PONE-D-21-17612A sixfold urban design framework to assess climate resilience: generative transformation in Negril, JamaicaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dhar,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 15 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Dr. Md Nazirul Islam Sarker

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. During our internal checks, the in-house editorial staff noted that you conducted research or obtained samples in another country. Please check the relevant national regulations and laws applying to foreign researchers and state whether you obtained the required permits and approvals. Please address this in your ethics statement in both the manuscript and submission information."

VCR(EO)28May 21: Please at PRTC send back to Author (for confirmation of approval)  as follows:

"Thank you for including your ethics statement:  "Office of Research Ethics, The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

Approval: ORE # 20830

The data were analyzed anonymously".   

Please amend your current ethics statement to confirm that your named institutional review board or ethics committee specifically approved this study. 

Once you have amended this/these statement(s) in the Methods section of the manuscript, please add the same text to the “Ethics Statement” field of the submission form (via “Edit Submission”).

For additional information about PLOS ONE ethical requirements for human subjects research, please refer to http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-human-subjects-research.

3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "This work was supported by the Partnership for Canada-Caribbean Climate Change Adaptation (ParCA) (http://parca.uwaterloo.ca/). The grant number is:  106372-006"

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. 

Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: "This work was supported by the Partnership for Canada-Caribbean Climate Change Adaptation (ParCA) (http://parca.uwaterloo.ca/). The grant number is 106372-006. In addition, we acknowledge the logistics and supports provided by several organizations in Jamaica, including NEPA, NEPT, and CaribSave. Specially thanks go to Ms. Jacqueline daCosta, the former president of the Commonwealth Association of Planners and the Jamaica Institute of Planners. Our deepest gratitude goes to all individuals across Jamaica, participated in the different forms of the field survey"

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "This work was supported by the Partnership for Canada-Caribbean Climate Change Adaptation (ParCA) (http://parca.uwaterloo.ca/). The grant number is:  106372-006"

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

5. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability.

Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access.

We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter.

6. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ

7. Please ensure that you include a title page within your main document. We do appreciate that you have a title page document uploaded as a separate file, however, as per our author guidelines (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-title-page) we do require this to be part of the manuscript file itself and not uploaded separately.

Could you therefore please include the title page into the beginning of your manuscript file itself, listing all authors and affiliations.

8. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. 

9. We note that Figure 2 in your submission contain map images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission:

a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure 2 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license.  

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an "Other" file with your submission.

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

b. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful:

USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html

NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

10. Please upload a new copy of Figure 2 as the detail is not clear. Please follow the link for more information: https://blogs.plos.org/plos/2019/06/looking-good-tips-for-creating-your-plos-figures-graphics/" https://blogs.plos.org/plos/2019/06/looking-good-tips-for-creating-your-plos-figures-graphics/

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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: General feedback:

The topic is very interesting and timely and developing methods for assessing resilience to climate change is much needed. However, I am recommending major revisions as there are several major aspects of the paper that need revision. My first major comment is that the writing style can be clunky and difficult to follow at times. For example, the author(s) use long paragraphs, long sentences, commas, and semi colons, instead of shorter paragraphs and sentences to break apart separate concepts and ideas. I suggest the authors thoroughly read through and revise the manuscript to address this issue and also try to be more concise throughout. Second, for readers without an urban design or planning background, the author(s) need to better define and explain some of the terminology. This manuscript should be more accessible to a general audience. Third, in the introduction and background sections, as well as the discussion section, the writing is very much kept at the theoretical level. I think it would be improved if specific examples, contexts, and case studies were integrated into these sections. It would make the ideas and arguments more concrete. As well as compare the Jamaica case with other similar cases. Fourth, the entire manuscript should be revised to be more concise and direct. At times the text strays or appears rambling instead of staying on point and being direct. Lastly, I suggest that the author(s) make an integrate to better integrate the various sources of data. In the results section, they mostly present the interview data, and while that it interested, it would be nicely complemented by some of the secondary data including maps.

Specific comments:

Abstract

• The use of the term ‘urban form’ is awkward in the abstract without any explanation or description

Introduction

• First paragraph, page 2 – this paragraph is long and describes multiple concepts. Try to break up the paragraph into digestible chunks. For example, start a new paragraph when the author(s) start explaining adaptation.

• Pg 4 – the paper objectives need to be more clearly stated. Perhaps by breaking up the objectives into an overarching objective or research question followed by sub-questions. Do not bury this within a longer paragraph, make it stand out to highlight them. As of now they are spread throughout two paragraphs and not concisely stated.

• Please define Urban morphology more clearly for those who are unfamiliar.

• In general, I would shorten this section and put much of this text into the following theoretical background sections. The introduction could then be reduced to a short opening paragraph that states the problem, a second short paragraph highlighting research gaps, and then a third short paragraph that clearly and concisely stats the paper/project objectives. Then the background can be provided in the next sections.

Contemporary discourses on urban resilience

• It is important to consider how resilience varies from adaptive capacity. They are often used interchangeably – so how do they differ when it comes to urban environments?

2.1 Urban form’s resilience and its measures

• A discussion of psychological resilience could be incorporated here when discusses Vale’s definition of urban resilience. While it developed separately from social-ecological resilience, there are certainly useful overlaps.

• Please define “urban form”

• Figure 1 is great – please refer to it more directly in the text.

• For each of the components in Figure 1 - please provide not only the theoretical explanations, but more concrete, real-world examples.

2.2 A framework for Urban morphological resilience

• Figure 1 does not belong here. It belongs in the previous section where it is explained and mentioned first. The same is true in Table 1. I suggest moving it earlier.

• Table 1 could also use some reformatting. Try to make the columns with a lot of text wider.

• This section is generally not needed. I would add it to the section above.

Case Study and Methods

3.1 Geographic focus

• Statistics about the impacts would be helpful, such as measured and/or projected sea level rise/

• There are virtually no references in this section, please do cite sources.

• There is also no explanation for why this area is a good place to implement the proposed framework.

3.2 Data sources

• Subtitle 3.2.2 is not formatted correctly

• I would suggest moving 3.2.3 Study limitations to the end of the methods section. That is where it is most typically found

3.3 Data management and analysis

4. Measuring Long Bay’s resilience

• I am not sure the term ‘measuring’ is accurate. The following discussions do not make judgement statements or overall measurements, instead they discuss various aspects that relate to resilience.

• The figures are helpful, but hard to interpret at times

• It also might be useful to more successfully integrate the secondary data and GIS data. Showing maps of current infrastructure systems would be helpful and nicely complement the quotes.

5. Discussion and conclusions

• I suggest moving the quote that opens up Section 5 to the very beginning of the entire manuscript as it helps situate the research.

• The first paragraph is just one long run-on sentence. Please do revise. Also a figure that summarizes the main findings would be incredibly helpful.

• The author(s) could more closely tie the discussion/conclusions back to the topics discussed in the introduction.

• The authors should compare their findings to similar studies in other geographical areas.

• Figure 8 belongs in the results section since it is a result.

Reviewer #2: The paper is focused in a very important issue as climate resilience is. The author proposes a framework for asses this climate resilience based, essentially, on urban design. Although the six points discussed in the framework are important, I think that, obviously, they are not enough to face all the problems related to climate change. For this reason, I think that a clearer discussion about the scope will be welcomed.

The literature review is wide but as the paper is mixing different areas, the final position remains unclear. In other words, is there other frameworks for assessing climate resilience? Could be better to focus on frameworks or in urban design?. I would appreciate a discussion on specific issue of the paper more than a general discussion on general models. In my case, the final idea of the discussion remains unclear. As the author said, I was expecting to limit the intersection between urban design and resilience, and to give specific actions for being done.

In fact, the sixfold framework comes from six urban design concepts, but it is not enough discussed if is the main paper contribution. The emergence of the six concepts should be better explained and to specify why these six concepts.

Having frameworks helps to give order to assessing methods but, in general, the application of indicators and measures is the path. In this case, the author present indicators and variables but it is not possible to apply them to case study.

Perhaps, storytelling needs to be rethought and strengthening the links between the framework and the application. In any case, the work done with all the interviews is very valuable and should be appreciated by the politicians and public servants of the case study.

I was expecting new ideas and new ways to adapt to climate change in the case of increasing sea-level and it was not the case. In fact, economic and political barriers appear, as it is usual.

Results are very interesting for decision-making but the author is proposing actions that should be part of a resilience plan.

For this reason, I consider that although the paper is interesting, it is unsuitable for publication in its present form. Nevertheless, the study shows sufficient potential to encourage the author to resubmit a revised version focusing on the main contribution to the academic community. In other case, the paper is nearer to a policy practice than an academic paper.

Reviewer #3: The authors are presenting an interesting work; however, the current version of the manuscript has many flaws. Introduction (section 1) and Literature Review (section 2) are unnecessarily long. These sections need to be combined and reduced. Especially the concepts explained in the section 2 need to be summarized and reduced. No need to explain in detail when they have a summary table (Table 1) which presents the same information. I prefer to rename the section 3 as Materials and Methods, and it need to be section 2. Section 4 should be Results and Discussion and need to be changed to section 3. I also wonder why they do not have a standalone conclusion section. Therefore, I recommend major revisions to this paper so that the authors can have an opportunity to greatly improve their work that can be useful and readable.

**********

6. 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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-17612Review1.docx

PONE-D-21-17612R1A sixfold urban design framework to assess climate resilience: generative transformation in Negril, JamaicaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dhar,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 04 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Md Nazirul Islam Sarker

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The author is advised to address all comments point-by-point.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: 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: Thank you for the thorough revision. This paper is much improved from the original draft. However, I still find that the Results and Discussion section needs major revisions. See my more detailed comments below.

• The clean version has some awkward spacing and punctuation – likely from the track changes revisions. Please do review the clean version to edit these small mistakes.

• Introduction – The first quote and paragraph are not well linked with the second paragraph. Try to write a transition sentence or something that links the two. Overall, the introduction is much improved. It is concise and well cited.

• Contemporary discourses on urban resilience – This section is also much improved. It is well organized, and provides a thorough definition of each concept.

• Methods – Clear and concise

• Results and Discussion – This section is still lacking much of a ‘discussion’. It serves mostly to summarize the results, but does not place it into the larger context nor compare results with other research. There are very few citations. Additionally, there is no overarching section where the author(s) directly speak to how the results answer their research questions. This is important to include. It is also important to generalize these results. How could this framework be used and applied elsewhere? How do the results compare with other similar studies? This type of discussion is lacking, and this section is mostly a results section.

• Conclusion – some of this could be moved to the results and discussion section as the overall summary of the results. I do like how the authors have organized the last paragraph by the theoretical, empirical and practice-wise contributions – but I would recommend breaking up each of these into its own stand alone paragraph. That would help each contribution stand out.

Reviewer #2: It is more a theoretical article than an applied one. For this reason, the data doesn't support all conclusions.

It is not so nice for reading , in some parts you need two read twice or three times for understanding the sense of the content.

The article has improved but section 2 needs to better clarify what is the final goal. It is difficult to understand for people that is not coming from urban side. Storytelling is not well designed and some gaps remain in this section.

The title of 2.1 is not linked to the text, I’m not able to find measures of urban form’s resilience. In fact, in table 1 you are using “concepts” word and no measures. Title is not corresponding to the content of this point. In case you are using measures devoted to ways of measurement, it is necessary to clarify because, for me, the word measures are measures for action to be taken by someone.

In page 10, you need to change 3.1 for 2.1 Geographic focus because it is under 2. Materials and Methods section.

Concerning 3.4 Study limitations and advantages, my point is it is about data or about the study. In this case, you need to move the section to the end.

Results seems to derive of the framework application but it remains confusing. It could be better to stress this link in order to give more sense to the proposed framework.

I’m not used to include new references in conclusions. The discussion has been made previously.

Reviewer #3: I thank the authors for substantially improving their manuscript adhering to the reviewers’ comments. However, I suggest authors to go through the entire manuscript and check for typos and minor spell/grammar mistakes. It is also better to double check all the citations and references. In some places, fonts were different as well. Title of the section 4 needs to be just Results and Discussion and the rest in the title can be removed. Conclusion section is very long. I would suggest removing the citations and referencing to the previous work in the conclusions so they can cut it down to 2-3 paragraphs. Conclusions should highlight the key findings of the study with limitations and recommendations for future work. Therefore, I recommend minor revisions to this paper.

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

<quillbot-extension-portal></quillbot-extension-portal>

PONE-D-21-17612R2A sixfold urban design framework to assess climate resilience: generative transformation in Negril, JamaicaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Dhar,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 01 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Dr. Md Nazirul Islam Sarker

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

The author is advised to address the further comments of the reviewer 1 point-by-point.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: 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 not addressed all of my revisions and concerns. They did not respond to the following and important suggestion from the last round of revisions:

"Results and Discussion – This section is still lacking much of a ‘discussion’. It serves mostly to summarize the results, but does not place it into the larger context nor compare results with other research. There are very few citations. Additionally, there is no overarching section where the author(s) directly speak to how the results answer their research questions. This is important to include. It is also important to generalize these results. How could this framework be used and applied elsewhere? How do the results compare with other similar studies? This type of discussion is lacking, and this section is mostly a results section."

They did add one section, but the rest of the section was not revised according to my suggestions.

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #3: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

A sixfold urban design framework to assess climate resilience: generative transformation in Negril, Jamaica

PONE-D-21-17612R3

Dear Dr. Dhar,

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.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Md Nazirul Islam Sarker, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Congratulations! I sincerely appreciate your patience and hard work in addressing the extensive queries of the editor and three reviewers. Kindly stay in touch with the production team for the remaining publication process.

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

**********

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

**********

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: Thank you for the thoughtful response. You have thoroughly addressed my feedback.

**********

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

**********