Continued Hydrothermal and Radiative Pressure on Changed Cropland in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Manuscript ID: sustainability-533929
Type: Article
Title: ’CONTINUED HYDROTHERMAL AND RADIATIVE PRESSURE ON CHANGED CROPLAND IN CHINA’
The manuscript presents temporal and spatial changes of cropland, hydrothermal conditions and solar radiation in China during 1990-2015.
Study data (land use and land cover; annual average temperature and precipitation; solar radiation) were taken from official institutions and analysed by linear trend analysis method and the spatial statistical methods.
Results have shown a northward-shifting trend of cropland with a break line at the latitude of 38oN; temperature increased significantly with 0.02 oC/yr during 1990-2015, solar radiation decreased in cropland areas during 2000-2015. The area of cropland had a movement in the higher temperatures (8.0-12.5oC), low precipitation (490-650 mm) and low solar radiation (135-170 W/m2).
Data on hydrothermal changes, solar radiation and agricultural land are extensively discussed, but the regional distribution of the climate characteristics lacks in the manuscript.
It is necessary to mention the distribution of the annual mean of climatic factors, to present the temporal and spatial changes.
Ø Therefore, I recommend using the following references, raising the complexity of your discussions.
[xx]. J. Y. Liu, D. F. Zhuang, D. Luo and X. Xiao, 2002. Land-cover classification of China: integrated analysis of AVHRR imagery and geophysical data. International Journal of Remote Sensing 2002, 1–16. DOI: 10.1080/01431160110115582
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248977251_Land-cover_classification_of_China_Integrated_analysis_of_AVHRR_imagery_and_geophysical_data/download
· (pages 5 - figure 2, Annual mean temperature; page 6 – figure 3, Annual mean precipitation)
[xx]. Yujie Lu, Shanhu Jiang, Liliang Ren, Linqi Zhang, Menghao Wang, Ruolan Liu and Linyong Wei, 2019. Spatial and Temporal Variability in Precipitation Concentration over Mainland China, 1961–2017. Water 2019, 11, 881; doi:10.3390/w11050881.
· (page 4 – figure 1, precipitation)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/5/881
[xx]. Ehsanul Kabir, Pawan Kumar, Sandeep Kumar, Adedeji A. Adelodun, Ki-Hyun Kim, 2018. Solar energy: Potential and future prospects. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 82 (2018) 894–900. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2017.09.094
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320264172_Solar_energy_Potential_and_future_prospects
· (page 896, figure 3 - direct solar radiation)
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We greatly appreciate these valuable comments from the editor and reviewers, which help us to improve our study. Following your comments, we made a careful revision to this manuscript. In the following text, our responses to the reviewers’ comments are in blue color and the revised contents are in italic style. The revisions are clearly highlighted using the “Track Changes” function in Microsoft Word.
Please check the attached file. Thanks!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The submitted manuscript provides a detailed description of hydrothermal and radiative pressure impact on cropland in China. The study is based on the extensive dataset, and competently executed spatial and temporal analyses. The interpretation of the results is sound, and the manuscript is well organized and written.
The only problem seems to be graphic presentation of temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation trends. Since, the trend lines, and their description in the text, do not match the time scale in Fig. 3 (a and b), and Fig. 5. Also, the future impacts of the cropland displacement, mentioned in the abstract (line 26) should be further elucidated. The shortages in precipitation in the northern China are mentioned in the discussion section (line 283), however there is no direct referral in this section to the “lack of water resources” mentioned in the abstract.
Author Response
We greatly appreciate these valuable comments from the editor and reviewers, which help us to improve our study. Following your comments, we made a careful revision to this manuscript. In the following text, our responses to the reviewers’ comments are in blue color and the revised contents are in italic style. The revisions are clearly highlighted using the “Track Changes” function in Microsoft Word.
Please check the attached file. Thanks!
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
