Exploring the Benefits of Small Catchments on Rural Spatial Governance in Wuling Mountain Area, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I found the topic and research reported in this manuscript to be important as I agree with the opening sentence of the Abstract:  "China is facing an important period of rural governance innovation and restructuring of territorial spatial patterns." And one of those governance innovations could be the "small catchment" concept and structure reported on in this paper.

Let me go through with my comments and suggestions for improvement in the existing text.

1. The second sentence of the paper beginning with "The core challenge is dealing with the disagreement of some conceptual dimensions under a controversial management system and promoting governance as a coupling unit of a decision design and the implementing space unit" is thoroughly in need of clarification and unpacking to be rationally useful and clear to the reader. Therefore, I would recommend elaborating upon this "core challenge" further and by defining the "controversial management system" and type of governance referred to here.
2. The sweeping claim in the first paragraph: "Governance constraints are the main reason for the slow development of mountain areas, especially in developing countries and impoverished areas" needs both further explanation and evidence, perhaps some examples, would help here. The topic is dropped immediately when descriptions of China follow. More discussion of these "governance constraints" and why in the last sentence of the paper "governance discourse" is mentioned; what is the perceived difference between "governance" and "governance discourse?"
3. word correction: first paragraph middle: "innovation," should be: "innovative."
4. Section 2 heading has misspelled word: "Materious," could it mean "materials?" Should be corrected.
5. Definition of key term "catchment" should be defined earlier inn the paper and left until Section 2.1.
6. The distinction between "ecological units" and "settlement units" should be defined and clarified. This begins a trend in the paper here where profound ideas are conveyed in quotes and not discussed nor clarified.
7. Second paragraph, Section 2.1 several terms require clarification:  a)"secondary ecosystem," b) "horizontal interest-related," c) "vertical exchange," "three-dimensional ecological economy," and "scientific development planning."
8. third paragraph, Section 2.1, "development law" of different habitat ecological unit in mountainous areas, needs further discussion and clarification.
9. first paragraph, Section 2.2, the "dual tasks of regional ecological protection and rural industrial revitalization" should be clarified and specified further since so important to the argument and findings.
10. second paragraph, Section 2.2 "ecological environment" is redundant; one or the other is fine, in this sentence "environment" seems best.
11. first paragraph, Section 2.3, "all-for-one tourism" needs to be explained.
12. first paragraph, Section 3.1, "development first, management later" should be clarified to be rationally useful.
13. second paragraph, Section 3.1 the referred to "late-developing advantages" of Hubei should be mentioned and explained.
14. first paragraph, Section 3.2, "high transaction cost under the traffic bottleneck" is mentioned a few times but never explained. What are the transaction costs referred to? What is the traffic bottleneck? Further discussion would make the paper's argument clearer.
15. first paragraph, Section 3.3, "the fragmentation of farmland" in rural China, especially in mountainous regions should be supported with some supporting data about average farm size, number of farms, etc. and the disadvantages of such farmland fragmentation. Further down in this paragraph, the "public crisis" is referred to and the need for spatial governance for "anti-fragmentation" to get rid of the "public crisis."What is the "public crisis" and how will the catchment entity address "anti-fragmentation?" Can tiny farms be consolidated voluntarily? What incentives can be presented to the small farmer to give up his land in order to expand farm size and use modern farm equipment and obtain economies of scale which are denied now in fragmented rural farms, especially in mountainous areas.
16. Second paragraph, Section 3.3, "project system" of the "top-down administration system" needs to described and clarified to be rationally useful.
17. second paragraph, Section 4.1, "pig breeding industry" is used as an illustration of small catchment but no description follows regarding layout and scale impacted in this industry by the catchment. More description needed for make this illustration valuable in support of the authors' claims.
18. paragraph 3, Section 4.1 the lack of capital is mentioned in this paragraph which seems like a key trait for such rural mountainous regions. How will the catchment structure general additional capital to such areas? Who are the "stakeholders" forming relationships with "rural settlements?" Are not the residents of such areas a prime "stakeholder?"Need to clarify and discuss further.
19. first paragraph, Section 4.2, sweeping claim made: "The essence of poverty is the separation of the poor from the market and society." This grand statement needs explanation and evidence to support it. How will the catchment proposal help the poor in the mountainous regions like WMA?
20. second paragraph, Section 4.2, "the poor run to the mountains and the rich cluster in the mouth Bay" needs to clarified and supported to be rationally useful.
21. Section 4.3, the claimed "social capital linkage" furthered by the catchment structure needs to clarified and supported. How can rural farm residents develop social capital? through catchment?
22. first paragraph, Conclusion, "a well-off society," "all-round way" and "betting the strong," all need clarification and further explanation to be rationally useful.
23. second paragraph, Conclusion, watch out for false dichotomy between "theoretical cognition" and "practical needs." Good theory should have good practical consequences and these two are not opponents but complements when done well.
24. third paragraph, Conclusion, what is the "central area" and the peripheral area" referred to here; should name. In the name paragraph, the mechanism "ecology-society-economy" should be clarified.

Author Response

Dear editor,

 

I am sorry for my late reply, as I missed the new mail in the mailbox in time. Thanks for your valuable work and suggestions on our paper. We greatly appreciate both your help and that of the reviews concerning improvement to our manuscript.

 

We have carefully considered the two reviewer’s comments and suggestions, and provided a point-by-point response. Related parts that made confusion have been clarified. The whole paper has been revised accordingly and the revised parts are labeled in blue color. As some references were added to the new version, labels of some references were changed.

 

In the end, we want to convey our earnest thanks to three reviewers whose valuable comments have greatly improved this manuscript.

 

Best wishes,

 

Jie Qiao

On behalf of all authors of the manuscript

 

 

Point-to-point response to reviewer’s comments

 

Reviewer 1:

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I found the topic and research reported in this manuscript to be important as I agree with the opening sentence of the Abstract:  "China is facing an important period of rural governance innovation and restructuring of territorial spatial patterns." And one of those governance innovations could be the "small catchment" concept and structure reported on in this paper.

R: We appreciate these positive comments and we are glad that the reviewer has agreed with the contribution of this paper. Thanks very much for the reviewer’s questions/concerns.

 

Response to reviewer’s comments and suggestions.

 

1. The second sentence of the paper beginning with "The core challenge is dealing with the disagreement of some conceptual dimensions under a controversial management system and promoting governance as a coupling unit of a decision design and the implementing space unit" is thoroughly in need of clarification and unpacking to be rationally useful and clear to the reader. Therefore, I would recommend elaborating upon this "core challenge" further and by defining the "controversial management system" and type of governance referred to here.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. Indeed, since the second sentence is from the text of the quotation, I have overlooked the contextual semantic relationship. the “core challenge” represents the political and governance constraints, so the “controversial management system” mainly refers to the contradiction between the top-down administrative unit and the overall development of the ecological resources of the mountain. The author has added the defination to the corresponding statement to make the expression more clearly and rationally

 

2. The sweeping claim in the first paragraph: "Governance constraints are the main reason for the slow development of mountain areas, especially in developing countries and impoverished areas" needs both further explanation and evidence, perhaps some examples, would help here. The topic is dropped immediately when descriptions of China follow. More discussion of these "governance constraints" and why in the last sentence of the paper "governance discourse" is mentioned; what is the perceived difference between "governance" and "governance discourse?"

R: Thanks for this suggestion. The problem you raised is that the article leaks two documents and leads to insufficient evidence and case support, which has been supplemented by the relevant reference literature, which is supported by cases. the last sentence of the paper "governance discourse" is a misunderstanding caused by text writing, which has been updated to “governance”.

 

3. word correction: first paragraph middle: "innovation," should be: "innovative."

R: Thanks for pointing out this mistake. I am sorry to have caused an unnecessary misunderstanding due to spelling mistakes, and I have updated "innovation" to "innovative".

 

4. Section 2 heading has misspelled word: "Materious," could it mean "materials?" Should be corrected.

R: Thanks for pointing out this mistake. I am sorry to have caused an unnecessary misunderstanding due to spelling mistakes, and I have updated " Materious" to " materials".

 

5. Definition of key term "catchment" should be defined earlier in the paper and left until Section 2.1.

R: Thanks for this suggestion. I am sorry to have caused such a kind of late feeling, the specific definition of the convection domain is in 2.1, which is mainly to make a reconciliation for the characteristics of the convective domain space. In fact, in the first paragraph of the introduction, there have been two important the recognition of the catchment features and benefits in the penultimate fourth and the second sentences. The author takes these two paragraphs as the first introduction to the concept of catchment in the article.

 

6. The distinction between "ecological units" and "settlement units" should be defined and clarified. This begins a trend in the paper here where profound ideas are conveyed in quotes and not discussed nor clarified.

R: Thank you for pointing out this question. Your comments will help readers better understand the original meaning of the concept. Here I will first update "settlement ecological units" to "human ecological unit" based on the original document（Chinese English）. Among them, the concept of the "human ecological unit" mainly refers to the "complex system with relatively independent social functions, and the interaction of the "human settlement unit" and the "natural geographical unit" defined by relatively clear geographical boundaries." In this way, we can reflect and analyze the various phenomena and inherent laws of the current human settlement environment construction. Its core idea is to regard the overall interests of the ecosystem as the highest value, not the unilateral interests of human beings.

 

7. Second paragraph, Section 2.1 several terms require clarification:  a)"secondary ecosystem," b) "horizontal interest-related," c) "vertical exchange," "three-dimensional ecological economy," and "scientific development planning."

R: Thanks for pointing out this problem. The author feel sorry for this confusion. We want to clarify that this sentence has been revised in current version as follows: a)updated "secondary ecosystem," to " subsystem"; the sentence " the interests of horizontal village development are closely related, and vertical spatial resources interact and complement each other" replaces the two unclear sentences b) and c) ; updated "scientific development planning" to "scientific rural development".

 

8. third paragraph, Section 2.1, "development law" of different habitat ecological unit in mountainous areas, needs further discussion and clarification.

R: Many thanks for your consideration. The author’s specific discussion on the law of development is a summary of the viewpoints of the literature [26], mainly including the laws of economy, society, ecology, etc. in mountainous areas.

 

9. first paragraph, Section 2.2, the "dual tasks of regional ecological protection and rural industrial revitalization" should be clarified and specified further since so important to the argument and findings.

R: Thank you for your comments. The expression of this sentence is a typical Chinese policy discourse. Because the author overlooked some unclear background of the discourse, it caused a semantic ambiguity for the reviewers. The author give a specific explanation here: The Wuling Mountain is an important ecological barrier in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in China, and it is also a key contiguous poverty-stricken area in central China. Regional development shoulders the dual responsibility of ecological protection and national rural revitalization.

 

10. second paragraph, Section 2.2 "ecological environment" is redundant; one or the other is fine, in this sentence "environment" seems best.

R: Many thanks for your consideration. " ecological environment " has been revised to " environment ".

 

11. first paragraph, Section 2.3, "all-for-one tourism" needs to be explained.

R: Thank you for identifying this key problem. " 'all-for-one' tourism" is a Chinese term,as a new development strategy put forward by the Chinese government in 2018. " 'all-for-one' tourism" calls for promoting the development of tourism regionally, tourism supply quality, tourism management standardization, tourism benefit maximization. See more from: http://english.www.gov.cn/statecouncil/ministries/202012/20/content_WS5fdf084fc6d0f725769422f3.html

The author will use footnotes to supplement related explanation.

 

12. first paragraph, Section 3.1, "development first, management later" should be clarified to be rationally useful.

R:Thank you for pointing out this inaccurate expression. The author's original meaning is to express a development model that some countries often follow in the process of traditional industrialization "grow first, clean up later".

 

13. second paragraph, Section 3.1 the referred to "late-developing advantages" of Hubei should be mentioned and explained.

R: Thank you for pointing out this inaccurate expression. The late-comer advantage is mainly based on the comparative advantage presented by the rich ecological and multi-ethnic cultural resources of the Wuling Mountain area under the strategy of rural revitalization and poverty alleviation in China.

 

14. first paragraph, Section 3.2, "high transaction cost under the traffic bottleneck" is mentioned a few times but never explained. What are the transaction costs referred to? What is the traffic bottleneck? Further discussion would make the paper's argument clearer.

R: Thanks for this suggestion. This paragraph is a summary of the following text. Through the case of CTAC, the manganese industry development drives the improvement of local infrastructure, which is a manifestation of the excessively high transaction cost of transportation and public goods under the traffic bottleneck in mountainous areas. Only through the financial revenue brought by mineral resource development can the government in poor areas help promote the infrastructure construction.

 

15. first paragraph, Section 3.3, "the fragmentation of farmland" in rural China, especially in mountainous regions should be supported with some supporting data about average farm size, number of farms, etc. and the disadvantages of such farmland fragmentation. Further down in this paragraph, the "public crisis" is referred to and the need for spatial governance for "anti-fragmentation" to get rid of the "public crisis."What is the "public crisis" and how will the catchment entity address "anti-fragmentation?" Can tiny farms be consolidated voluntarily? What incentives can be presented to the small farmer to give up his land in order to expand farm size and use modern farm equipment and obtain economies of scale which are denied now in fragmented rural farms, especially in mountainous areas.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. At present, the development of "anti-fragmentaion" in mountainous areas is mainly manifested in two aspects: (1) changing the spatial attribute of land use through infrastructure construction;(2) Through scale operation and property right model innovation to improve the land use attributes, the public nature of catchment ecological environment and the relevance of infrastructure layout determine that promoting catchment development is conducive to getting rid of the tragedy of common land between traditional administrative villages, which is the public crisis mentioned in this paper. The adjacent relationship of the river basin provides a variety of models for the innovation of land property rights model, which will induce the consolidation of small farms (smallholders). For example, large-scale sightseeing farms and ecological farms formed along the river basin will have rich benefits, which cannot be achieved by traditional small householders. In addition, the overall improvement of the traffic in the basin will also drive the linkage development, which will drive some isolated and fragmented land use.

 

16. Second paragraph, Section 3.3, "project system" of the "top-down administration system" needs to described and clarified to be rationally useful.

R: I am sorry for repeated occurrences of unclear meanings caused by the inertia of Chinese language thinking. Since China adopted the tax-sharing system in the mid-1990s, project system has become increasingly prominent as a form of top-down resource allocation system, and overflowing the fiscal field has become an important mechanism for national governance and implementation of policy tasks. The project system aims to break the shackles of the existing bureaucratic system as represented by the unit system through such ways as special transfer payment of state revenues, so as to mitigate the differentiation effects caused by the market system and to increase the investment in people’s livelihood and public services. The author will use footnotes to supplement related explanation.

 

17. second paragraph, Section 4.1, "pig breeding industry" is used as an illustration of small catchment but no description follows regarding layout and scale impacted in this industry by the catchment. More description needed for make this illustration valuable in support of the authors' claims.

R: Thank you for your comments, because the author’s improper review of the structure of the text and the improper expression of the cohesive sentence in the following text has caused this sentence to become an isolated expression. In fact, it is a generalization of the discussion about the third paragraph. Therefore, the detailed description and explanation of this sentence are mainly in the third paragraph ①, ②, ③.

 

18. paragraph 3, Section 4.1 the lack of capital is mentioned in this paragraph which seems like a key trait for such rural mountainous regions. How will the catchment structure general additional capital to such areas? Who are the "stakeholders" forming relationships with "rural settlements?" Are not the residents of such areas a prime "stakeholder?" Need to clarify and discuss further.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. I'm sorry to give the editor such a vague expression. The summary of this part is actually based on the comprehensive judgments described in paragraphs ①, ②, and ③ in the second paragraph. The author found that the scale effect of the catchment helps reduce transaction costs and increase social capital, such as some government-led deployment of public service facilities, such as medical care and nursing homes. Stakeholders below are mainly local residents, but also include some market players and development companies that speak for the government.

 

19. first paragraph, Section 4.2, sweeping claim made: "The essence of poverty is the separation of the poor from the market and society." This grand statement needs explanation and evidence to support it. How will the catchment proposal help the poor in the mountainous regions like WMA?

R: Many thanks for your consideration. This sentence is actually a summary of the analysis in Section 4.1, but due to the problem of cohesion, it seems that such a judgment seems to be placed here suddenly. The special feature is that the reviewer also proposed this abrupt feeling from the reader's perspective, in order to avoid conclusions.The author has deleted this judgment.

 

20. second paragraph, Section 4.2, "the poor run to the mountains and the rich cluster in the mouth Bay" needs to clarified and supported to be rationally useful.

R: Thanks for this suggestion. This sentence is a proverb circulated by villagers in mountainous areas. It means that people with poor thinking are hiding in high mountain areas, and people with thinking of getting rich are willing to go to the mouth of the river, the low-lying terrain and the exit with convenient transportation.

 

21. Section 4.3, the claimed "social capital linkage" furthered by the catchment structure needs to clarified and supported. How can rural farm residents develop social capital? through catchment?

R: Many thanks for your consideration. The understanding of "social capital linkage" here comes from the support of the literature, that is, from a larger-scale "Community engagement and community cohesion". In mountainous areas, catchments have built a local social and ecological foundation for community engagement and cohesion.

 

22. first paragraph, Conclusion, "a well-off society," "all-round way" and "betting the strong," all need clarification and further explanation to be rationally useful.

R: Thank you for putting forward these semantically ambiguous concepts. Like the previous question, the author will use footnotes to supplement related concepts.

"A moderately prosperous society proposed in all respects" is a Chinese-specific vocabulary. It is China’s national development goals by 2020 proposed by China’s important leader Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. The author updated the inappropriate expression and introduced the official English name of the concept. The sentence "betting the strong" updated to "betting on the strong" which has been discussed in 3.3. The specific explanation of this concept is "characteristic of local government resource allocation logic" which specifically discussed in the corresponding reference.

 

23. second paragraph, Conclusion, watch out for false dichotomy between "theoretical cognition" and "practical needs." Good theory should have good practical consequences and these two are not opponents but complements when done well.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. Through thinking and reflection on the review opinions. In fact, I want to express that my thinking about promoting the overall development of catchment in China has shifted from theoretical thinking to practical needs. This demand is getting stronger and stronger. The catchment governance effect will directly affect the quality and sustainability of mountain development.

 

24. third paragraph, Conclusion, what is the "central area" and the peripheral area" referred to here; should name. In the name paragraph, the mechanism "ecology-society-economy" should be clarified.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. The last sentence of the third paragraph, Conclusion, is the author’s summary of the research experience in section 4.2. the mistakes come from the conceptual presentation, the author has changed the "central area" to "central development area", and change the "peripheral area" to " poor groups" according to the reviewers’ opinions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The improvements (corrections) of spelling/text editing are needed in the text, including in references, e.g. “2. Materious and methods”, “Valley econmy”.

 

The construct of Figure 1 “ecology-society-economy” do not reflect the one proposed by the framework. There is no direct relation, for instance, between economic and social systems. Instead, the framework of analysis reflects the construct “economy-ecology-society”. The designed framework (Figure 1) includes quite vague characteristics – elements and their connections. It is suggested to explain briefly these. For instance, how authors see the gaining of ecological benefits from reducing transaction costs and promoting a demand?

 

In page 16, there should be reference to Figure 13 as “multi-scale spatial reorganization” experience is described.

 

Methods used in the study could be described more precisely indicating the purpose of each method. Sub-section 2.3. focuses on main method and reflect more activities/procedures than motivation to use a method.

 

The section “5. Conclusion” should address the research questions (3 in “Introduction”), however, it is developed quite general, includes some preliminary findings and limitations.

Author Response

Dear editor,

 

I am sorry for my late reply. Thanks for your valuable work and suggestions on our paper. We greatly appreciate both your help and that of the reviews concerning improvement to our manuscript.

 

We have carefully considered the two reviewer’s comments and suggestions, and provided a point-by-point response. Related parts that made confusion have been clarified. The whole paper has been revised accordingly and the revised parts are labeled in blue color. As some references were added to the new version, labels of some references were changed.

 

In the end, we want to convey our earnest thanks to three reviewers whose valuable comments have greatly improved this manuscript.

 

Best wishes,

 

Jie Qiao

On behalf of all authors of the manuscript

 

 

Point-to-point response to reviewer’s comments

Reviewer 2:

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

R: We appreciate these positive comments and we are glad that the reviewer has agreed with the contribution of this paper. Thanks very much for the reviewer’s questions/concerns.

 

1.The improvements (corrections) of spelling/text editing are needed in the text, including in references, e.g. “2. Materious and methods”, “Valley econmy”.

R: Thanks for pointing out these mistakes. I am sorry to have caused an unnecessary misunderstanding due to spelling mistakes, and I have updated " Materious," to " materials." Regarding another modification, I need to point out that “Valley econmy” is taken from the original text of a Chinese article. To facilitate the understanding of this article, I have changed “Valley econmy” to "catchment econmy" in the main text, retaining the original expression of the reference.

 

2.The construct of Figure 1 “ecology-society-economy” do not reflect the one proposed by the framework. There is no direct relation, for instance, between economic and social systems. Instead, the framework of analysis reflects the construct “economy-ecology-society”. The designed framework (Figure 1) includes quite vague characteristics – elements and their connections. It is suggested to explain briefly these. For instance, how authors see the gaining of ecological benefits from reducing transaction costs and promoting a demand?

R: I'm sorry for the ambiguity caused by the inaccuracy of the image name. This table is mainly to express the multi-dimensional system characteristics of the catchment and its benefit-related mechanism, and does not express the triangular interaction of "ecology—society—economy". Therefore, the author has corrected the unprepared expression of the name of the map. How benefits reduce transaction costs should increase market demand. There are cases in section 4.1 to illustrate. Therefore, this table only provides an explanatory framework.

 

3.In page 16, there should be reference to Figure 13 as “multi-scale spatial reorganization” experience is described.

R: Thanks for this suggestion. The author havs made additional annotations in the corresponding position of the text.

 

4.Methods used in the study could be described more precisely indicating the purpose of each method. Sub-section 2.3. focuses on main method and reflect more activities/procedures than motivation to use a method.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. The author has emphasized the research process and the content of research activities, and weakened the research motivation. For specific modifications, see the blue part of the text.

 

5.The section “5. Conclusion” should address the research questions (3 in “Introduction”), however, it is developed quite general, includes some preliminary findings and limitations.

R: Thanks for providing such insightful understanding. When responding to the three problems that need to be solved in the introduction part, the author adopts the method of generalizing first and then decomposing. The research on related topics is still in progress. This article is the result of an important stage. I believe that there will be more in-depth findings in the follow-up in-depth research. The author made some improvements and in-depth generalizations on the current conclusions.