Loss of Relict Oak Forests along Coastal Louisiana: A Multiyear Analysis Using Google Earth Engine

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript with the title Loss of relict oak forests along coastal Louisiana: A multiyear analyses using Google Earth Engine after Major Revision. 

 

In my opinion, the subject of this work is relevant for the Journal Forests after

approval of Major revision.

 

The topic of the paper is very interesting and important in the connection between Advanced Remote sensing techniques and forest protection.

 

 

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, Study area, Data Sources, Classification and Processing algorithms, Post-processing of GEE outputs, Data Analysis and Statistics, Results, Forest Loss, Transition, and Classification Accuracy, Rates of loss with respect to elevation, Interaction with Water level, Discussion, Classification reliability and constraints, Forest loss contextually, Future of Chenier Forests).

 

In the section Introduction between lines 31 and 32 add and Europe. The Europe has forest near big rivers systems too.

 

Please define and better explain the term ‘big data’ see the line 53.

 

In the section Introduction the authors must add more references which reflect forests changes through the time.

 

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.

 

-D.S Boyd, G.M Foody, W.J Ripple, Evaluation of approaches for forest cover estimation in the Pacific Northwest, USA, using remote sensing, Applied Geography, 22(4), 375-392. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0143-6228(02)00048-6.

According to the importance of this manuscript, the section Introduction would be extended for more than a few sentences.

 

 

In the section Materials and Methods between lines 91 and 92 the authors named the buffer method. In this section the authors can explain and add for example cluster or zonality methods.

Figure 1. This Figure is very valuable, but in my opinion it can be colorized.

 

Between lines 124 and 126, the authors have the term salt marsh swamp. Can the authors better explain this term and how this type of forest can be analyzed by Google Earth Engine? Because this type of forest has different NDVI and Reflectance indexes.

 

Between lines 137 and 138, the authors can write in degrees rather than with the letters.

 

 

Please, explain the better sentences between 146 and 149 lines.

 

The authors listed the periods for investigation with the next years (2003; 2007 and 2019). What happened between these periods and why the authors not use analysis of another year?

 

In section 2.4 Post-processing of GEE outputs, the authors must better explain how they calculated areas using pixel methods. There are plenty of references which can explain this method.

 

The Eq.1 is very interesting, but please state if this equation yours or cite if not?

 

The same for Eq.2.

 

In section Results, regardless of than authors creating the Table 1, it is necessary to add one graph (box plot) to better visualize the results.

 

The same must be for Table 2.

 

Figure 4 is very difficult to read, please change the graph and better explain which index is used to analyze water properties.

 

The same for Figure 5.

 

In section Discussion the authors must add more sentences of before published materials with similar research.

 

The section Conclusion is obligatory for this Journal and the author must add this section. In this section, the authors must write how and why used this topic. Also, the authors can write the main results in generalized sentences. 

This manuscript of course deserves to be published, after Major revision. This manuscript has scientific potential and it describes a rare subject and can be important for worldwide readerships.

 

In the end, I recommend Major Revision.

Good luck to the authors

The Reviewer#1

 

 

Author Response

Please see attatched Word file

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present an analysis of forest loss along coastal Louisiana and relate it to elevation/slope changes. Overall, the manuscript is straightforward. Using vectorized forest-change areas to assess elevation changes is a good idea. I really only have a few possible critiques for the authors to consider.

1) Using the word 'schema'. The word is correctly used; however, in the spatial literature, this refers to rules regarding data interaction (vector datasets) and the spatial analysis purists may have an issue. Simply using scheme may be a better way to go.

 

2) The authors should consider incorporating User's Accuracy as this gives a better idea of reliability of each class based on conditions on the ground. Given the high spatial resolution of the dataset, this would be more useful to those using the products. Some classes may be lower than Producer's Accuracy; in that part of the world marsh and forest or grassland/pasture are probably going to have overlap in the classification, which is important to note, even with the high resolution of the imagery.

 

3) Change detection, quantifying from-to changes over 15-16 years would be nice and is straightforward. 

 

4) It almost seems the authors advocate for Chinese tallow while pointing to it being invasive. This species wreaks havoc with the natural ecology of coastal ecosystems - see points west in Texas and throughout the Coastal Plain (Zhaofei Fan has multiple publications on this).

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript with the title Loss of relict oak forests along coastal Louisiana: A multiyear analyses using Google Earth Engine

The authors answered all of my comments and corrected all of the mistakes within the text.

 

In my opinion, this manuscript can be accepted.

 

Sincerely,

The Reviewer #1