A Study of the Socioeconomic Forces Driving Air Pollution Based on a DPSIR Model in Henan Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Summary
The authors have attempted to explain trends in air quality in Henan Province, China. They have outlined a reasonable rationale for this study in the introduction. However, the methods lack sufficient detail to be able to discern their appropriateness. None of the results, therefore, can be evaluated with any real scrutiny.
The authors refer to “spatial-3D-temporal” features without defining this term or detailing how they performed any spatiotemporal statistics.
The terminology used throughout the paper is inconsistent.
Very few citations in the discussion section indicate that the results are not sufficiently nested within the existing literature.
The results and discussion sections are not properly organized; several results and even methods are presented in the discussion
The aim of this paper was ambitious and it likely would have contributed to the literature; however, as written it does not inform the reader well enough to be of serious benefit to researchers in the field.
Comments
Page 5 Line 9: It is unclear what “industry” means or how it differs from “primary industry”, etc
Page 5 Line 8: What is PCGDP?
Equations 1 and 2: The subscripts here do not make sense. Are these values summed for each municipality?
Section 2.2 There is not nearly enough information here to be able to determine the validity of these measures. Have these inputs been valuated? The authors do not cite any sources regarding how these model inputs were derived.
Section 2.3 Again, these methods are not described with a level of detail needed to evaluate whether they are appropriate or not. No references for model development or previous use are cited
Author Response
List of changes made in response to Reviewer’s comments
(Italicized-Reviewer’s comments)
General comment 1 The authors refer to “spatial-3D-temporal” features without defining this term or detailing how they performed any spatiotemporal statistics.
Response: We defined “spatial-3D-temporal” as “spatial and annual-month-daily temporal” in Line 13 of Page 1 and Line 23 of Page 6. Furthermore, the 3D spatiotemporal distribution features of the air quality index (AQI) and air pollutants were deep investigated in our paper.
General comment 2 The terminology used throughout the paper is inconsistent.
Response: All the terminologies used throughout the paper were unified.
General comment 3 Very few citations in the discussion section indicate that the results are not sufficiently nested within the existing literature.
Response: References 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 15, 18, 22, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51 in this revised manuscript were used to discuss about pollution status, driving forces and harmful effects of air pollution in Henan province, and then air pollution prediction model was deep discussed. In addition, references 30, 31, 48 and 50 were newly added in the discussion section.
General comment 4 The results and discussion sections are not properly organized; several results and even methods are presented in the discussion.
Response: The results and discussion sections were re-organized in revised manuscript. The major changes were as follows: (1) Some results in “4.1 Driving forces” of original manuscript were in advance (See “3.3 Effects of Socioeconomic Influence Factors on Air Pollution in Henan Province” in the revised manuscript) while some discussion about pollution status were postposed as 4.1 pollution status in the revised manuscript. (2) Change “The UDPG index, computed by principal component evaluation, was the integrated index for urbanization rate, GDP, per capita GDP, urban population and vehicle populations.” in original manuscript into “The UDPG index was the integrated index for urbanization rate, GDP, per capita GDP, urban population, and vehicle numbers.”
Comment 1: Page 5 Line 9: It is unclear what “industry” means or how it differs from “primary industry”, etc.
Response: Industry means industry or engineering of raw material collection and product processing and manufacturing, while primary industry is the industry of producing food and other biological materials, including agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and aquaculture. Secondary industry is processing manufacturing industry, including manufacturing industry, extractive industry, construction industry and public project, and so on. Tertiary industry were other industries other than the first and second industries.
Comment 2: Page 5 Line 8: What is PCGDP?
Response: PCGDP means per capita GDP, which has been noted in Line 39 in Page 2 in the revised manuscript.
Comment 3: Equations 1 and 2: The subscripts here do not make sense. Are these values summed for each municipality?
Response: All the subscripts have been noted in the revised manuscript (Page 5). The subscript “0” represent the daily per capita living energy consumption and the mortality of the ith disease in Henan province, respectively. The subscript “1” represents amount of populations in the 17 municipalities. The subscript “i” represents the classification of air pollution related diseases. The subscript “j” represents different municipalities in Henan province.
Comment 4: Section 2.2 There is not nearly enough information here to be able to determine the validity of these measures. Have these inputs been valuated?
Response: All these data in section 2.2 were collected from professional authority sectors, where these data were well quality control by professional team. Furthermore, the note “All these data were collected from Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People’s Republic of China, Henan Statistical Yearbook, and Reports on Environment states in Henan Province, which contain official data provided by professional authority sectors, such as the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre, the Henan Province Bureau of Statistics, and the Department of Ecology and Environment of Henan Province.” has been inserted into the revised manuscript (Lines 21-23 in Page 3, Lines 1-2 in Page 4).
Comment 5: Section 2.3 Again, these methods are not described with a level of detail needed to evaluate whether they are appropriate or not. No references for model development or previous use are cited.
Response: Since it is a suitable model to determine the relationship between cause and effect of environmental problems and environmental status by European Environment Agency and Liu et al. (2019), the DPSIR model were selected to evaluate the socioeconomic forces driving air pollution in Henan province. Furthermore, major changes in the revised manuscript were as follows: (1) We rewritten the sentence as “The 48 correlated influence factors were collected to evaluate the socioeconomic forces driving air pollution in Henan province by using a DPSIR model, which was applied to determine the relationship between cause and effect of air pollution problems and status [25,26]” ( Lines 11-14, Page 5). (2)Two references for DPSIR model development or previous use are cited.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper requires an extensive proofreading and editing. The writing style is informal in certain points. Please refrain from using ‘actually’.
There are also issues on how authors are referenced in the paper (e.g. line 12 on page 3 and 15 on page 4)
Section between line 23 on page 3 and 10 on page 4 reads like a long and disconnected list. Can the authors present their arguments in a more coherent way?
The Results section reads like a mix of results of discussion. Explanations and considerations of the results such be presented in the discussion section.
As an extensive literature has been presented on air pollution in China. One would expect to see a return to some of the citations of previous studies so that the theoretical contribution of what you have found in this specific study can be highlighted more clearly. How do the findings compare in relation to previous studies on air pollution in China that you have cited in the front-end of your paper? What is your original contribution?
Author Response
List of changes made in response to Reviewer’s comments
(Italicized-Reviewer’s comments)
Comment 1: The paper requires an extensive proofreading and editing. The writing style is informal in certain points. Please refrain from using ‘actually’.
Response: Revised as suggested, the modifications were as follows: (1) The revised manuscript has been reviewed by Martyn Rittman, Ph.D., the English Editing Manager in MDPI (see certificate provided by MDPI). (2) We have reread ‘Guide for Authors’ carefully and downloaded several latest articles published on this journal as examples, the writing style was revised as “Sustainability” required. (3) The “actually” were used only twice in the revised manuscript.
Comment 2: There are also issues on how authors are referenced in the paper (e.g. line 12 on page 3 and 15 on page 4).
Response: The issues on how authors are referenced in the paper has been revised as “relatively little attention has been paid to the problem, except that Liu et al. [1] provided an integrated atmospheric emissions inventory of primary air pollutants for the target year of 2012” (Lines 33-34 in Page 2) and “Serious haze pollutions occurring in many cities of China, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Shenyang, Changchun, Haerbin, Jinan, Zhengzhou, Xingtai, Baoding, Tangshan, Hengshui, Anyang, Linfen, and so on, which are predominantly characterized by high concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), have raised concern around the world [8–12]” (Lines 2-6 in page 2).
Comment 3: Section between line 23 on page 3 and 10 on page 4 reads like a long and disconnected list. Can the authors present their arguments in a more coherent way?
Response: Revised as suggested. “Energy consumption and transportation affected air pollution level in Europe [17]. The urban expansion, economic growth and its structure change, energy consumption structure, motor vehicle use, population size and density were supposed to be the key influence factors for Chinese air pollutions by Liu et al [1], Wang et al. [13], Lyu et al. [15], Azimi et al. [18] and Basagaña et al. [19]. The GDP and population were found to be significantly correlated with the benefit-cost ratio value which was utilized to verify the feasibility and validity of industrial energy-saving and emission-reduction policies in the Air Pollution and Control Action plan [20]. In addition, the effects of public transportation strikes on air pollution levels in Barcelona (Spain) were researched by Basagaña et al. (2018) [19]. Ning et al. (2018) studied the effect of topographical conditions on characteristics of air pollution in Sichuan Basin, China [21].” (Lines 18-28 in Page 2).
Comment 4: The Results section reads like a mix of results of discussion. Explanations and considerations of the results should be presented in the discussion section.
Response: Revised as suggested. Some results in “4.1 Driving forces” of original manuscript were in advance (See “3.3 Effects of Socioeconomic Influence Factors on Air Pollution in Henan Province” in the revised manuscript) while some discussion about pollution status were postposed as 4.1 pollution status in the revised manuscript.
Comment 5: As an extensive literature has been presented on air pollution in China. One would expect to see a return to some of the citations of previous studies so that the theoretical contribution of what you have found in this specific study can be highlighted more clearly. How do the findings compare in relation to previous studies on air pollution in China that you have cited in the front-end of your paper? What is your original contribution?
Response: Compared with previous studies on air pollution in China, our original contributions were as follows: (1) Data on the 48 concrete parameters (including AQI values, SO2 contents, NO2 contents, PM10, PM2.5, CO, O3, total emission amount of SO2, NOx and waste gas, Temperature, precipitation, wind power, population, urbanization, GDP, PCGDP, vehicle population, primary industry (EG2), secondary industry (EG3), tertiary industry (EG4), industry (EG5), construction (EG6), tourism (EG7), ratios for EG2/GDP, EG3/GDP and EG4/GDP, living energy consumption (ES1), living raw coal consumption (ES2), living power consumption(ES3), energy consumption of scale-enterprise (ES4), raw coal consumption of scale-enterprise (ES5), thermal consumption of scale-enterprise (ES6), power consumption of scale-enterprise (ES7), ratios for ES2/ES1, ES3/ES1, ES5/ES4, ES6/ES4, ES7/ES4, death toll from traffic accidents, injury from traffic accidents, passenger turnover quantities, freight turnover quantities, fire disaster, death populations of cancer, respiratory diseases, heart disease and nervous system diseases) from 2003 to 2017 were collected to quantitatively evaluate the socioeconomic forces driving air pollution in this province using a driving forces‒pressure‒state‒influence‒response (DPSIR) model. (2) It was the too-rapid growth of the driving force index (DFI), induced by urban development and population growth (UDPG), economic growth and change of industrial structure (EGCIS), and energy consumption growth and structure change (ECGSC), that led to a direct increase in the atmospheric pollution burden, i.e., total emissions from air pollution and industrial emissions, which are linearly correlated to values of UDPG and ECGSC, respectively (p < 0.05).(3) The prediction models for AQI and R values in Henan province, with the growth rates being 4.251 DFI−1 and 0.0816 DFI−1, respectively, were simulated by multiple linear regression analysis.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Correct the form of citation.
2. I suggest a change in the entire structure of the article. The paragraphs are long, and the reading is truncated. A review by a native English reader would also be best.
3. Figures and tables are confusing, difficult to read.
4. Table 2 mentions gas emissions in the region. However, as it is notorious in atmospheric pollution, the synergistic effects were not considered?
Author Response
List of changes made in response to Reviewer’s comments
(Italicized-Reviewer’s comments)
English language and style: Extensive editing of English language and style required.
Response: Our manuscript checked by a professional English editing service provided by MDPI (see certificate provided by MDPI).
Comment 1: Correct the form of citation.
Response: We have reread ‘Guide for Authors’ carefully and downloaded several latest articles published on this journal as examples, making changes as follows: (1) change “Liu et al. provided an integrated atmospheric emission inventory of primary air pollutants for the target year of 2012[1]” into “Liu et al. [1] provided an integrated atmospheric emissions inventory of primary air pollutants for the target year of 2012.” (2) all the citation were all rechecked by authors.
Comment 2: I suggest a change in the entire structure of the article. The paragraphs are long, and the reading is truncated. A review by a native English reader would also be best.
Response: Changed as suggested, making changes as follows: (1) The “3.1.2 Air pollutant contents change” was divided into two paragraph. (2) Some results in “4.1 Driving forces” of original manuscript were in advance (See “3.3 Effects of Socioeconomic Influence Factors on Air Pollution in Henan Province” in the revised manuscript) while some discussion about pollution status were postposed as 4.1 pollution status in the revised manuscript. (3) The revised manuscript has been reviewed by Martyn Rittman, Ph.D., the English Editing Manager in MDPI (see certificate provided by MDPI) .
Comment 3: Figures and tables are confusing, difficult to read.
Response: All the figures and tables were reedited by the authors, and the additional remarks were added, major changes were as follows: (1) The interpretations “UDPG: Urban Development and Population Growth; EGCIS: Economic Growth and Change of Industrial Structure; ECGSC: Energy Consumption Growth and Its Structure Change; TEAP: Total Emission of Air Pollution; IEAP: Industrial Emission of Air Pollution; SEP: six kinds of air pollutants, including PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, CO and O3” were added for Figure 2. (2) The interpretations for Figure 8 were revised as “a, b, c: AQI values in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively; d, e, f: R values in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively; g, h, i: Exceeding-standard (AQI >100) days in 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively”. (3) The note “*: p <0.05; **: p < 0.01” were inserted into the interpretations of Table 4-6, 8.
Comment 4: Table 2 mentions gas emissions in the region. However, as it is notorious in atmospheric pollution, the synergistic effects were not considered?
Response: Table 2 showed the trends for top five sources of industrial waste gas and SO2 in Henan province, which provided that industrial source for air pollution decreased significantly. Furthermore, the regional synergistic effects of air pollution were discussed in section 4.1.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
While the authors have done a commendable job improving the manuscript, there are still concerns that should be addressed prior to acceptance. I have outlined my concerns below:
Methods: It is still unclear how the DPSIR model works. A citation is not a sufficient explanation. From what I can gather from the results section, the DSPIR is a conceptual model, and then the authors look for correlations between variables in the hypothesized direction. Is this correct? More clarity is needed.
Results: There is an over-reliance on the significance of correlation terms in the results section. A week correlation that is statistically significant is not necessarily a noteworthy result. The authors should frame the results to focus more on the magnitude of the associations to avoid overstating their conclusions.
Discussion: There are still issues with the organization of the manuscript's results. For example, Table 7 is introduced in the Discussion. This table should be move, along with the appropriate description of the results.
Author Response
List of changes made in response to Reviewer’s comments
(Italicized-Reviewer’s comments)
Comment 1 Methods: It is still unclear how the DPSIR model works. A citation is not a sufficient explanation. From what I can gather from the results section, the DSPIR is a conceptual model, and then the authors look for correlations between variables in the hypothesized direction. Is this correct? More clarity is needed.
Response: To explain how the DPSIR model works, we provided a supplement “Therefore, DPSIR model was a frame structural model for the socioeconomic forces driving air pollution in Henan province. The degree of correlations between air qualities and 48 concrete parameters by analysis methods which were discussed in section 2.4. At the basis of these, quantitative relations between air pollution status (AQI, R, TEAP, IEAP) and socioeconomic forces driving air pollution in Henan province (DFI, UDPG, ECGSC) were simulated by the multiple linear regression analysis method using statistical analysis software SPSS 19.0.” in section 2.3.
Comment 2 Results: There is an over-reliance on the significance of correlation terms in the results section. A week correlation that is statistically significant is not necessarily a noteworthy result. The authors should frame the results to focus more on the magnitude of the associations to avoid overstating their conclusions.
Response: Revised as suggested, the modifications were as follows: (1) Change “3.3. Effects of Socioeconomic Influence Factors on Air Pollution in Henan Province” into “Correlations between air pollution and socioeconomic influence factors”; (2) Insert “The 10 EGCIS influence factors, including GDP, EG2, EG3, EG4, EG5, EG6, EG7, EG2/GDP, EG3/GDP and EG4/GDP, were chosen to evaluate the EGCIS values in Henan province.” into the second paragraph of Section 3.3 (Lines 25-27 in Page 15); (3) Insert “The values of ES1, ES2, ES3, ES4, ES5, ES6, ES7, ES2/ES1, ES3/ES1, ES5/ES4, ES6/ES4, ES7/ES4 affected the EGCIS levels to great extents. Among which,…” into the third paragraph of Section 3.3 (Lines 12-13 in Page 16).
Furthermore, Data on the 48 concrete parameters (including AQI values, SO2 contents, NO2 contents, PM10, PM2.5, CO, O3, total emission amount of SO2, NOx and waste gas, Temperature, precipitation, wind power, population, urbanization, GDP, per capita GDP (PCGDP), vehicle population, primary industry (EG2), secondary industry (EG3), tertiary industry (EG4), industry (EG5), construction (EG6), tourism (EG7), ratios for EG2/GDP, EG3/GDP and EG4/GDP, living energy consumption (ES1), living raw coal consumption (ES2), living power consumption(ES3), energy consumption of scale-enterprise (ES4), raw coal consumption of scale-enterprise (ES5), thermal consumption of scale-enterprise (ES6), power consumption of scale-enterprise (ES7), ratios for ES2/ES1, ES3/ES1, ES5/ES4, ES6/ES4, ES7/ES4, death toll from traffic accidents, injury from traffic accidents, passenger turnover quantities, freight turnover quantities, fire disaster, death populations of cancer, respiratory diseases, heart disease and nervous system diseases) from 2003 to 2017 were collected to quantitatively evaluate the socioeconomic forces driving air pollution in this province using a driving forces‒pressure‒state‒influence‒response (DPSIR) model in the discussion section.
Comment 3 Discussion: There are still issues with the organization of the manuscript's results. For example, Table 7 is introduced in the Discussion. This table should be move, along with the appropriate description of the results.
Response: Revised as suggested. Table 7 was moved into section 3.3.
Comment 4 English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.
Response: Revised as suggested. We checked our revised manuscript carefully, and then invited a native English speaking colleague to check our manuscript finally. The modifications were as follows:
(1) Line 30 in Page 2: change “components” into “component”.
(2) Line 34 in Page2: change “the” into “this”.
(3) Line 47 in Page 2: change “disaster” into “disasters”.
(4) Line 47 in Page 2: change “heart disease” into “heart diseases”.
(5) Line 10 in Page 5: insert “increasingly” between “process” and “drawing”.
(6) Line 5 in Page 10: change “are” into “were”.
(7) Line 3 in Page 12: change “provinces” into “province”.
(8) Line 2 in Page 14: revise “In the meanwhile” as “Meanwhile”.
(9) Line 19 in Page 15: change “representative” into “representatives”.
(10) Lines 4-5 in Page 19: Revise “is evidence” into “are evidences”.
(11) Line 5 in Page 19: change “reason” into “reasons”.
(12) Line 20 in Page 19: revise “second” into “secondly”.
(13) Line 24 in Page 19: revise “Third” into “Thirdly”.
(14) Line 29 in Page 19: revise “Fourth” into “Fourthly”.
(15) Line 25 in Page 19: revise “more and more of a role” into “a more and more bigger role”.
(16) Line 46 in Page 19: delete “the” between “because of” and “more”.
(17) Line 11 in Page 20 and Line 37 in Page 20: revise “second” into “secondly”.
(18) Line 22 in Page 20 and Line 40 in Page 20: revise “Third” into “Thirdly”.
(19) Lines 21-23 in Page 1: revise “Triple peaks for AQI values of 8:00‒10:00 a.m., 2:00‒4:00 p.m., and 6:00‒8:00 p.m. in the representative municipalities corresponded with the morning and evening traffic tendencies.” into “Triple peaks for AQI values of 8:00‒10:00 a.m., 6:00‒8:00 p.m., and 2:00‒4:00 p.m. in the representative municipalities corresponded with the morning and evening traffic tendencies and photochemical process.”.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I understand that the authors have made the necessary adjustments for the publication of the article.
Author Response
Comment 1English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.
Response: Revised as suggested. We checked our revised manuscript carefully, and then invited a native English speaking colleague to check our manuscript finally. The modifications were as follows:
(1) Line 30 in Page 2: change “components” into “component”.
(2) Line 34 in Page2: change “the” into “this”.
(3) Line 47 in Page 2: change “disaster” into “disasters”.
(4) Line 47 in Page 2: change “heart disease” into “heart diseases”.
(5) Line 10 in Page 5: insert “increasingly” between “process” and “drawing”.
(6) Line 5 in Page 10: change “are” into “were”.
(7) Line 3 in Page 12: change “provinces” into “province”.
(8) Line 2 in Page 14: revise “In the meanwhile” as “Meanwhile”.
(9) Line 19 in Page 15: change “representative” into “representatives”.
(10) Lines 4-5 in Page 19: Revise “is evidence” into “are evidences”.
(11) Line 5 in Page 19: change “reason” into “reasons”.
(12) Line 20 in Page 19: revise “second” into “secondly”.
(13) Line 24 in Page 19: revise “Third” into “Thirdly”.
(14) Line 29 in Page 19: revise “Fourth” into “Fourthly”.
(15) Line 25 in Page 19: revise “more and more of a role” into “a more and more bigger role”.
(16) Line 46 in Page 19: delete “the” between “because of” and “more”.
(17) Line 11 in Page 20 and Line 37 in Page 20: revise “second” into “secondly”.
(18) Line 22 in Page 20 and Line 40 in Page 20: revise “Third” into “Thirdly”.
(19) Lines 21-23 in Page 1: revise “Triple peaks for AQI values of 8:00‒10:00 a.m., 2:00‒4:00 p.m., and 6:00‒8:00 p.m. in the representative municipalities corresponded with the morning and evening traffic tendencies.” into “Triple peaks for AQI values of 8:00‒10:00 a.m., 6:00‒8:00 p.m., and 2:00‒4:00 p.m. in the representative municipalities corresponded with the morning and evening traffic tendencies and photochemical process.”.
