Coupling Historical Maps and LiDAR Data to Identify Man-Made Landforms in Urban Areas
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Line 16: not only Mediterranean cities have a 1000-year history, but many European cities, e.g. Kraków (Łajczak, Zarychta, Wałek 2020)
Line 19: should be “1: 2,000” instead “1: 2.000”; similar in lines: 86, 169, 182, 203-204, 309, 424, 493, 511
Line 27: I suggest to use "antropogenic landforms" instead "anthropic landforms". The term "anthropic" is used in astronomy, cosmogony etc.
Line 38: The authors mention "Urban Geology". In my opinion, the article covers urban geomorphology. Core sediment data is not used for palaeogeographic analyses or stratigraphic or sedimentological reconstructions, but for the calculation of the DoD. So it seems absolutely useful to mention urban geology in this article. On the other hand, the authors should definitely refer to urban geomorphology, as this was clearly missing.
Lines 120-137: A description of the historical development of Genoa from pre-Roman times to the Ignazio Porro map in 1848, while interesting, seems superfluous, as it does not contribute much to later interpretations of the changes in anthropogenic landforms around which the article focuses.
Line 218: It would be good if the authors cited works that previously used this methodology, e.g. McMillan, Powell 1999, Orengo, Fiz 2008, Molewski, Juśkiewicz 2014, Łajczak, Zarychta, Wałek 2020.
Line 232: on fig. 4 should be “roto-translation transformation” instead “roto-traslational transformation”.
Lines 300-312: You are certain that the terrain of the floodplain terrace has remained the same over the centuries. Is it then correct to assume that the old topographic surface has the same configuration as the modern topographic surface? The surface of the floodplain terrace is extremely rich in alluvial forms and this is known from Wolman, Leopold (1957) through Zwolinski (1992) to Fassoni-Andrade et al. (2020).
Line 322 and others: Are you use pixel on raster maps or cell? Pixel only applies to digital images, not raster maps.
Line388: Alluvial thickness ca. 2.45 m is a quite small in comparison to another cities with age about 1000 years.
Line 424: should be “1: 10,000 - 1: 50,000”
Lines 432-433: what is “left hydrographic bank”; probably you mean “left channel bank”?
Lines 439-440: are you sure that “the section of figure 8, near the viaduct, shows that the thickness of the two railway embankments is around 5 meters”? - where are embanments?
Lines 444-445: where we can find “bridge of Santa Agata” on fig. 6a?
Line 466-469: where is fig. 10c and 10d?
Line 506: what do you mean: “Areas were filling and excavation landforms are equivalent"?
Author Response
Line 16: not only Mediterranean cities have a 1000-year history, but many European cities, e.g.
Kraków (Łajczak, Zarychta, Wałek 2020)
We added “central European cities” – (Line 16)
Line 19: should be “1: 2,000” instead “1: 2.000”; similar in lines: 86, 169, 182, 203-204, 309, 424, 493, 511
We corrected in lines 82, 169, 182, 203-204, 309, 424,493, 511
Line 27: I suggest to use "antropogenic landforms" instead "anthropic landforms". The term
"anthropic" is used in astronomy, cosmogony etc
We corrected it – (Line 28)
Line 38: The authors mention "Urban Geology". In my opinion, the article covers urban
geomorphology. Core sediment data is not used for palaeogeographic analyses or stratigraphic
or sedimentological reconstructions, but for the calculation of the DoD. So it seems absolutely
useful to mention urban geology in this article. On the other hand, the authors should definitely
refer to urban geomorphology, as this was clearly missing.
We corrected it, but we maintained the references – (Line 39)
Lines 120-137: A description of the historical development of Genoa from pre-Roman times to the
Ignazio Porro map in 1848, while interesting, seems superfluous, as it does not contribute much
to later interpretations of the changes in anthropogenic landforms around which the article
focuses.
We erased almost this part, except for some lines that are strictly linked to the local history and could be introductory for later interpretations – (Lines 128 – 132)
Line 218: It would be good if the authors cited works that previously used this methodology, e.g.
McMillan, Powell 1999, Orengo, Fiz 2008, Molewski, Juśkiewicz 2014, Łajczak, Zarychta, Wałek
2020
Thank you, we added these papers as references.
Line 232: on fig. 4 should be “roto-translation transformation” instead “roto-traslational transformation”
We corrected it.
Lines 300-312: You are certain that the terrain of the floodplain terrace has remained the same
over the centuries. Is it then correct to assume that the old topographic surface has the same
configuration as the modern topographic surface? The surface of the floodplain terrace is
extremely rich in alluvial forms and this is known from Wolman, Leopold (1957) through Zwolinski
(1992) to Fassoni-Andrade et al. (2020).
Yes, we can assume that the old topographic surface has the same configuration as the modern one on the floodplain terrace areas because old documentation, old maps and geological investigation have shown no significant natural changes in the morphology in two century: neither flooding so intense to deposit metric amount of sediment, nor fluvial erosion so severe to affect topography at large scale as ours.
Particularly in the studied area, also the beach hasn’t been deeply affected by natural changes because this place had been anthropized and walled as embankment since the early 1800s.
On other hand, the anthropogenic changing was much severe.
In the text we rephrased this topic emphasizing this assumption, cited the suggested authors – (Lines 306 – 310)
Line 322 and others: Are you use pixel on raster maps or cell? Pixel only applies to digital
images, not raster maps.
We applied cell on raster map. We replaced the word “pixel” with “cell” – (Line 336)
Line388: Alluvial thickness ca. 2.45 m is a quite small in comparison to another cities with age
about 1000 years.
Yes, it is, but it is an average value resulting from an original calculation not included in the paper. Some thickness values are extremely high (> 10 m, in blue in figure 6 and 7 in the DoD color pattern), but 1 to 2 m thickness values zones are more frequent (white palette in DoD color pattern). This lowers the arithmetic mean to the value of 2.45.
Line 424: should be “1: 10,000 - 1: 50,000”
We corrected it.
Lines 432-433: what is “left hydrographic bank”; probably you mean “left channel bank”?
We replaced “left hydrographical bank” with “left side of the stream” – (Line 445)
Lines 439-440: are you sure that “the section of figure 8, near the viaduct, shows that the
thickness of the two railway embankments is around 5 meters”? - where are embanments?
This is a mistake, it is not figure 8, but figure 7b – (Line 452)
Lines 444-445: where we can find “bridge of Santa Agata” on fig. 6a?
In figure 6a, we added a layer where it is possible to notice the trace of Santa Agata bridge
Line 466-469: where is fig. 10c and 10d?
This is a mistake, they are not figure 10c and 10d, but figure 11c and 11d – (Line 480 and Line 484).
Line 506: what do you mean: “Areas were filling and excavation landforms are equivalent"?
We replaced “Areas were filling and excavation landforms are equivalent" with “Areas with no filling or excavation landforms prevalence” – (Line 526)
Reviewer 2 Report
In the article, the authors present the volumetric anthropogenic changes in the urban environment over the last two centuries in the city of Genoa (northwestern Italy) through the calculation, analysis and cartographic comparison.
Sorry to write, but the article contains a serius methodological flaw. It is not possible for the sea level to be the same now as in 1848. Moreover, I do not think that the sea level in the current mapping system was measured in the same mareograph as in 1848.
Line 46
The authors should read and cite the article [1] as a broader and more well-known publication in the field of traditional geodetic and topographic measurements then cited publications [19-20]
Line 48
„late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century are characterized by good quality of representation good quality of representation”
1) What about the description of the period in cartography from the early nineteenth century to the eighties of the twentieth? This is an important period in cartography before the massive use of digital techniques in data acquisition. Some finding you can read and cite [2] Current problems of cartography [3].
2) no context of “good quality of representation”, of what? All features on map?
[1] History of Determinations of the Heights of Mountains
https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1086/346425
[2[ Altitude on Cartographic Materials and Its Correction According to New Measurement Techniques
10.3390/rs13030444
[3[ Peak-bagging and cartographic misrepresentations: a call to correction
10.1080/13683500.2020.1812541
Line 124
Oppidum - translate this word in brackets.
Line 205 221 and in all occurrence in article
Not LIDAR – use LiDAR Not QGis – use QGIS
Line 210
Figure 3a - a Porro Plaate picture is tragic in quality – more image magnification less area
Line 230
- 16 GPC per map?
- “roto” word – what is this?
- Using data from OPENSTREET MAP is a mistake. Italy has a good Infrastructure for spatial information why did not the geometry and location of buildings be obtained from this source?
Author Response
Reviewer #2
Sorry to write, but the article contains a serious methodological flaw. It is not possible for the sea level to be the same now as in 1848. Moreover, I do not think that the sea level in the current mapping system was measured in the same mareograph as in 1848.
Thank you for the comment. This is a crucial topic. The oldest Genoese mareograph was built in 1884. Since that year, sea level has been measured with an increment of 1.1 millimeter/years. Today a rising of 25 cm can be estimated relative to the period of 1830 – 2021.
We initially considered this error, but we omitted it in the manuscript because the topography that we obtained from Porro's isolines interpolation (only the hilly part), has an average slope of 16.94°. This means that an offset of 0.25 m produces an average x-y shifting of 0.9 m. We estimated that our x-y shifting is less than 10 m, but far greater than 0.9 m.
Anyway, we added a paragraph in the Methods:
“Furthermore, the rising of the sea level in the period 1884 – 2009 was considered in order to quantify the heights vertical offset between modern and 1830s sea level measurements.” (Lines 343-344)
and in the Results.:
“The heights vertical offset between modern and 1830s sea level measurements is about 25 mm with average rate of 1.1 mm/y. Considering an average slope of 16.94° for the old DEM hilly areas obtained by only the Porro’s isolines interpolation, an offset of 0.25 m produces an average x-y shifting of 0.9 m that is can be considered as a negligible value.” (Lines 386 – 390)
The authors should read and cite the article [1] as a broader and more well-known publication in the field of traditional geodetic and topographic measurements then cited publications [19-20]
[1] History of Determinations of the Heights of Mountains
https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1086/346425
Thank you. We added it in the reference
1) What about the description of the period in cartography from the early nineteenth century to the eighties of the twentieth? This is an important period in cartography before the massive use of digital techniques in data acquisition. Some finding you can read and cite [2] Current problems of cartography [3].
2) no context of “good quality of representation”, of what? All features on map?
[2] Altitude on Cartographic Materials and Its Correction According to New Measurement Techniques 10.3390/rs13030444
[3] Peak-bagging and cartographic misrepresentations: a call to correction 10.1080/13683500.2020.1812541
1) Thank you for suggesting these papers. We added it in the references.
We also added a phrase: “The methodology used for the production of these maps was then used and improved until the 1980s when significant use of digital techniques in data acquisition has emerged.”. (Lines 67 – 69)
Unfortunately, this manuscript shortness does not allow us to expand the discussion which is certainly interesting, but not strictly functional to our work about early nineteenth century ancient map. We also had to cut the Genoa history urban planning as suggested by the First Reviewer.
2) We rephrased the sentence in: “More particularly, maps produced between the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth century began to avoid representing the environment with stylistic elements typical of landscape paintings,” (Lines 48 – 50)
Line 124 Oppidum - translate this word in brackets.
According to Author’s answer n°5 to the First Reviewer, we deleted the word Oppidum and the entire sentence
Line 205 221 and in all occurrence in article: Not LIDAR – use LiDAR Not QGis – use QGIS
We replaced LIDAR with LiDAR and QGis with QGIS
Line 210 Figure 3a - a Porro Plate picture is tragic in quality – more image magnification less area
We focused on a smaller area. Now the quality is much better
Line 230
1) 16 GPC per map?
2) “roto” word – what is this?
- Using data from OPENSTREET MAP is a mistake. Italy has a good Infrastructure for spatial information why did not the geometry and location of buildings be obtained from this source?
1) We added 16 GPC per map in figure 4.
2) We corrected the word roto-translational in figure 4
We added the phrase “firstly orthophotos and secondly API of OpenStreetMap only as auxiliary images for ref-erences of place names”. (Lines 255 -256)
Reviewer 3 Report
Congratulations on the work. The paper's topic is particularly interesting for the journal and very useful for cities that, as you, yourselves comment, have a very long history. From an academic perspective, the paper is well structured and clear. It has a solid theoretical framework, appropriate historical research, accurate methodology, and presented discussion and results.
I find it very interesting that QGIS is used. Encouraging open source software is always welcome as it makes a powerful and free tool available to all researchers. Moreover, it is fortunate to have historical cartography available to carry out this type of analysis.
However, I would like to make a few suggestions for improving the article:
It would be interesting to indicate by listing the questions or hypotheses that initiate this research. Either in the introduction or the materials and methods section and see how they are verified or not in the conclusions.
Finally, I would try to avoid references in the conclusions. You can change them to the discussion, making the last section refer to your conclusions of the study conducted.
Congratulations on your work.
Best regards and good luck.
Author Response
Congratulations on the work. The paper's topic is particularly interesting for the journal and very useful for cities that, as you, yourselves comment, have a very long history. From an academic perspective, the paper is well structured and clear. It has a solid theoretical framework, appropriate historical research, accurate methodology, and presented discussion and results.
I find it very interesting that QGIS is used. Encouraging open source software is always welcome as it makes a powerful and free tool available to all researchers. Moreover, it is fortunate to have historical cartography available to carry out this type of analysis.
However, I would like to make a few suggestions for improving the article:
It would be interesting to indicate by listing the questions or hypotheses that initiate this research.
Either in the introduction or the materials and methods section and see how they are verified or not in the conclusions.
Finally, I would try to avoid references in the conclusions. You can change them to the discussion, making the last section refer to your conclusions of the study conducted.
Congratulations on your work.
Best regards and good luck.
Thank you so much for the appreciation. We listed the hypothesis/targets in the last part of the introduction (lines 102 - 106) and we emphasized them in the conclusion (lines 509 “… first hypothesis”), even if an original listed remark already existed (lines 509 – 519). We moved the final citations in the final discussion paragraph (lines 498 - 501).
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The corrections made by the authors are satisfactory. However, the error in the position of the height calculated by the authors is a relative error, while the change in the position of the sea level between measurements is an absolute error, therefore these values should not be compared directly.
This does not change the fact that the error in the position of the sea is significantly smaller than the accuracy of determining the height of the terrain, but in serious research, information on this subject should be included.
Author Response
We modified the manuscript according to all the observations and requests of both the reviewer and the editor, who we wish to thank for the consequent further improving of our manuscript. All the modifications are highlighted in green.
