Design of an Automated Algorithm for Delimiting Land Use/Soil Valuation Classes as a Tool Supporting Data Processing in the Land Consolidation Procedure

Comments

Explanation

1.Line 11-25: Clearly state the topic of the work in a wider way, the specific methodology used and the main contribution of the work.

The necessary information have been added to the Abstract, according to the Reviewer’s comment.

2.Line 29-68: There is not enough literature reviews and summaries in the section of “Introduction”, which should be strengthened appropriately.

The Introduction section has been extended. Additionally, an overall summary of the identified research gap has been provided.

3. Line 203-309: More information of data used in this study need to be added.

The table describing the characteristic of the used data has been added.

4. Line 310-353: The analysis of the section “ Results and discussion” is too much limited.

This section has been divided into “Results” and “Discussion”. Then, both sections have been extended.

5. Line 310-353: There is not enough literature reviews and research summaries in the section of “Discussion”, which should be strengthened appropriately. The innovative contribution of the work is missing in the section of “Discussion”, which should be strengthened appropriately, too. Moreover, it is recommended that the discussions be presented as a separate section “Discussion”.

The “Discussion” section has been separated from the “Results”. The section has been improved according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.

6. It is suggested to supplement more information to Figure 1 and Figure 2, which need to be further improved.

Figure 1 is an overall cartographic image, informing the reader about the location of the study area. In authors’ opinion, extending the information provided, e.g. by some additional labels or more cartographic details would make the graphic less clear.

Figure 2 has been supplemented by the labels, related to the information about the particular elements (thumbnails) of the diagram. The explanation of the labels has been added in the signature below the graphic.

7.The languages of this manuscript need to be further improved.

The authors have improved the language of the article. The manuscript has been corrected by an English native editor. The Certificate of English Copyediting has been attached.

Comments

Explanation

The abstract requires more information about the data sources, the study area, and …. It also needs to clarify why authors try to design an automated algorithm for the consolidation of land. 

The suggested explanation has been added to the abstract.

The introduction is too long (more than 160 lines), lacks a clear research question or hypothesis, and the research objectives are vaguely stated. 

The aim of the research and the hypothesis have been formulated in the Introduction section. However, the Introduction cannot be shortened significantly, as another reviewer suggested to expand it, i.a. by providing more literature summaries.

The methodology section requires more information about the designed model and how it differs from other models that are presented in the introduction, as well as details on model specification and data sources standards to use on similar work.

The Methodology section has been supplemented. The necessary information about the model specification and advantages and the requirements concerning the input data have been added.

The results and discussion section lacks statistical details, only 2 figures are presented as data without any detail. It’s necessary to provide enough graphical illustrations or analysis of the results. 

The detailed analysis of the results has been provided and illustrated by the new graphics.

Finally, the conclusion section does not provide enough critical evaluation of the study's limitations and implications, as well as directions for future research.

The Conclusion section has been extended significantly. The information about the evaluation of the solution and its results has been provided. Also the constraints of the algorithm have been detailed.

Comments

Explanation

For me to understand what you have done it would be helpful to provide;

1) a reasonable sized fragment of the cadastral map showing say 3 holdings.

2) an image from google earth or similar showing the exact same area

3) how your 2 new layers fit onto that landscape.

The suggested analysis has been provided. However, to make the graphics more clear, the authors decided to use only the land use contours layer for the comparison. These objects are more consistent with the real land use structure.

I presume that the left hand side of figure 2 is from a cadastral map, but it is hard to guess what scale it is (200 meters across, 500 meters across?) and whether it represents part of one land holding or parts of a dozen or more holdings. A key would be a great help here.

The diagram presenting the fragments of the cadastral map has been improved by adding a scale bar. The determining of the quantity of the holdings on the depicted area is impossible since the holdings before the land consolidation have a highly fragmented spatial structure. The parts of many holdings are located in various places of the village.

As for how you have generated you 2 new layers I do not think the flow chart is enough, is your method at heart a piece of automated cartography or is it some sort of multi-criteria decision making tool?

The method created is a procedure of the spatial data processing, based on the principles of the cadastral database. The flowchart is an overall illustration of the intended procedure. The details about the algorithm specificity have been described in detail in the Materials and Methods section.

Comments

Explanation

1. Some terms are not explained at the beginning (in the middle), for example, OZU, OFU, and OZK, making it difficult for the reader.

The terms have been already explained in the text (e.g. in the Materials and Methods section). However, a supplementary explanation have been added in the data characteristic table.

2. Algorithm should contain steps that can produce the desired output while considering the possibility of unexpected conditions or errors in the input. It seems necessary to use a more appropriate term other than "algorithm".

The steps of the problem solution, including all the data processing phases, have been detailed in the Material and Methods section and developed at the stage of the tool development. The preliminary verification of the data correctness or providing a special procedure in a case of an error is not an essential part of an algorithm. According to this, the authors consider the proposed solution consistent with the "algorithm" definition.

3. Detailed explanation is needed about the version of QGIS, as well as other applications such as EWMAPA, SCALENIA, etc., whether they are for general use or for internal/special applications.

The information about the versions of the programs have been added according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.

4. The reader needs to be convinced whether the proposed method works or not. There are no figures depicting the input data being processed, and no output data presented, making the article seem like a report without any illustrations. It may be necessary to provide a video link of the process if there are no figures to be shown.

The detailed characteristics of the tool evaluation and the description of its results, illustrated by the numerous maps, have been added. The “Results” section has been improved and extended.

1. It's better to use map standards, such as latitude, longitude, etc.

The geographic coordinates would be necessary in a case of a typically cartographic elaboration, presenting the accurate location of an objects. According to this, the latitude and longitude have been added to Fig. 2.

The main purpose of the other maps presented in the article is providing an overall spatial context of the study area or to depict the results of the data processing. These types of data presentation does not seem to require a detailed information about the coordinates. Moreover, providing additional these elements on the maps might make them less clear, covering the essential information.

2. The article states that the traditional manual processing of land surveying and cartographic data is time-consuming and laborious. However, after implementing the proposed solution, the processing time is significantly reduced. The exact amount of time saved is not specified in the article.

The information about the generalized duration of a manually performed process have been added to enable a brief comparison between the manual method and the automatized one. However, it is hard to determine an exact amount of time saved as it depends on the area and other characteristics of the study object. The fact is that the automatic data processing takes only a few seconds whereas the manual operation may take more than a day of work.

3. Is Fig 5 a default feature of QGIS or was it created separately?

The interface of the calculation module is displayed as a QGIS processing algorithm. There was no necessity to create an own interface like e.g. in a case of some kinds of plugins. The necessary information has been added in the “Results” section.

Comments

Explanation

Line 359: There is a mistake in the title “ 3 Results and discussion”. “3 Results and discussion” should be changed to “3 Results”.

The faulty title has been corrected.

Comments

Explanation

I still have no real idea what your "algorithim" looks like, although this might just be an issue of language - like your use of the word "contour" where I might use category.

Maybe the issue origins in the interpretation of the “algorithm” definition. We meant the “documented series of steps which leads to the transformation of some data” (Oxford Reference; https://www.oxfordreference.com
/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095402315;
jsessionid=BE3DF43531CE8750303B148219FB0518). In our opinion, the authors’ procedure, described generally on the flowchart and detailed in the methodological section meets this definition.

Figure 9 should be the same area as that shown in figures 6, 7 and 8.

The figure has been replaced according to the suggestion.

The meaning of the labels Lzr, Ls, R etc should be earlier in the manuscript.

The meanings of these and other designations have been explained above the relevant figures.

Your argument that you can't show ownership because it is scattered, is one of the strongest reasons, if not the strongest, for why you need land consolidation. I would try and indicate how this scatter of disjoint patches makes up a holding for one or two "typical" land holders.

The proposed analysis may be useful for another research, focused e.g. on the analysis of the land fragmentation for an assessing the land consolidation needs or evaluating the works. However, this research aims to provide a technical solution, concerning the issue of processing the objects of land use and soil class patches (contours). Due to this, an additional analysis, showing the distribution of the patches for exemplary holdings, would complicate the research report. Moreover, the land use patches, like e.g. “built-up areas” in typical Polish villages are rather tiny. Thus, a clear visualization would require creating detailed maps, unable to be published in the main text of the article.