Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper uses statistical panel data to evaluate the development quality of the Yellow River Basin provinces, using several models such as TOPSIS. The logic of the article is complete, but there are the followings that need further improvement.
1. The title does not state the country, otherwise the readers will not know the location of the study area. A map of the study area could be added as a schematic diagram.
2. The introduction section lacks a review of relevant studies and only gives a background description of the study in a macro sense.
3. Whether the statistical panel data provided by the government is completely reliable, which needs to be further investigated for its authenticity to support the reliability of the results and conclusions.
4. Whether there is a reference or standard for the design of the index system, otherwise it is hard to achieve the consensus with the readers of the article.
5. The result section is mixed with part of the discussion, the discussion section should be elaborated separately, and the result section only explains the data results.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper measures the spatial and temporal differences and degrees of obstacles to high-quality development. The methods are adequately described and the results are presented. Below are my questions and comments:

The introduction section needs to be improved. Firstly, I'd ask the authors to add a definition of high-quality development in this section and explain it. Also, precise objectives of this paper needs to be added. Additionally, what are the methods previously used to measure the differences and obstacles to high-quality development? Those need to be discussed as well.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for the opportunity to review this interesting study of evaluating high-quality development of nine provinces in the Yellow River Basin area of China. Some suggestions below for improvement.

 

1.     Please reorganize Table 2 by Ranking for better results presentation.

 

2.     Figure 1 is very blur. Please present clear graphs. Besides, if possible, please present the three subgraphs with same value ranges for both x-axis and y-axis in order to make a fair comparison among the three different years. For example, all three subgraphs should have same range on x-axis values such as from -2.6 to 2.4.

 

3.     Please rephrase or remove “time-series” throughout the entire manuscript, because your study is really just static data of several different years, not really “time-series”.

 

4.     In the Conclusions section, please add a paragraph to discuss limitation of this study and possible future research directions for improvement and/or extension.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of my concerns have been responded to and my recommendation is to accept the paper. However, I still feel that there are a few changes that need to be made before the paper is submitted again in its final version.

1. There are few references to foreign literature in the paper, including UN material, etc. I think there should be some relevant studies and reports on evaluation and assessment etc. Adding citations to these materials would increase the credibility of the paper and increase the number of citations. Citing material only from the author's country is on the one hand a language gap for the reader, and on the other hand it is difficult to find out whether the material cited is correct and reliable.
2. The order of the conclusion and limitation sections could be adjusted, and it may be better to state the limitations before the conclusion. This is a common practice in most of the literature.