Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is up-to-date and brings important information about the impact of climate change on vegetation cover, and is valuable and interesting for publication.

I am of the opinion that the paper needs minor revision for final publication. This refers to the inclusion of a larger number of literary sources related to the broader topic (especially in the introductory part, and partly in the discussion).

Furthermore, the results themselves are valuable and are presented in great detail. In my opinion, the work could be summarized in this part, since in this form it represents a certain amount of data noise. There are a large number of pictures and tables and a very detailed textual description of them, all of this could be summarized and thus enable the reader to follow and draw conclusions more easily. The same or similar data should not be presented in detail in pictures, tables and text. Also, data can be linked by seasons and regions at a higher level.

Other abiotic and biotic factors important for the expansion or reduction of vegetation and their relationship with the investigated factors are only mentioned and partially explained, so there is also the possibility of improvement. This is partially covered by the author's conclusion about the need for more detailed research into other ecological factors and especially human influence, which needs to be done in future research.

It would be good to research and describe which types of vegetation are best suited to climate change and whose areas are expanding, and which are decreasing in area, and how this affects biological diversity. This does not have to be included in this paper, if the authors do not have the data, but it certainly represents a further step in the research of climate change on vegetation cover.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are very grateful for your care and diligence, and for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript. Your suggestions on our manuscript were very valuable and helpful in revising and improving our paper. We have carefully studied your comments and have tried our best to revise manuscript according to the comments. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in revised paper. For a response to your suggestions, please see the attachment.
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions。

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Global climate warming is one of the most significant challenges to humanity. It is generally recognized that forests can mitigate the effects of climate change. However, the forests themselves are also influenced by climatic factors. The strength of the influence of climate warming and the possibilities of forest adaptation are not yet sufficiently understood. Therefore, the topic of this paper is relevant.

The scientific novelty lies in identification of the spatiotemporal characteristics and trend changes of the vegetation coverage in Qinling-Daba Mountains from 2000-2020.

 The research results have both theoretical and applied significance. The research results are helpful in understanding the impact of climate factors on vegetation coverage change in the north-south transitional region of China to better carry out vegetation restoration and protection against the background of global climate change.

 In the introduction, the relevance of the study is well substantiated. The research objectives are formulated clearly and clearly. However, the state of the problem is very poorly reflected. Only 1-2 sentences are devoted to it. It needs to be fixed. I advise the authors to give a detailed analysis of both the fundamental research on this problem and the most important modern research.

 The methodology approaches are described in detail. The authors used methods adequate to the tasks set.

The research results are illustrated with figures and tables that are informative and do not duplicate each other. The paper contains 12 informative tables and 19 visual figures. The results are presented clearly and clearly.

 Conclusions follow from the results and are reasonable.  The paper will be of interest to a wide range of readers whose scientific interests are related to forest ecology. Despite the fact that English is not my native language, I read the paper with interest and had no difficulties in understanding. The paper corresponds to the subject and level of the Forests.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to thank you for your efforts in reviewing our manuscript, and providing many helpful comments and suggestions. which will all prove invaluable in the revision and improvement of our paper, as well as in guiding our research in the future.

We have studied your comments point by point, revised the manuscript accordingly, please see the attachment for the response. The amendments are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript. 

Thank you again for your valuable comments and suggestions. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors.

 

I am very pleased to review the article "Response of vegetation coverage to climate changes in the Qinling-Daba Mountains of China" for review. The article is very interesting and relevant. The article has a lot of advantages. However, there are several comments, the answers to which will significantly improve the quality of the article.

1. The quality of graphic materials is very low. Improve the quality of drawings (dpi). This will help the reader better understand what is presented.

2. In Figure 1a please add coordinate labels. Figure 1b has many objects and is very difficult to read. Generalize the geographic map in Figure 1b. What do the numbers in figure 1c mean?

3. Explain in more detail what "the vegetation information in the pixel" means - line 116.

4. Explain lines 125-133 in more detail. NDVI water has values less than 0. How did you differentiate these pixels? Give an example of a histogram (line 129).

5. Check the formula 6. What does the parameter "i" mean? Why do you use the “x” sign in numbering fractions, but do not use it between brackets?

6. Describe section 2.3.4 in more detail. Where did formulas 8, 9 come from? What do they show?

7. In the Discussion section, compare your data with previously published data/with data from other regions of the world.

 

The article can be adopted after the elimination of these minor comments.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We are very grateful for your valuable suggestions on our manuscript, which will be valuable and helpful in improving the quality of our manuscript.
Based on your suggestions, we have made additions and revisions to our manuscript. At the same time, we have made a point-by-point response to your suggestions, please see the attachment.

Thank you again for your valuable suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you soon in due course.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors.

Thank you for responding to the reviewer's comments.

The article can be published in a present form.