Greenspaces and Human Well-Being: Perspectives from a Rapidly Urbanising Low-Income Country

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript by Nawrath et al is a very interesting study looking at the effect of greenspaces on human well-being in a low or middle income country, namely Nepal. As stated by the authors, most such studies have been conducted in rich countries but the relationship between greenspaces and human mental health and well-being may be different in poorer countries. This makes this study a welcome addition to the literature.

The English is mostly good. I have only a few comments and criticisms which the authors should easily correct.

11.       The numbering of the sub-sections in the Methods is incorrect. Survey should be 2.3 and Statistical analyses should be 2.4. Also, why is sampling design put at the end of the Methods? It seems to me that it would be better placed after sub-section 2.2 (Sample population). In addition, some of the information in the last paragraph of the Sampling design sub-section repeats information given at the end of the Sample population sub-section.

22.       The Results section could and should be much more concisely written. As of now, the authors just repeat how particular factors are related to the various parameters. This is really boring, especially since several factors have the same relationship to various parameters, such as distance to greenspace, experiencing greenspaces at different ages etc. The whole Results section could be half the length and still provide the same information. It may also be more enjoyable to read.

33.       Reference 25 (Lovell and Maxwell) seems to be incomplete.

Again, these are really the only complaints that I have with the paper. These should be easily correctable. Therefore, I recommend minor revisions.

Author Response

We are grateful for the clear and constructive comments on our manuscript, which we have revised accordingly. Please find below details of how each of the comments was addressed.

Comment: The numbering of the sub-sections in the Methods is incorrect. Survey should be 2.3 and Statistical analyses should be 2.4. Also, why is sampling design put at the end of the Methods? It seems to me that it would be better placed after sub-section 2.2 (Sample population). In addition, some of the information in the last paragraph of the Sampling design sub-section repeats information given at the end of the Sample population sub-section. 

Response: We corrected the numbering of the subsections and moved the subsection on sample design to be placed after the subsection on sample population, and we removed the repetition in the sampling design and sample population sections.

Comment: The Results section could and should be much more concisely written. As of now, the authors just repeat how particular factors are related to the various parameters. This is really boring, especially since several factors have the same relationship to various parameters, such as distance to greenspace, experiencing greenspaces at different ages etc. The whole Results section could be half the length and still provide the same information. It may also be more enjoyable to read.

Response: We revised the results section to be more concise. In particular, we restructured the entire section to improve readability, and we moved table S6 from the supplementary materials (now Table 2) to the results section to provide an overview of all findings.

Comment: Reference 25 (Lovell and Maxwell) seems to be incomplete.

Response: We corrected the incomplete reference (Lovell and Maxwell).

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting and timely article exploring how green spaces affect human well-being in the low-income city of Kathmandu in Nepal. There is a distinct bias in this research area to assessing the effects of biodiversity in affluent areas. The paper by Nawrath et al. attempts to address this disparity with a very comprehensive survey.

Overall, the paper is well written and was a pleasure to read. I couldn’t help but feel that some editing could perhaps help to shorten the lengthy Introduction; the authors might look to editing the Introduction in this context. I found no flaws in the data collection or analyses and only have a few minor comments below for the authors to address.

Lines 113 to 114: This would read better as ‘To understand links between green space and well-being…’.

Line 143: Best not to start a sentence with a number, either spell out the number or re-arrange the sentence.

Line 245: If you’ve recognized that there is the likelihood of increasing Type I errors, then best to use a correction factor (e.g. Bonferroni correction for multiple testing where appropriate).

Results: There’s no need for the asterisks after the P values, the P values speak for themselves.

Author Response

We are grateful for the clear and constructive comments on our manuscript, which we have revised accordingly. Please find below details of how each of the comments was addressed.

Comment: Overall, the paper is well written and was a pleasure to read. I couldn’t help but feel that some editing could perhaps help to shorten the lengthy Introduction; the authors might look to editing the Introduction in this context. I found no flaws in the data collection or analyses and only have a few minor comments below for the authors to address.

Response: We revised the introduction to be more concise. In particular, we shortened the fourth and fifth paragraphs on the mental health and well-being benefits of greenspaces.

Comment: Lines 113 to 114: This would read better as ‘To understand links between green space and well-being…’.

Response: Line 113 to 114 (now line 93): We revised the sentence accordingly. It now reads "To understand links between greenspaces and well-being across different sectors of society in Nepal..."

Comment: Line 143: Best not to start a sentence with a number, either spell out the number or re-arrange the sentence.

Response: Line 143 (now line 118-119): We revised the sentence to avoid starting with a number. It now reads "Around 23% of Nepal’s population is affected by anxiety, and around 12% by depression".

Comment: Line 245: If you’ve recognized that there is the likelihood of increasing Type I errors, then best to use a correction factor (e.g. Bonferroni correction for multiple testing where appropriate).

Response: We in fact used Bonferroni correction for post-hoc comparisons between multiple groups. We added the following sentence to the "statistical analyses" section (line 221-222): "We used Bonferroni correction for post-hoc tests to adjust for multiple comparisons." Further, we removed the sentence "Since we carried out multiple tests, the change for Type I errors may be increased."

Comment: Results: There’s no need for the asterisks after the P values, the P values speak for themselves.

Response: We removed the asterisk after the p-values in the results section.