Approaches towards Land Valuation and Land Pricing under the Influence of Geo-Climate Change

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This research compares the development of the prices of individual ESEU 10 codes in the Czech Republic, using an econometric model for the period of 1997 to the present day 11 ( individual decrees from 1997, 2002 and 2008 are used, as well as current ESEU 12 price decrees from 2013 – Decree no. 441/2013 Coll.).  This research is quite interesting. However, there seems to be some unexplained contents in the research.

1.The price of land is not only related to the quality of the land itself, but may also be related to factors such as the location of the land and the types of crops planted. Are these factors the more important influencing factors?

2. It is recommended to propose a theoretical framework to help readers better understand the structure of the article.

3.It is recommended to propose a theoretical analysis framework to help readers better understand the structure of the article. Now these three research questions do not reflect what the author wants to explain or answer. RQ not RO, Line 155 & 168

4. It is recommended to use two-level headings and three-level headings, so that readers can better understand the logic of the research.

5. It is recommended to add the distribution map of land prices. The article should explain the differences in land prices in more depth based on different regions.

6. add the part of Discussion 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Review

1. The description in the annotation is given away from the topic, the results are described to a large extent in a general interpretation, authors should make an accent on the land. While using an abbreviation, authors should first give its decryption. In the introduction author use ESEU (eco-economic units), the decoding of which is given for the first time only in line 119 of the article.
2. Relevance is written about the loss of high-quality agricultural land, but the article is related to the assessment of the dynamics changes in the price of land and the definition of shadow prices ESEU. It is necessary to reveal the relevance of the topic from this very position. In addition, the world research on the topic has not been sufficiently studied, the relevance, among other things, should be confirmed by this too. The introduction does not contain the names of the authors who is researching with this topic.
3. The structure of the article is broken. Conclusions in essence contain results that repeat the objectives of the study.
4. Lines 46-50: Authors should be clear about the concepts of value and price. It is not accessibly in the article what exactly they mean: the value or the price of the land, but these are fundamentally different concepts. The price is formed on the market depends on supply and demand, and the authors write about it as obtained by calculation using approaches and valuation systems, and in this case we are talking definitely about the value of land.
5. Due to the misunderstanding of the differences between the concepts of price and value, the authors further use in lines 64-65 (approach to determining land price) the concept of “price” in the context of value. In some cases, the authors write specifically about the price, and in some about the value, so they should understand the terminology throughout the text of the entire article.
6. The text contains repetitions of whole paragraphs, they should be excluded by checking the entire article. For example, lines 170-173 are a complete repetition of lines 111-115:

The quality of the agricultural land fund in the Czech Republic is assessed via a valuation system based on the rating of ecologically productive land. This system was intro-171 duced in the years 1960 - 1980, after a comprehensive survey of agricultural soil. This 172 survey provided comprehensive information on the quality of agricultural land, and the 173 price of agricultural land plots derived from their production capacity.

7. Materials and methods: the methods should be described in more detail to be able to reproduce the results of the manuscript, therefore all details should be presented in stages, including obtaining models. The author at lines 348-349 states that the methodology for creating and including variables in the model is described in the Materials and Methods section, which is not done in detail.
8. There is no reference to table 3.
9. It is not clear what the first research goal gives for science and practice. There is no scientific novelty or the authors were unable to show it in its proper way.
10. The description of the dynamics changes in land prices, analyzed using descriptive statistics, is perceived very difficult due to the a large number of the dynamics for each climatic region (takes 2 pages of text). It is worth to give generalized conclusions on the dynamics, maybe in the form of a table. In addition, it is not indicated for what purposes this analysis was carried out and how it is used in the future.
11. Based on the results of the second goal, the check of factors for multicollinearity is not presented, why exactly those linear models are being built.
12. Econometric models were created only for individual valuation decrees despite the detailed analysis of typical land price changes using conventional descriptive statistics.
13. Prices are influenced by all factors together (climate regions, slope, exposition and others), therefore, it is necessary to build a multivariate model in the study that takes into account their joint influence with determining the degree of such influence. The authors receive a large number of models, each time taking into account only 1 factor (climate region) with different values ​​(for example, warm, dry; warm, slightly dry and so on). Due to that fact arises the question of how the influence of other factors (land slope and exposition; oil profile depth and skeletality.) Was excluded on the same prices.

14. There is no analysis of the obtained models quality indicators. For example, a model is considered as qualitative if the residuals of the model are not correlated with each other. Residue analysis is not presented.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors, you started a very good job; however I have some recommendations for its improvement:

lines 47-50 – ... Globally,  various methodological approaches and valuation systems are used .......please  give some examples by citations

line 57: .... see for example [5].......please provide more examples

line 131: ... The aim of the presented article is to analyse the development.....please rewrite this aim and specify the aim more detailed in this sentence; the aim cannot be analysis; it is a method, not aim

line 131 and the next ones – the aim of the paper is not clear formulated

lines 147 – 150: .... One of the aims of this article is to analyse the development of individual ESEU prices 147 on the basis of the applicable decrees for the period of 1997 – 2002 (being Decree no. 148 151/1997 Coll., Decree no. 540/2002 Coll., Decree no. 3/2008 Coll. and Decree no. 441/2013 149 Coll.)........it is obsolete, the aim was mentioned above

lines 153-156 – please explain the shortcuts RQ

line 157 and next – the sentence about aim is obsolete, the aim is mentioned in the first chapter.

Chapter Material and Methods should be rewrite. It is confused what data and how were analysed in which time period.

lines 244-250 – it should be mentioned in the literature overview

lines 256 – Table 2 – it would be more helpful for readers to calculate the prices also in EUR or USD

Figure 1 is very interesting but for readers would be helpful also the charter of the Czech Republic with the particular climate regions

Chapter Results should be divided into subchapters according to the particular aims to be more comprehensive for readers

lines 354 ..... he indicator R2.....??????

Discussion is missing. To compare the relevant results there should be used more literature sources.

Conclusions should also answer these questions:

• Why is this study unique?
• What are the shortcomings and uncertainties of this study?
• What did we scientific/research community learn out of it?
• Benefits for policymakers?
• Benefits for stakeholders?
• Future work?

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have responsed to my comments.  

• It is suggested to make a more specific description of the innovative significance of the research.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see my former comments about the section of abstract and conclusion. These two parts need to be improved. And please carefully check the references, the journal name in some of them are forms of abbreviation and some are not, for example, line 1105-1106.  

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

-

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx