Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

The manuscript addresses an important environmental topic. Indeed, mining in different countries is harmful to plant communities and associated components. Therefore, analysis and forecast of the influence of factors over time is relevant. But the question arises whether the authors really managed to fully disclose this topic in the results and discussion. The title of the manuscript carries a lot of meaning. There is no clearly stated aim of the study. The hypothesis is not properly formulated. Separate blocks of manuscript text in different chapters are mixed and there are repetitions. In some research methods, authors leave out important information. Plant communities are not provided, and the dominant plant species over the long period of study are not reported. It is unclear how the qualitative composition of plant formations changed. The authors do not provide information about the extraction of specific minerals at the study site. This is important from a practical point of view for the ecology of the region. After all comments have been eliminated, the manuscript can be reconsidered.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.      Line 101: Figure 1. Location of the Yima mining area:(a,c) Geographical location map; (b) elevation map; (d) 101 Land-use type map. These four figures are too small to clearly identify their characteristics. Could you enlarge them?

2.      Line 123: The r (MODIS) EVI data has a spatial resolution of 250 m. However, all data sets were uniformly projected and resampled to a 1 km resolution. Why did you choose the 1 km resolution? How would the analysis differ with a 250 m resolution?

3.      Line 277: It is necessary to explain why there was the shift of low vegetation in the western region and high vegetation in the southeastern region to the medium vegetation class.

4.      Line 290: The annual EVI average continued to decline from 0.472 in 2000 to 0.399 in 2002, reaching its lowest in 21 years. Why was the EVI lowest in 2022?

5.      Line 323: The areas with high and extreme high fluctuations account for 29 %, which are mainly distributed in the city center and the suburbs, as well as the rural areas in the west and southeast. This is an interesting finding. However, there were extreme high fluctuations with red color in the north area in Figure 9. Why? Please explain this situation.

6.      Line 358: Among these, elevation, population density and temperature with Q values above 0.29 were the main driving factors of EVI change in the Yima mining area. Is it positive or negative driving factors?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

After revision, the manuscript has become better. The authors paid attention to adding missing text. The chapters of the manuscript have been edited. The methodological part of the manuscript has been improved. The title of the manuscript in this version reflects the meaning of the work and corresponds to it aim. The graphs have become reproducible by the reader. The Discussion and Conclusion have become consistent with the hypothesis. Thus, I have no objections to this manuscript.

Author Response

Thank you for your attention and review of our paper, and thank you for your suggestions.

Thanks again!