Decoupling Analysis of Net Carbon Emissions and Economic Growth of Marine Aquaculture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study used a decoupling strategy to analyze the net carbon emissions and economic growth of marine aquaculture in China and found some interesting results. I suggest for the following points be incorporated, i.e., 

 i) Introduction section: There is no citation/reference marked for both the paragraphs mentioned in this section. I suggest adding the citation of each paragraph accordingly

ii)  Literature Review: Each sub-section, i.e., section 2.1 and section 2.2 should end with the proposed research hypothesis of the study.

iii) Results should be linked with the earlier studies.

iv) Limitations and future research directions should be added at the end of the last section.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

We sincerely appreciate your comments on the previous version of our manuscript, as well as the time you have devoted to examining it. Your suggestions are very important for the improvement of the paper.

We describe briefly the changes we have made to specifically address your concerns in the attached file.

Best regards,

Guan Hongjun

 

Guan Hongjun

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. This paper presents analyses of Decoupling analysis of net carbon emissions and economic growth of marine aquaculture, etc. Overall quality is good, however, multiple issues need to be fixed before publication process. My comments and suggestions are following:
2. Length of the paper is a serious concern. Paper is uselessly lengthy, and many sections can be trimmed keeping in view the conciseness and science standards.
3. Such as providing literature review for such a technical study is an old fashion, usually literature review is given as a story like and merged within the introduction. However, if that is not the structure of this paper, at least it can be shortened.
4. Likewise, all sections of the paper can be further reduced wherever possible, a suggestion.
5. Abstract should be revised considering write up, conciseness, and clarity. Practical policy implications should be provided (at least one).
   Clear problem statement and rationale should be improved.
6. Abbreviations should be explained whenever used for the first time.
7. What is novelty of this work? To make sure that it is not recycling of the available science in this field.
8. Figures are not presented smartly, they are poorly managed, though I like their structure, for instance, Fig. 1 should be adjusted, and some figures should be enlarged. Have a check please.
9. Formatting is an issue as well. Please fix issues throughout the paper.
10. What is “enlightenment” attached with the conclusion? I never see such a section before. Please revise. Moreover, keep this section short as well. It should not be larger than 2 pages or so.
11. Look for redundancy of the references if any.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

We sincerely appreciate your comments on the previous version of our manuscript, as well as the time you have devoted to examining it. Your suggestions are very important for the improvement of the paper.

We describe briefly the changes we have made to specifically address your concerns in the attached file.

Best regards,

Guan Hongjun

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This study tries to calculate the decoupling relationship between net carbon emissions and economic growth of marine aquaculture and analyze the degree of decoupling effort. I think that it needs a major revision for improvement in this paper.

1. In general, I think this paper fails to capture the point “decoupling analysis” in both the theoretical part and the empirical part. For example, the research background part focuses on environmental pollution rather than the decoupling. And in the empirical part, the authors devote seven pages (pages 7-13) to a status report while only six pages (pages 14-19) to the core content the decoupling.
2. The introduction should cover the main content of almost all parts of the text, not just the research background. You can refer to Zhang et al. 2022 (doi: 10.1016/j.eap.2022.01.018).
3. Authors should summary the recent literature and find out the knowledge gaps, instead of listing literature. You can refer to: Zhang et al. 2021 (10.1016/j.resourpol.2020.101741), Li et al 2022 (10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121601), Zhang et al. 2021 (10.1177/0958305X211008618)
4. Literature Review. Section 2.3 is not parallel to Section 2.1 and Section 2.2. The first paragraph is not appropriate. By the way, it confuses me when the authors use these words such as “at home and abroad”, “domestic and foreign”, and “most foreign scholars”.
5. Research methods. The authors should give a brief description of the purpose of the methods before introducing their contents.
6. What does “Number” in Table 3 mean?
7. The authors should not be overly concerned with these results about the carbon emission and the carbon sequestration.
8. I suggest that the overall analysis and the sub-regional analysis be reported separately.
9. There are many mistakes that should be fixed, such as these French quotes. Many sentences are wrong, such as “In order to further analyze the specific development of the net carbon emissions and the economic development of marine aquaculture from 2010 to 2019 in China, makes a comparative analysis on the spatial and temporal distribution of them, as shown in Figure 2”.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

We sincerely appreciate your comments on the previous version of our manuscript, as well as the time you have devoted to examining it. Your suggestions are very important for the improvement of the paper.

We describe briefly the changes we have made to specifically address your concerns in the attached file.

Best regards,

Guan Hongjun

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Changes are acceptable.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

We sincerely appreciate your comments on the previous version of our manuscript, as well as the time you have devoted to examining it. Your suggestions are very important for the improvement of the paper.

Best regards,

Guan Hongjun

Reviewer 3 Report

I agree with this manuscript

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

We sincerely appreciate your comments on the previous version of our manuscript, as well as the time you have devoted to examining it. Your suggestions are very important for the improvement of the paper.

Best regards,

Guan Hongjun