Perceived Climate Change Impacts on Food Security in Coastal Communities of Puerto Princesa City, Philippines

Review
The manuscript presents a clear, relevant, and well-structured analysis of perceived climate change impacts on food security among coastal communities in Puerto Princesa City. The integration of community perceptions with the four pillars of food security is a key strength, as is the use of established conceptual frameworks. The study is policy-relevant and particularly valuable for climate-vulnerable coastal regions in lower-middle-income countries. The manuscript would benefit from minor to moderate revisions aimed at improving clarity, consistency, and transparency in reporting.

Major Comments
Consistency in Results Reporting
Please address the inconsistency in the reported mean value for the “volume of dominant catch,” which appears positive in the text but negative in Table 2. This discrepancy should be corrected for internal consistency.
Clarification of Measurement Scales
The description of the “21-point question” used to assess food security perceptions is unclear. Please clarify whether this refers to the number of items or the response scale. Additionally, the explanation of the bipolar Likert scale could be streamlined to avoid repetition.
Regression Model Transparency
While regression coefficients and significance levels are clearly reported, the manuscript would benefit from including basic model fit statistics (e.g., R² or adjusted R²). A brief statement confirming that key regression assumptions were tested (e.g., multicollinearity, normality, homoscedasticity) is recommended.
Geographic Claims
Statements comparing food security conditions across the east and west coasts of Puerto Princesa City should either be supported by disaggregated analysis or removed to avoid overgeneralization.

Minor Comments

Please correct typographical and formatting issues (e.g., extra spaces, inconsistent minus signs, informal terms such as “handful”).

Some statements imply causality despite the perception-based nature of the data; using terms such as “perceived,” “reported,” or “associated with” would improve accuracy.

The Results section could be more concise by reducing repetition of values already presented in tables.

Ethical considerations should be clarified, particularly regarding participant informed consent and institutional ethics approval.

Note:
This review refers to round 1 of peer review.

Review
1. Relevance:
The article “Perceived Climate Change Impacts on Food Security in Coastal Communities of Puerto Princesa City, Philippines” is highly relevant to the journal’s aims and scope.
Specifically:
1. Environmental processes and characteristics: The study examines sea level rise, rainfall, waves, SST, and coastal change, which are directly aligned with environmental processes and hazards.
2. Environment–health–wellbeing interactions: The paper clearly links climate impacts to food security, nutrition, and health.
3. Policies, mechanisms, and responses to global challenges: The paper addresses Climate Change and SDG-related themes.

Conclusion: Generally, the article fits the journal very well. It addresses global challenges, coastal vulnerability, climate impacts, and food security—all central to UCL Open Environment.

2. Original Contribution and Novelty
Strengths
1. The paper addresses a knowledge gap: perception-based, community-level climate–food-security relationships in a Philippine coastal setting. While there is literature on some areas in Southern Asia, this is paper is instrumental to the local conditions of the Philippines
2. It provides empirical evidence linking perceived SLR and warming SST to reductions in availability, access, utilisation, and stability of food.
3. The focus on poor LMIC coastal communities makes this contribution globally relevant, especially for climate justice discussions.
Novelty
1. Very few studies have separately investigated the combined perceived climate hazards of all four pillars of food security metrics analysis, especially in the context of the Philippines.
The article, therefore, provides a genuine original contribution through a rigorous approach.

3. Engagement With Recent Scholarship

The authors have referred to important literature, including the IPCC reports, Climate change consensus literature, Food security scholarship, but other sources could give more clarity to the results and inform scholarly discussion

Recommendations: Strengthen connection to recent LMIC-focused climate resilience literature (e.g., 2021–2024 papers on coastal vulnerability in Southeast Asia).

4. Strengths and Suggestions for Improvement
Strengths
1. Clear narrative linking climate change, marine ecosystems, and food security.
2. Strong use of mixed methods (descriptive + regression).
3. Well-structured results section with tables and figures aiding interpretation.
4. Policy implications grounded in real community experiences.
5. Excellent integration of local ecological knowledge and global climate science.

Suggestions for Improvement
1. Clarify operational definitions. Eg define explicitly how “perceived” climate changes were conceptualized vs. physical measurements.
2. Provide a brief justification for treating Likert items as continuous in regression (although you have cited some literature).
3. Improve and clarify methodological details Eg. Add sample size rationale and margin-of-error estimates. Did you use " 313 participants living within 0-200 m" or " 313 coastal households" and what informed that?
4. State your results clearly, employing descriptives used in the figures and tables. Eg. statements such as "most (83%) participants along with another 12% that agreed to the phenomenon" are not very clear. Also, some interpretations drift into speculation. Anchor explanations more tightly to data unless citing external evidence. Eg "Another notable finding this analysis showed was that female and those aged 50 to 59 years old members
of the community may see utilization, or the health condition ..."
5 Provide more detail on variable construction (e.g., how the four food security pillar scores were aggregated).
6. Strengthen causal caution. Emphasize that results show associations, not causal mechanisms.
7. Figures: Improve legibility of figures (larger fonts, clearer labels) and consider adding confidence intervals or distributions where relevant.
8. Editing for brevity and clarity: Several sections (especially Discussion) repeat concepts and could be more concise.

Note:
This review refers to round 1 of peer review.