PONE-D-20-11207

Economic Valuation of Natural Promenades in Iran Using Zonal Travel Costs Method (Case study area: Gahar Lake in Lorestan Province)

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This is an original research article, which highlights the economic valuation of natural promenades in Iran using zonal travel costs method (case study area: Gahar lake in Lorestan province). The topic is one of great interest because, at the global level, the natural promenades are an activity that increases relaxation. As human populations have grown and diversified, the demands for natural promenades have changed and increased. However, natural and financial re­sources are limited for natural promenades. Therefore, it is required to estimate the economic benefit of recreational sites for optimum allocation of scarce resources.

In the present research, 380 questionnaires were distributed among tourists via simple random sampling in tourist seasons, taking into consideration several social-economic variables of the visitors. Based on calculations, the results showed high value and importance of the zone.

The article can be accepted for publication with minor revision:

1. It would be necessary to mention the year in which this study was conducted.

2. The authors are not consistent, in some parts of the article it is used as currency Toomans (eg line 23 and 24; line 253, line 275), then Rials (eg line 200 and 201). This is confusing, it is recommended to use a single type of currency, preferably of international circulation, for example, euro or dollar.

3. The authors should use a separator (comma or point) for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions (currencies, people, hectares) (eg line 24, 71, 200, 201, line 179,180, 181, and line 103).

4. It would be appropriate to mention in the article what method it was used to determine the sample size (380 questionnaires) (eg The Cochran function).

5. The same results are presented in Table 1 and Figure 3, the authors are advised to choose a single form to present these results.

6. In Table 2 and lines 217, 218, and 219, the authors are not consistent (eg Monthly earnings= income; monthly income level). It is recommended to use a single type of description of variables.

7. It is recommended to use the dot instead of the backslash in table 2 (as Equation 2 continues with a dot).

8. It is recommended to complete the sentence from line 279.

9. The conclusions are too general. Rewriting the conclusions part, by summarizing the obtained results.

10. It is recommended to improve English.

Reviewer #2: General comment:

This is case study of the analysis focusing Economic Valuation of Natural Promenades in Iran. The novelty of this research and research framework is unclear. To be publishable, the paper will need to be massive rewritten about following points.

216-219

This paragraph should be moved to the methods section. And this part was repeats the previous sentence 169-173. The author should rearrange and simplify.

158-159

Please indicate which 6 different education levels and which 7 income ranges were considered.

Table 1 and Figure 3 show the same thing. There is no need to keep both, one of them is enough.

253, 261-262, 266-269

For comparison purposes, please keep the same unit, the unit dollar used in introduction part.

283-284

Most visitors of Gahar lake come to the zone firstly as groups and secondly as families which can be a proof for the high security of this region. Why the larger number means much more safe? Other’s research? From your questionnaire items cannot give such conclusion.

The Results part was too simple, just list the result, just listed the results, lack of cause analysis, why such results appear? What is the point of such results.

Equation (2): VR=(-9.88-1.41TC+0.000751S+2.62I-249 3.12A+2.49E)

Why space is positive？？

in 213-214 white “the average trip cost also goes higher and the largest number of people who visit the site have less expense”. And in 285-286 white “There is a reverse relationship between the distance passed and the number of travels, so as the distance goes higher, the number of references decreases.” It is a deadly contradictions to the Equation (2) ！！

Language and presentation: The manuscript is extremely confusing to read both because of the quality of language but also because of how experimental setup and results are presented. Some sentence appears again and again.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: major revision.docx

Economic Valuation of Natural Promenades in Iran Using Zonal Travel Costs Method (Case study area: Gahar Lake in Lorestan Province in Western Iran)

PONE-D-20-11207R1

Dear Dr. Morovati,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have taken into account all the recommendations, and the article is significantly improved.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No