Assessing the Impacts of Urban Expansion on Habitat Quality by Combining the Concepts of Land Use, Landscape, and Habitat in Two Urban Agglomerations in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
I would like to ask a couple of questions and make a couple of suggestions as well for the case in pursuing revision.
Questions:
1) line 76: how did the equation work in the analysis? Did the equation come from the InVEST model or authors?
2) Very little information about the GIS data sources is available. Is any metadata available (e.g., cell/grid size, map projections...)
3) Is InVEST model appropriate to be used for the analysis with a large geographic scale (city, regional, national)? Are there any comparable case studies done already?
- Suggestion for revision:
First, the literature review is very poorly done regarding case studies, especially. preceded studies using the InVEST application you have used for the maker.
Second, I also recommend curtailing the contents in the result section, add more literature review, and restructure the sections in the manuscript.
Third, I am not confident in terms of soundness of analysis results or validity of analysis designs as the geographic scale in the analysis framework is at the regional level, which would cause a high level of uncertainty and heterogenous factors that could affect environmental quality.
Besides, the conclusions connecting economic drivers to the analysis results seem also is a big leap as not proven in the manuscript.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Your questions and suggestions greatly helped us to revise and improve the paper. We considered your questions carefully and made corrections accordingly. In addition, we had the revisions edited by a professional science editor to improve the writing.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors of the manuscript “Assessing the impacts of urban expansion on habitat quality by combining the concepts of land-use, landscape and habitat” are using different methods (e.g. landscape metrics) and the InVEST habitat quality model to analyze habitat quality with the impact of urbanization between 2000 and 2015 in two case study areas in China, Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration and the Min-Triangle Area.
The manuscript has many flaws. The introduction is much too short and does not lead to the research focus/research questions in this study. The authors mention ecosystem services in the introduction and in the conclusion but is not visible in the methods or in the results. Habitat quality is not an ecosystem service. The model description (section 2) should be part of the chapter of methods (“Study area and methodological approach”). Due to the fact that the authors have not added any research questions, it is unclear what they would like to identify in this paper. The reader only gets an idea of the research focus in the first sentence of the conclusion. The methods are not transparently described and therefore, the results are not comprehensible. The macroeconomic driver analysis was not mentioned in the methods and how it was conducted. The reader is partially lost in the result section. A framework in the method section as overview with research objectives in needed. It rather looks like applying models and methods for its own sake but not questioning the results. The discussion of the results and methods is missing. I have doubts of the reliability of the results. The overall structure of the paper is not consistent. References are not enough. English spelling needs to be improved.
Further details:
Title:
It should be mentioned in the title that the study was conducted in China
Introduction:
Too short and does not lead to the research focus. You did not analyze the effect of land use changes on ecosystem service which is visible in your results where you never mentioned ecosystem services. And habitat quality is not an ecosystem service.
Line 40: not “biological habitats” but “ecosystems” if you refer to ecosystem services
Methods:
References of the section 3.1 (study area) are missing. Please add.
In this study, it does not become clear why you compare the areas YTDUA and MTA? Please explain the selection of case study areas.
Figure 1: The detail of China looks like if China would be an island. Please adapt the colours of the small map. And please add the source of the map (link, from a publication, prepared in ArcGIS, QGIS, etc.)
Line 102: Please add the link of the Resource and Environment Data Cloud Platform in the reference list.
Line 113: Why these landscape metrics have been selected? References are missing.
Due to the fact that different methods and a model is used, I recommend to add a framework of the methodological process.
Table 3: How was the weight factor defined? By expert opinion? By literature? References are missing.
Line 136: “…based on sample data in InVEST..” is not enough description. Sample data from China and previous studies from you? Table 4 of Sensitivity of habitat types needs further explanation. Please add in the annex for each habitat type and respective references. It is important because it determines the results.
Results:
Fig. 2-5: It would be more logical if you would start with 2000 in the upper left corner and not with 2015.
Line 158: Why these intervals (0-0.3, 0.3-0.6, 0.6-0.9, and 0.9-1) have been used? Unequally distributed? „Excellent“ means only 0.1 difference to „good“? Could you please add a reference?
Table 5: Please adapt for “Value Interval” the brackets, e.g. [0,0.3]
Line 181: Your comment: “Interestingly, there was a net displacement of forestland being turned into farmland in YRDUA, while the opposite is the case in MTA where there is a net displacement of farmland being converted into forestland.” Did you consider also classification errors in the land use maps?
Figure 6: The figures are not comparable between YRDUA and MTA because you use different ranges, e.g. in 6a) you have a range between 6400 and 6600 for YRDUA and in 6b) 3500- 5500 for MTA. Maybe it would be more informative if you standardize.
Macroeconomic drivers: Unclear why section 4.4. is shown. Where this information comes from?
Line 245: “There is a positive correlation between GDP and construction land.” Where is the statistical analysis for that?
Line 267: “The degree of fragmentation and the dominant landscape play an important role vis-a-vis ecosystem services.” The link between landscape fragmentation and ecosystem services was not analyzed in this study. Habitat quality is not an ecosystem service. Please remove this statement.
You analyze habitat quality for which species? Plants? Which animals?
The conclusion is overlapping with the discussion of the results (where reference would be needed). Please separate.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Your questions and suggestions greatly helped us to revise and improve the paper. We considered your questions carefully and made corrections accordingly. In addition, we had the revisions edited by a professional science editor to improve the writing.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The work has significant content. Although significant quantitative numbers are presented, it would be relevant to explore the qualitative dimensions in the study. It is interesting how you use the INVEST-model although it should be noted that it has some gaps, which should be highlighted.
It would be important in the introduction to improve the justification part of the study; the object; and the objectives and purposes of it. What's the purpose?
It would be relevant to present the initial and final situation of land uses. In fact, it would be important to check the fragmentation levels of the landscape and the existing connectivity.
In our opinion, the part that deserved substantial improvements is related to the results. It is, in our view, the most fragile part of the study. Separating the results and the discussion and presenting them in a relevant way would be helpful.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Your questions and suggestions greatly helped us to revise and improve the paper. We considered your questions carefully and made corrections accordingly. In addition, we had the revisions edited by a professional science editor to improve the writing.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for your response.
Author Response
Thank you for reviewing our manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have tried to address my comments. Thank you very much.
For the framework, a short text should be added. The discussion is quite weak and mainly contains the results but not a deep interpretation of the results. I recommend to separate the results and the discussion. The discussion section must contain the interpretation, e.g. comparison to other studies, transferability, and generalization, further use of the results, as well as the uncertainty of results (methodological discussion) which is currently not reflected in the manuscript.
Please find some comments in the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for reviewing our manuscript. Your questions and suggestions greatly helped us to revise and improve the paper. We considered your questions carefully and made corrections accordingly. In addition, we had the revisions edited by a professional science editor to improve the writing.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
