and were different limits experimented with in the research?

P4, L146-151: It would be good to know the exact date in which the NPs were declared in the Figure 1 caption, if available.

P4, L166-183: How were the data sources identified? Why these sources and not others? For convenience? Without more explanation, it is difficult for the reader to know.

P5, L185: How did the authors determine the literature to be examined for the assessment of sustainability? Why were these studies reviewed over others?

P6, L206-211: A more detailed explanation is needed for how the authors selected the 15 indicators. The selection process appears thorough but remains insufficiently explained. The reader should have a clear sense as to why these 15 indicators were chosen over others.

P6, L212-219: Did the authors experiment with altering the number of indicators in the analysis, to determine whether the inclusion of more/less indicators yielded similar results? Also, did the authors consider using a principal components analysis (PCA) to reduce the number of items?

P7, L255-258: Were weights applied to the indicators? This is not clear in the manuscript.

P7, L257-258: What is the Cronbach alpha for each construct?

P8-9, L272-277: More explanation of the centroid cluster analysis is needed. Why did the authors opt for centroid clustering over other alternatives? Did the authors set the k-means clustering to 5 groups? If so, why 5? This is not clearly explained in the paper.

P9, L287: Why were these six biophysical and socioeconomic variables used when calculating the similarity index? Were other variables also considered? If so, was the similarity score robust to additional variables?

3. Results

P9, L308: Are the differences in values between the SIZ and buffer groups in Table 3 also statistically significant, for each index? Ditto for Table 5. Do means comparison tests apply?

P10, L321: Did the authors consider descriptive labels for clusters, rather than using "Cluster 1s, Cluster 2s,"…and so forth? A descriptive label might be more interesting and easier for readers to conceptualize. Also, is there a reason why commas and decimal points are both used in reporting values in Table 4?

P10, L334: Authors' state: "In general terms, the pattern is the same." Same as the clustering at the network scale? This should be clarified.

P11, L340: The color coding of the map clusters in Figure 3 could use more explanation, especially since it is difficult to read the fine print in said figure indicating whether a map refers to Z_ENSI (environment), Z_ECSI (economy), or Z_SOSI (social) sustainability.

P12, L361-368: Descriptive labels associated with clusters at the park scale in the Figure 4 caption could be useful in addition to the color codes.

Discussion

P13, L397-402: Regarding the impurity of the control municipalities, perhaps this is why, to the extent that it is feasible, determining whether the study findings were robust to modifications in the boundaries of NPs and their SIZs and surrounding areas would be useful. Is this something the authors considered (i.e., expanding/contracting the 5 km boundary)? Would this make sense for the study context?

Either in the limitations (section 4.1) or the methodological considerations (section 4.4), the authors could consider appealing to the broader local sustainability audience by discussing the limits of their indices in municipalities not proximate to NPs and how indices could be constructed to capture sustainability in such municipalities.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I am very pleased with the revision and appreciate the thorough response letter. Authors have addressed all of my comments from the previous draft. The paper is innovative and advancing. I am happy to accept in the present form. Note: Table 5 and Appendix D still have commas in place of decimal points.