An Evaluation and Region Division Method for Ecosystem Service Supply and Demand Based on Land Use and POI Data

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comment: accept after major revisions
Abbreviations such as ESS, ESD, etc. are usually not included in the abstract section. Therefore, I recommend that these abbreviations not be used as much as possible in the abstract.
The figures 1,3,4,5,6,7. They could be improved, the colors are not well distinguished, since the maps are too small for interpretation. They also include text in Chinese, not in English. It is recommended to improve the quality of the maps and enter the text in English.

Section 4 Discussion should be 5.
Section 5 reflects the conclusions, rather than a discussion.
To better structure the article:
4. Result
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
OR

4. Results and discussion
5. Conclusions.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

Response: Many thanks to the reviewer for your affirmation of my manuscript and the detailed comments. Through the comments, I knew the shortcomings of the manuscript and improved it. The responses are as follows. If there are any problems, I will continue to try my best to modify the manuscript. Best wishes for you.

 

Point 1: Abbreviations such as ESS, ESD, etc. are usually not included in the abstract section. Therefore, I recommend that these abbreviations not be used as much as possible in the abstract.

Response 1: Abbreviations were deleted form the abstract.

 

Point 2: The figures 1,3,4,5,6,7. They could be improved, the colors are not well distinguished, since the maps are too small for interpretation. They also include text in Chinese, not in English. It is recommended to improve the quality of the maps and enter the text in English. 

Response 2: The quality and resolution of the figures 1,3,4,5,6,7 was improved, all the Chinese was replaced with English.

 

Point 3: Section 4 Discussion should be 5. Section 5 reflects the conclusions, rather than a discussion. To better structure the article: 4. Result 5. Discussion 6. Conclusions OR  4. Results and discussion 5. Conclusions.  

Response 3: The structure of the article is adjusted:

4. Results and discussion
5. Conclusions.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Grammar

Authors' use of the English language is generally good throughout the paper. Recommendations to enhance writing include:

• Try to decrease or eliminate the use of conjunctive adverbs such as "furthermore", "however", or "basically". 
• Some verb tenses are incorrect - e.g. line 51, use "have" rather than "had", 
• Use of more scientific adjectives - e.g. line 49, use "critically" rather than "deeply"
• Some missing articles - e.g. line 55, insert "a" in "used a modified ESV model" or line 71 "ESV and ESD on a small scale" or an in line 60 "key to an accurate evaluation", line 175 "The service target of ESD are human beings." 
• Line 90 - The data used in this was study sourced
• Line 100 - rewrite or remove following line, "There are a great number of concepts related to ESS and ESD" since it is vague.
• Line 246 - rewrite in a more scientific and less "slang" manner
• Line 268- areas   What does the author mean by "convenient life facilities"?

 

Introduction

In lines 58-60, the following statements are made, " The majority of existing
59 studies evaluated ESS using land use data, and chose representative indexes to appraise ESD. Yet, scientific indexes are the key to accurate evaluation." This statement is crucial to the research conducted and the results/discussion resulting from the research. I recommend providing a follow-up statement regarding appropriate scientific index characteristics that are discussed in the remainder of the paper.

In the conclusion section, the authors discuss the relevance of their results to land use planning decision making. I recommend providing a brief discussion of this important relationship in the introduction, which currently focuses primarily on the process with minimal discussion of the potential practical use of the information obtained from the process.

Materials and Methods

Study Area: I recommend including a map with the location of areas described indicated including locations discussed in section 4.2.

Research Methodology: The sentence in lines 106 - 110 is overly long and includes sections that are unclear, such as  "being assessed the ESV based on land use". Recommend break into at least 3 sentences.

3.2. ESD evaluation: The information presented in this section appears to be technically sound, but it is presented in a confusing manner. The authors initially describe three analysis methods and then suddenly start referring to "this case" without clearly indicating which case they are referring to. Then, in line 144, they refer to "this study", which now seems to be their study.

The sentence that goes from line 147 to 153 needs to be subdivided into multiple shorter sentences to provide clarity.

3.2.1. Construction Land ESD Equivalent

line 158: "reflecting human direct use and change of land" potentially change to "reflecting human impact and change in land use"

line 158:  "Some scholars assessed its ESV as negative." This seems to me as an important perspective that should be provided a more extensive discussion. As land that provides ESS is converted to construction land, not only are varying amounts of ESS lost, but the type of construction that replaces the ESS will determine how much that new land use depends on locations with more ESS to support its function. For example, as the amount of impervious surface increases, the amount of needed land with the ability to absorb and filter runoff water also increases.

lines 165-169. Again, please subdivide this sentence to provide clarity. 

lines 170-173. I find the choice of roads as the assessment method somewhat confusing. If it serves as a proxy for the number of people interacting on the land and the numbers of different human services that these lands provide, roads provide a good proxy. If it is designed to serve as a proxy for the amount of ESS lost and converted into economic services, then impervious surfaces would be a better proxy. 

Overall: I am left confused as to what ESD is meant to represent - is it representing the maximum extraction of ESS from the land or is it representing how humans can obtain the highest economic value from land while allowing at least some of the ESS to remain intact? 

4.3. Region Division for ESS and ESD

Line 300-301 - should this be "low ESS and low ESD region"

Please use the same designations on the Figure 7 map rather than numbers

Lines 306 - 336 - excellent summary of information and provision of land use recommendations based on results obtained. 

 

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Response: Many thanks to the reviewer for your affirmation of my manuscript and the detailed comments. Through the comments, I knew the shortcomings of the manuscript and improved it. The responses are as follows. If there are any problems, I will continue to try my best to modify the manuscript. Best wishes for you.

 

Grammar 

Point 1：Try to decrease or eliminate the use of conjunctive adverbs such as "furthermore", "however", or "basically". 

Response 1: Conjunctive adverbs were reduced.

 

Point 2：Some verb tenses are incorrect - e.g. line 51, use "have" rather than "had", 

Response 2: Replaced "had" with "have" in line 60 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 3：Use of more scientific adjectives - e.g. line 49, use "critically" rather than "deeply"

Response 3: Replaced " deeply" with " critically" in line 59 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 4：Some missing articles - e.g. line 55, insert "a" in "used a modified ESV model" or line 71 "ESV and ESD on a small scale" or an in line 60 "key to an accurate evaluation", line 175 "The service target of ESD are human beings." 

Response 4:

Inserted "a" in "used a modified ESV model" in line 65 in the revised manuscript.

Inserted "a" in "ESV and ESD on a small scale" in line 81 in the revised manuscript.

Inserted "an" in "key to an accurate evaluation" in line 70 in the revised manuscript.

Replaced " The service target of ESD is human being " with " The service target of ESD are human beings" in line 203 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 5：Line 90 - The data used in this was study sourced

Response 5: Inserted "was" in " The data used in this was study sourced " in line 104 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 6：Line 100 - rewrite or remove following line, "There are a great number of concepts related to ESS and ESD" since it is vague.

Response 6: Replaced " There are a great number of concepts related to ESS and ESD " with " There are a great number of methods related to ESS and ESD " in line 115 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 7：Line 246 - rewrite in a more scientific and less "slang" manner

Response7: The writing is rewrote in line 273 in the revised manuscript. The whole writing of the manuscript was improved by expert.

 

Point 8：Line 268- areas   What does the author mean by "convenient life facilities"?  

Response8: Replaced “convenient life facilities” with “convenient living services facilities “in line 297 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 9：In lines 58-60, the following statements are made, " The majority of existing studies evaluated ESS using land use data, and chose representative indexes to appraise ESD. Yet, scientific indexes are the key to accurate evaluation." This statement is crucial to the research conducted and the results/discussion resulting from the research. I recommend providing a follow-up statement regarding appropriate scientific index characteristics that are discussed in the remainder of the paper.

Response9：I think this point is to recommend to provide a statement of the current representative indexes. So, we added this statement in 3.2（line182 to 187） as following:

Generally speaking, the representative indexes include the following types: first, the proportion of construction land, reflecting land use and population status; second, population density, reflecting population status; third, night-light data, reflecting land use and population. These indicators are generally used alone or as a comprehensive indicator. In general, land use and population need to be considered in the index.

 

Point 10：In the conclusion section, the authors discuss the relevance of their results to land use planning decision making. I recommend providing a brief discussion of this important relationship in the introduction, which currently focuses primarily on the process with minimal discussion of the potential practical use of the information obtained from the process. 

Response10：The relevance of results and land use planning was supplemented in the introduction form line81 to 85 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 11：Study Area: I recommend including a map with the location of areas described indicated including locations discussed in section 4.2. 

Response11：The location of Study Area is added to figure 1

 

Point 12：Research Methodology: The sentence in lines 106 - 110 is overly long and includes sections that are unclear, such as  "being assessed the ESV based on land use". Recommend break into at least 3 sentences. 

Response12： The long sentence was divided into 3 sentences in line121 to line 125 in the revised manuscript. 

 

Point 13：3.2. ESD evaluation: The information presented in this section appears to be technically sound, but it is presented in a confusing manner. The authors initially describe three analysis methods and then suddenly start referring to "this case" without clearly indicating which case they are referring to. Then, in line 144, they refer to "this study", which now seems to be their study. 

Response13：The method of this study is based on the first method, but this method enriched indicators and the result was based on grid. And the method basis is supplemented in this paper in line170 in the revised manuscript. 

 

Point 14：The sentence that goes from line 147 to 153 needs to be subdivided into multiple shorter sentences to provide clarity. 

Response14： The long sentence was divided into 4 sentences in line171 to 174 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 15：3.2.1. Construction Land ESD Equivalent 

line 158: "reflecting human direct use and change of land" potentially change to "reflecting human impact and change in land use" 

Response15：Replaced " reflecting human direct use and change of land " with " reflecting human impact and change in land use " in line 183 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 16: line 158:  "Some scholars assessed its ESV as negative." This seems to me as an important perspective that should be provided a more extensive discussion.

Response16：As the reviewer’s advice, extensive discussion is supplemented to support the view in line185 to 187 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 17: lines 165-169. Again, please subdivide this sentence to provide clarity.  

Response17：The long sentence was divided into 4 sentences in line193 to 197 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 18: lines 170-173. I find the choice of roads as the assessment method somewhat confusing. If it serves as a proxy for the number of people interacting on the land and the numbers of different human services that these lands provide, roads provide a good proxy. If it is designed to serve as a proxy for the amount of ESS lost and converted into economic services, then impervious surfaces would be a better proxy.  

Response18：Because most of the construction land are impervious surfaces, including commercial land, residential land, mining and industry land, management-services land and road, as the review experts thought, we chose road to represent the proxy for the number of people interacting on the land and the numbers of different human services that these lands provide.

 

Point 19: Overall: I am left confused as to what ESD is meant to represent - is it representing the maximum extraction of ESS from the land or is it representing how humans can obtain the highest economic value from land while allowing at least some of the ESS to remain intact?  

Response19： ESD includes not only products or services which can be gained (have been consumed) but also includes products or services which are desired. It is the level of human expectation for ecosystem services based on land use. And the definition was improved in line 122 to 125 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 20:

4.3. Region Division for ESS and ESD 

Line 300-301 - should this be "low ESS and low ESD region”. Please use the same designations on the Figure 7 map rather than numbers

Response20："low ESS and low ESD region" is confirmed in line 329 in the revised manuscript, and the same designations on the figure 7 map were unified now.

 

Point 21: Lines 306 - 336 - excellent summary of information and provision of land use recommendations based on results obtained.

Response21： Many thanks for your recognition.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Summary: This study describes an ESS and ESD evaluation method based on land use and POI data, using the Haidian District of Beijing as a model. The authors propose a novel method for capturing ESD evaluation, using the actual conditions of land use and results of human activities to allow for more sophisticated land use management decisions. The methods, as I understood them, were sound and produced compelling results that should stimulate further research into methods for better defining ESD impacts on land use. The paper was generally well-written. Some effort should go into being more consistent in the use of acronyms, especially considering there are so many.

Title: “Based” should be capitalized.

Line 14: no comma after ESD; do not capitalize “This”

Line 21: Will everyone know what RMB stands for? Maybe need to define for an international audience?

Line 31: By “low ESS and high low region” do you mean “low ESS and low ESD region”? This is what is shown in Fig. 7. Otherwise, it is unclear what is meant.

Line 44: should be “started to explore”

Line 95-96: “POI date was derived”?

Figure 2: What does BLSA stand for? Is this the same as LISA? If so, choose one acronym and stick with it. I think you should define the acronyms used in this figure in your figure caption to make it easier for the reader.

Line 148: Previously, you used POI KDE. Here (and hereafter), you use POI KED. Are they the same thing? If not, what is KED?

Line 168: “say concretely” is this the beginning of this sentence? If so, capitalize “Say”

Line 210: delete “for”

Line 225: “Midwest” – you haven’t capitalized other regions of the Haidian District; why this one?

Line 245: “because of”

Line 268: “areas”

Line 313: No comma after “concentration”

Line 317: spell out “&”?

Line 347: “and explored new thoughts and methods”

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Summary: This study describes an ESS and ESD evaluation method based on land use and POI data, using the Haidian District of Beijing as a model. The authors propose a novel method for capturing ESD evaluation, using the actual conditions of land use and results of human activities to allow for more sophisticated land use management decisions. The methods, as I understood them, were sound and produced compelling results that should stimulate further research into methods for better defining ESD impacts on land use. The paper was generally well-written. Some effort should go into being more consistent in the use of acronyms, especially considering there are so many. 

Response: Many thanks to the reviewer for your affirmation of my manuscript and the detailed comments. Through the comments, I knew the shortcomings of the manuscript and improved it. The responses are as follows. If there are any problems, I will continue to try my best to modify the manuscript. Best wishes for you.

 

Point 1：Title: “Based” should be capitalized.

Response1：capitalized “Based”

 

Point 2：Line 14: no comma after ESD; do not capitalize “This” 

Response2：The comma mistake was revised and “this” was lowercased

 

Point 3：Line 21: Will everyone know what RMB stands for? Maybe need to define for an international audience? 

Response3：The meaning of RMB was supplemented in line 250 in revised the manuscript. It is the Chinese monetary unit, Yuan.

 

Point 4：Line 31: By “low ESS and high low region” do you mean “low ESS and low ESD region”? This is what is shown in Fig. 7. Otherwise, it is unclear what is meant. 

Response4： "low ESS and low ESD region" is confirmed in line 329 in the revised manuscript, and the same designations on the figure 7 map were unified now.

 

Point 5：Line 44: should be “started to explore” 

Response5： Replaced " scholars started to explored" with " scholars have started to explore " in line 54 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 6：Line 95-96: “POI date was derived”? 

Response6：Replaced " derived " with " selected" in line 110 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 7：Figure 2: What does BLSA stand for? Is this the same as LISA? If so, choose one acronym and stick with it. I think you should define the acronyms used in this figure in your figure caption to make it easier for the reader. 

Response7：I am sorry for this mistake. Replaced " BLSA" with " LISA" in figure2 in the revised manuscript. And the acronyms used in this figure is defined in the figure caption.

 

Point 8：Line 148: Previously, you used POI KDE. Here (and hereafter), you use POI KED. Are they the same thing? If not, what is KED? 

Response8：I am so sorry for this mistake，KED is POI KDE. They were unified to be POI KDE now.

 

Point 9：Line 168: “say concretely” is this the beginning of this sentence? If so, capitalize “Say”

Response9：“say concretely” is deleted in line196 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 10：Line 210: delete “for”

Response10：“for” was deleted in line 238 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 11：Line 225: “” – you haven’t capitalized other regions of the Haidian District; why this one? 

Response11：Replaced " Midwest" with " midwest" in line 253 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 12：Line 245: “because of” 

Response12：Replaced " because " with " because of" in line 272 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 13：Line 268: “areas” 

Response13：Replaced " areas" with " area" in line 296 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 14：Line 313: No comma after “concentration” 

Response14：The comma was deleted in line 342 in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 15：Line 317: spell out “&”? 

Response14：“&” is spell out with “and” in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 16：Line 347: “and explored new thoughts and methods”

Response14：“and” is inserted before “explored new thoughts and methods” in line 374 in the revised manuscript.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have successfully addressed reviewers' comments. Overall, the quality of the manuscript is significantly improved.