Participatory GIS-Based Approach for the Demarcation of Village Boundaries and Their Utility: A Case Study of the Eastern Boundary of Wilpattu National Park, Sri Lanka

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript provides well-structured and interesting information concerning a project on demarcation of village boundaries in Sri Lanka. The only, but essential problem is that authors ignore the existence of Sri Lanka Survey Department and its maps, including the Grama Niladari Boundary Map. For example, https://it.survey.gov.lk/gn_updating/ provides a map in scale 1:1.128, showing the boundary between Helambawewa1 and Dunumadalawa1, both MAHAWILACHCHIYA, ANURADHAPURA, NORTH CENTRAL, to worldwide users of the Internet.

The manuscript presents the Sri Lanka mapping situation, as if no mapping of village boundaries existed, claiming that 'GN division is the smallest administrative boundary which has defined perimeters in Sri Lanka. ' This has to be substantially revised, and the mapping provided by the Survey Department should be presented in relevant detail.

However, the fact that village boundaries are already available for the general public and for the authors, in no way means that the project does not provide new and relevant information. Yet, authors need to inform the readers of the existing village boundary information, and why supplementary efforts were needed. For example, the title reads 'proper demarcation ..' without specifying what makes the project results 'proper'.

Authors inform that 'various methodologies are involved in land demarcation', but completely ignores the disciplines unfolded by Sri Lanka Survey Department. This has to be substantially improved. Moreover, it would be obvious to reflect on updating of mapping information of the Survey Department and/or otherwise increase communication between government agencies and planners and research departments.

Details

line 17-19: 'The lack of proper demarcation of these smallest community segments called “villages” has been identified as a significant issue in implementing community development plans and applications in government and non-government projects. ' - Where? By whom?
  - 64: 'GN division is the smallest administrative boundary which has defined perimeters in Sri Lanka. ' No source for this information is provided, and the term 'defined perimeter' is not defined. The evidence available at survey.gov.lk suggest that the statement constitutes a gross error.
  - 100: 'various methodologies are involved in land demarcation' - Authors completely ignores the disciplines of geodesy/land surveying, cartography/mapping, and cadastre/land administration, cf. http://cadastraltemplate.org/sri%20lanka.php
 - 137: 'Ehetuwagama' - survey.gov has Ehetuwewagama
 - 138: Halabawewa - survey.gov has Helambawewa
 - 179: 'the number of kidney-affected people,' - why include health-related information, when health is not adressed elsewhere?
 - 299: 'most of the time,' - = in most cases ?
 - 302-3: 'a natural boundary such as rivers, tanks,  .. , it will be a stable point that will exist for a long time' - Only in mountainous tracts, the location of rivers will be stable over time; in lowlands and estuaries, the location of the river centerline mostly will fluctuate. Moreover , a 'tank', eg the Minneriya Tank, is man-made.
 - 317-8: 'facilitating community education on spatial planning and geo-spatial technologies, which will be a positive enabler for community empowerment and development. ' Community education could well be extended to include the activities of relevant governmental agencies, including the Sri Lanka Survey Department 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Attached please see my comments and questions

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The proposed paper aims to explore the means of demarcation of land boundaries to separately identify small community segments using participatory GIS (PGIS) techniques.

The paper is structured adequately. Good literature and data covering panel are provided. The methodology is clearly described.

In my opinion, the strength of the work done so far is the proposed reference framework and the methodological approach; they are both quite good. The weakness is that the results presented are not clear, and unless the reader knows the context, they are not easy to understand (meaning that it is not simple to recognize if the research questions have been met).

Besides, the caption of figure 4 is too long; in such a case, it should be reduced in length by embedding the description into the text. A check of figures numbering is also required;

Finally, the English grammar check is warmly suggested as well as an improvement of style to make reading more fluent and interesting (e.g., some words’ redundancies could be avoided).

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The article is a case study of the use of participatory GIS. The authors do not present any new methods in the area of ​​PPGIS, as well as GIS science in general. Perhaps the article will be more interesting to readers in the area of spatial ​​planning than geoinformatics. Perhaps "Sustainability" will be more relevant to this topic.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the dialogue.

An editing issue: Assuming that we agree, that a tank is man-made, the text 'demarcation boundaries existed on man-made boundaries such as roads, forests and farmlands as well as natural boundaries such as rivers, tanks and mountains as well.'

could probably be improved to something like

'demarcation boundaries existed on man-made boundaries such as roads, tanks, forests and farmlands as well as natural boundaries such as rivers and mountains.' cf Point 10

Author Response

Please find the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

All my concerns have been addressed.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx