A CLUMondo Model-Based Multi-Scenario Land-Use Change Simulation in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper uses the CLUMondo and Markov models to predict the land use changes of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA) in 2035 under four scenarios. I thought, at first sight, this is interesting research. However, there are still some technical issues needed to be clarified before it could be accepted for publication, which were listed below:

l  Abstract

-The word “growth” was lost from “Natural (NG)”.

-The Markov model was used in the study to obtain land demand for input into the CLUMondo model to simulate and predict land-use change, but the Markov model was not mentioned in the abstract.

l  I suggest adding a research framework diagram to this paper.

l  The article should include more descriptions of CLUMondo and Markov models. Why use these models? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

l  Please, try to be consistent with the spelling of the words; e.g. time “ecological conservation scenario (EP)” is used and in other places “ecological scenario” and “ecological protection (EP)” are employed.

l  The selection of landscape pattern index needs to be determined according to the purpose of the study. In this paper, the landscape pattern index closely related to the ecological process is used for analysis. Therefore, the selection of the index should not only reflect the characteristics of spatial structure but also reflect the non-spatial landscape Mosaic components. It is suggested to supplement the diversity index.

l  Methods

-I believe that the “>” in “The Yangtze River Delta is home to > 200 lakes” is not correct. Please, apply corrections throughout the manuscript.

-The explanation of the logistic regression equation is not complete. The sentence “where Pi is the occurrence probability” does not explain clearly the probability of what event.

l  Results

-There is no data for “Unused land” in Figure 4 but there is “Unused land” in the legend of Figure 5.

-The index in Section 2.5 is “contagion (CONTAG)”, while in Section 3.3 it becomes “Connectivity (CONTAG)”. Contagion and Connectivity are two different indices. Please specify which index is ultimately used.

-In section 3.3, the word “landscape” was lost from “shape index (LSI)”, and the word “index” was lost from “aggregation (AI)”.

-In section 3.3, the sentence “Compared with the baseline scenario...and a high degree of diversity” does not specify which scenario it is.

l  Another obvious problem with this paper is the lack of sufficient explanation of the simulation results. You need to explain your simulation results in detail and why you got such results.

l  CONCLUSIONS needs more in it, as it's more of an afterthought. The authors are suggested to highlight important findings and include afterthought of this work.

l  As a minor matter, there are still some formatting problems, like paragraph indent, the position of the chart title, etc.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript titled: A CLUMondo Model-based Multi-scenario Land-use Change Simulation in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China by ZhaoYanhua and co-workers. The objective of the work is interesting, and my recommendation will be published after major revisions were made:

1. There are many grammatical and spelling mistakes throughout the article. The article should be thoroughly reviewed, and errors should be corrected. For example, (1) in all text is a need to put space (for example 3.93% not is correct, the correct 3.93 % with space); (2) review how to cite references throughout the text (For example, with space or without spacer - “Foley, J. A., et al. 2005; Turner, B. L., et al.2007; Seto, K. C., et al. 2010; Kulmala, M., et al.2021; Wei, Y., et al. 2021”)

2. The conclusion part can be improved.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article took one of the most typical urban agglomerations in China, the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, as the study area, and the CLUMondo Model was used to simulate the land-use change under diverse scenarios. The future land use change characters were revealed and the landscape patterns were predicted, aiming to promote urban sustainable development. Here are some suggestions for this paper:

1. In the abstract, some more detailed research methods should be related. For example, the Markov chain method was used to simulate the land use demand and so on. Besides, the mere description of the urban land change is pretty monotonous, so it is suggested that other obvious land use change types should be depicted.

2. In the Introduction, the comment on the literature review should be added, what problems existing in previous studies were solved and what contribution does the article make to the field in your paper?

3. In part “2.1 Study area”, more detail related to the research should be depicted. Besides, Fig.1 is not standard enough. If there are several maps in one picture and they have different scales, their separate scales should be marked.

4. In section “2.3. Study methods”, the structure of this section is confused. It is suggested that the core research methods including their formulas should be put in the first part, then the index you selected should be introduced, and the last, accounting for the way to set up diverse scenarios.

5. As for the land resource demands, there is a 15-year interval between 2000 and 2015, and so on, the next most accurate forecast year should be 2030, so what are the applicable conditions of the Markov chain, and can it be used to predict land use demand in unequally spaced years?

6. Why is the area of construction land in the ED scenario smaller than that in the NG scenario, while the area of paddy fields is larger than in the NG scenario? Is this future scenario really beneficial to economic development? Please explain its rationale or reset these different scenarios.

7. The limitation of this research should be added in discuss section.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Fig. 1 - The geographical characterization of the Yangtze River Delta, China is not suggestive in representing what is desired.

A representation of the climatic and hydrological elements mentioned in the description is necessary.

Data collection and processing is fine.

The obtained results are well presented, but the graphics require changes. The image is not very visible and I think that it is necessary to enlarge them (fig. 2 and fig. 3), including the text of the legend.

The same difficulty in understanding the images is also for figures 4 and 5. There is the same recommendation regarding increasing their sizes, including the text in the legend.

There is a need to expand the discussions describing all the factors that contributed to these changes from 2000-2015. It would be very good if the data could show the current situation, or at least until 2020 (it would be closer to the present).

It is an interesting article and captures many of the land use issues.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The Authors made the corrections suggested.

Reviewer 3 Report

According to the comment on the paper, some deficiencies have been modified, but there is still some content that is vague, which confuses me deeply. Please CAREFULLY revise the point 2, point 3, point 5, and point 6 that were proposed in the last report.

(1) The gap that previous studies made was introduced, but your contribution is not clear enough.

(2) The scale in the map of China is missing still. Please modify your manuscript CAREFULLY!

(3) According to point 5 and 6, please provide direct answers or explanations to the questions raised, do not beat around the bush.