Grade Division and Benchmark Price of Forestlands Using Geospatial Technology: A Case Study of Southeastern China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an interesting paper that presents an assessment of the application of geospatial technology to determine grades and prices. I thought the paper was relatively well written and contains information that could be of interest and value to forest managers and economists. The paper provides significant detail in the methods and results which suggest that the study was effectively designed and implmented.
There was a signficant amount of confusion in the way the information was presented. There needs to be a general improvement in the use of the English language, emphasizing sentence structure, word choice, and clear and concise wording. I have included here a detailed list of edits that should help provide a more clear description of the work provided here. These comments are not comprehensive for the entire paper. It will require some careful review and revision to address issues with clear presentation. Please consider these comments as you work on the revision.
Page 1, Title: I don’t think you need to include Arcgis in the title. That is a brand name, and other software types will accomplish this. I also don’t know if its all that good to include brand names in scientific paper titles. You could state which software you used in the methods section. How about “Grade division and benchmark price of forestlands determined using geospatial technology: a case study of southeastern China”
Page 1, Line 8: I am not sure what you mean by material carrier of forest resources. You may want to modify this portion of the sentence to be more clear. Maybe you mean “Forestlands not only provide the conditions that support forested environments, but they also generate natural resources and ecosystem services that support human survival and social development.”
Page 1, Line 10: I think it would be ok to just say “forests” instead of “forestlands”. This sentence would sound just fine if it read “Using benchmark price to evaluate the economic value of forests is fast and efficient, which can function as an important tool for improved forest resources management.”
Page 1, Line 11: you don’t need the “the”. I would recommend “However, information remains limited on how to establish…”. You also state that its limited for China in this sentence. Would that apply elsewhere? Maybe you don’t state China yet, but use that as an example (which you state in the title).
Page 1, Line 12: it would be useful to insert a sentence here with a clear and concise objectives statement. What specifically is the purpose of this research? The next sentence is a methods description which should follow the objectives.
Page 1, Line 12-15: I suggest that you modify this sentence to “We conducted our study in Longquan County, Zhejiang Province, where we implemented a survey and collected data focused on forest resources planning. We classified forest resources in this area to establish a benchmark price using geographic information system (GIS) spatial analysis technology.”
Page 1, Line 12: it would be very helpful if the methods were more clear on how you link the survey with the classification. It would help interpret the results more effectively.
Page 1, Line 20: you need to write out what CNY represents at the first use. You can just abbreviate it after that. I am not sure what CNY means.
Page 1, Line 22: the results in #3 are not clear to me. Its important information for this paper, but this result is not easy to interpret as it is currently written.
Page 1, Line 35: I am not familiar with the term “material carrier”. Maybe define this first and then explain its importance in forest resource management.
Page 1, Line 37: I would state it as “…, but it also provides the main raw materials used in the manufacturing industry.”
Page 1, Line 39: Maybe you could say “Approximately 25% of the world’s population relies on forests for sustaining livelihoods, employment and food production. Additionally, forests are home to more than 80% of terrestrial biodiversity and they generate biomass that aids in reducing the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation.
Page 1, Line 41: consider stating “However, with the rapid development of a global social economy, …”
Page 2, Line 48-51: how about “However, since China's reform and opening in 1978, a vast area of forest lands have become urbanized and converted into farmland following the drastic increase in China's population. This rapid development of Chinas social economy has led to the sharp and alarming decline in forests and forest resources.”
Page 2, Line 54: change this to “…emphasizing the vital role that forests play in reducing impacts from climate change, …”
Page 2, Line 58: you use the units “hm2”. Is this hectares? If it is, I would just state “324 million ha“.
Page 2, Line 63: the wording “ecological environment” is not widely used. Its actually unnecessarily wordy. I would recommend “…, but also the direct degradation of forest ecosystems.”
Page 2, Line 71: its not clear what you mean by “improving climate change”. I think you should reword this so that it emphasizes the reduction of impacts from climate change, or reduces the atmospheric gasses that lead to climate change. To say improve climate change is not clear alone.
Page 2, Line 79: do you mean “better serve the practice of forest conservation and management”? Its not clear what you mean here.
Page 2, Line 79: reword this sentence to “Nonetheless, research that focuses on forest grading and evaluation is limited and would improve with a more thorough and detailed investigation.”
Page 3, Line 122: For this objectives statement paragraph, I would make sure its clear and that the purpose is effectively presented. I would recommend some wording changes such as “The purpose of this study was to generate survey data that we could use to evaluate forest resources planning practices and assessing the value of forest resources and forest benchmark prices through a combination of factor and geospatial analysis. We used ArcGIS and geospatial analysis to quantify the economic value of Longquan forestland resources assets, which were accounted for using a forestland benchmark price.” Something like this.
Page 4, Line 155: You may want to state “At present, Cunninghamia lanceolata (Chinese fir) forests have the greatest economic benefit to Longquan County because of their high quality wood. Cunninghamia lanceolata is subsequently is the most heavily harvested of all tree species growing in this region.”
Page 4, Line 162: change to “…comprehensive analysis of the sales price determined for the local and surrounding areas”.
Page 5, Line 206: I am not sure I would say that ArcGIS saves a lot of work. I would emphasize that these are effective and sophisticated tools and increase work and analysis efficiently, producing results that are rigorous and meaningful.
Page 5, Line 209: This sentence is not clearly written. I am not sure what its trying to say (term space unit). Please rewrite for clarity.
The methods section is well written, effectively organized, and shares some very interesting details. Its well done. There are still wording issues (English language . I am not as familiar with this type of data, but from my assessment it is clearly presented and appropriately analyzed.
Page 9, Line 389: stay with past tense. Change “are extracted” to “were extracted”. This applies throughout the results section. It goes back and forth between current and past tense. Just be consistent. I would recommend using past tense since the research was collected and analyzed and you describing that work here.
Page 10, Line 393: I am not sure what you mean by “superior conditions”. You should be more specific with this statement. The same applies to the statement of south in the southwest being better. What do you mean by better?
Page 10, Line 395: I would say that the human thickness was greater rather than larger.
Page 10, Line 397: I could change the wording “the smaller the slope” to “the smaller the slope angle” or “the less steep the slope angle.”
Page 10, Line 400. In the figure with the maps, one describes soil texture with a range from high to low. Be clear what you mean by high texture. Its not clear or correct as shown here. Same with aspect. You will need a different way to stating this.
Page 11, Line 408: rewrite this as “…the higher the value, the greater the forestland quality”. However, its not clear what you mean by this. How does a higher value reflect greater quality?
Page 11, Line 411: this should be written as “Soil texture indices exhibited little difference across the entire region.”
Page 12, Line 418: this wording “…each index, then, the grading index was obtained.” This isn’t clear what you mean, and this wording is not correct. Please rewrite.
Page 12, Line 420: in table 3, you have a column of “number of small classes”. What is a small class? Do you mean number of pixels by class? Along with this, you state in Line 423 that there are 57,678 forest classes. This is not clear what you mean. Also, you state in the table the heading of proportion divided by percent (“Proportion/%”). What is that? I think you probably don’t mean this.
Page 15, Line 498: Table 5 is confusing. What is meant by the content being tree height with volume divided by number of plants… This description is confusing given the information provided. Also, you have column headings jammed into each column making it very difficult to read. Some of the values (i.e. hm2) use superscript while others do not (m3/hm2). This issues should be clarified and cleaned up.
Page 15, 507: same issue as just mentioned. The headings and format for this table are not clearly presented. Headings are not clear and are again jammed into spaces.
Author Response
Please find the file attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript with the title Grade Division and Benchmark Price of Forestland Based on
Arcgis Spatial Analysis Technology: A Case Study in China after Minor Revision.
In my opinion, the subject of this work is relevant for the Journal Forests after
approval of Minor revision.
The topic of the paper is very interesting and important for analysis of GIS methods and their applications on Forestland.
The journal readers of the Journal Forests seek and wants only quality papers.
First, before all, the structure of the paper is divided into the next sections and sub-sections (i.e. Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Research Area, Data collection and processing, . Research Methods, Forestland grading method, The benchmark price of forestland, Compilation of the correction coefficient for forestland price, Results, Forestland grading, Rasterization of the indicators, Reclassification of the indicators, The forestland grading results, The benchmark price of forestland, Application of the forestland benchmark price, Discussion, Conclusions, Establishment of forest land grading index system, Forestland grading method, Conclusion, etc.).
The section Abstract must be re-written again in some way. The abstract is overall good but into the text it is necessary to add more sentences which explain, how and why the authors were used this interesting topic.
Figure 1. This map is very good presented but it is necessary to put geographical coordinates on it.
In the section abstract the authors must explain why they use ArcGIS , there is a plenty another GIS softwares for example QGIS, SAGA, GRASSGIS, MAPINFO , etc.
The section Introduction must reflect the advanced methods of GIS techniques approved by ArcGIS.
I recommend two valuable references
- Aleksandar Valjarević, Tatjana Djekić, Vladica Stevanović, Radomir Ivanović, Bojana Jandziković,GIS numerical and remote sensing analyses of forest changes in the Toplica region for the period of 1953–2013,Applied Geography, Volume 92,2018,Pages 131-139, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2018.01.016
-Haiyan Liu, Minrui Zheng, Jingyu Liu, Xinqi Zheng, Sustainable land use in the trans-provincial marginal areas in China, Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 157, 104783. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.104783.
Please can the authors explain better classification index see line 218.
Table 1. If this Table belongs to the authors, please better explain the methodology if not please cite.
The same for the Table 2.
In the section Results
The authors must better explain the procedures of rasterizations and mark the differences between slope and aspect.
Figure 3, the authors must better explain the methodology of soil thickness.
In the section The benchmark price of forestland the author must explain how they compare benchmark price with similar land in China.
The conclusion is good but can be extended by two sentences which reflect the main goals of this paper.
This manuscript of course deserves to be published, after Minor revision. This manuscript has scientific potential and it describes a rare subject and can be important for worldwide readerships.
In the end, I recommend Minor Revision.
Good luck to the authors
The Reviewer#1
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The study focused on the use of spatial data to establish the grade division and benchmark pricing of forestland in Longquan County, China. The study is significant in terms of providing a more efficient, cost effective alternative methodology to determine grade division and benchmark pricing over conventional methods used in the past. Although there are some minor grammatical errors found throughout the manuscript, it is well written and the methodology is scientifically sound. However, I feel there is room for improvement.
General comments:
The authors need to provide more information on the spatial datasets used in the study and why. Also, it is important to highlight what spatial analysis was conducted to achieve the final output illustrating the spatial distribution of the various grades found throughout the study area.
Specific comments:
These are highlighted throughout the manuscript. Please see attached PDF.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I have read through the responses that the authors provided to my initial review and they have effectively addressed each of my suggestions and concerns. The paper is greatly improved. It is much more clearly written. I commend the authors for their efforts and modifications. There are a few small edits that should be addressed. Otherwise I believe this paper is in good condition and suitable for publication.
Page 1, Line 39: rewrite this sentence as “… for supporting a wide range of biological resources including trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, animals, and microorganisms. Additionally, economic, ecological, and social values are highly influenced by forest resources and forest ecosystem services. Forests not only play…”
Page 3, Line 104: “…as the combination and. The combination of two layers…” is confusing. You may want to delete the second “and combination “ for clarity.
Page 3, Line 108: include “and” and “s” so it reads “… and the modeling of forest fire hazards.”
Page 3, Line 137: the summary of work flow in this paragraph is suitable, however I highly recommend including a clear objectives at the beginning of the paragraph that starts with something like “The purpose of this study was to…”
Page 5, Line 209: delete “…is a method that…” This extra wording is redundant and unnecessary since the word method is already used in the name. The same applies to line 213.
Page 11, Line 434: delete the word “data” at the end of the caption. Consider “Rasterized diagram of each environmental and socio-economic ariable” or something similar.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I am satisfied with the revisions made and feel the manuscript is ready for publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
