Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is devoted to the study of the influence of spatio-temporal characteristics on ecological risk. Methods reflect the purpose of the article. The conclusion demonstrates the results of the study. The abstract briefly describes the article and is informative. The flock solves an important problem in the field of sustainability.

Author Response

Response letter

Dear editor.

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript. We appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments on our manuscript entitled “Spatio-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of eco-logical risk in China’s North-South Transition Zone”(Manuscript Number: sustainability-1699616).

In this revised version, we have addressed the concerns of the reviewers. An item-by-item response to the reviewer’s comments is enclosed, and the revision was marked in red fonts in the manuscript. We hope that these revisions successfully address their concerns and requirements and that this manuscript could be accepted. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Li Li, Zhou Xiao ping *, Yang lan, Duan jing long, Zeng zhuo

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is presented as an interesting and current study, as the subject of human footprint is approached more and more often, especially in the context of population growth in urban areas and implicitly of urban areas, trying to find a balance between the economy, the environment and the needs of the population.

I appreciate the approach of the subject, which combines statistical methods with methods of spatial representation, which facilitates the understanding of the discussed phenomenon.

However, I believe that for a better understanding of this work some modifications are necessary, which I will highlight below. My analysis was done by chapters, but my remarks will only focus on part of them.

Introduction: This chapter respects the scientific character of such a paper, the general topic of the article and of the study area being outlined and explained by a sufficient number of quotations (Citations).

Methods: In this subchapter you use a considerable number of formulas (for the indexes that you used) and it can be hard to follow. I recommend to insert a workflow diagram.

Results: Please try to make figure 3 bigger. It is hard to notice the differences between “e”, “f” and “f”. I thing for the watershed scale you wanted to use “g”.

Please do the same thing with figure 4.

Conclusions: In the Conclusions section, more needs to be said than just repeating the results. This includes a comprehensive assessment of the data.

Author Response

Response letter

Dear editor.

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript. We appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments on our manuscript entitled “Spatio-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of eco-logical risk in China’s North-South Transition Zone”(Manuscript Number: sustainability-1699616).

In this revised version, we have addressed the concerns of the reviewers. An item-by-item response to the reviewer’s comments is enclosed, and the revision was marked in red fonts in the manuscript. We hope that these revisions successfully address their concerns and requirements and that this manuscript could be accepted. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Li Li, Xiaoping Zhou , Lan Yang, Jinglong Duan, Zhuo Zeng

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer #1This paper is presented as an interesting and current study, as the subject of human footprint is approached more and more often, especially in the context of population growth in urban areas and implicitly of urban areas, trying to find a balance between the economy, the environment and the needs of the population.I appreciate the approach of the subject, which combines statistical methods with methods of spatial representation, which facilitates the understanding of the discussed phenomenon. However, I believe that for a better understanding of this work some modifications are necessary, which I will highlight below. My analysis was done by chapters, but my remarks will only focus on part of them.

Answer: Thank you for your encouragement. We have taken the time to think through all of your comments and carefully revised the manuscript as you suggested. Thank you for your valuable suggestion to improve the quality of the manuscript.

1.Introduction: This chapter respects the scientific character of such a paper, the general topic of the article and of the study area being outlined and explained by a sufficient number of quotations (Citations).

Response 1: Thanks a lot for the reviewer’s insightful suggestion. We have added references related to the topic of ecological risk in the introduction, further enhance the scientific nature of the article.

2 Methods: In this subchapter you use a considerable number of formulas (for the indexes that you used) and it can be hard to follow. I recommend to insert a workflow diagram.

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out, a workflow diagram has been inserted in the 2.3 method.

3.Results: Please try to make figure 3 bigger. It is hard to notice the differences between “e”, “f” and “f”. I thing for the watershed scale you wanted to use “g”.

Please do the same thing with figure 4.

Response 3: Thanks a lot for the reviewer’s insightful suggestion. Figure 3 and Figure 4 have been enlarged in this paper.

4. Conclusions: In the Conclusions section, more needs to be said than just repeating the results. This includes a comprehensive assessment of the data.

  Response 4: Thanks for your insightful suggestion. We have added to the conclusion section, and the changes can be found in the second and third paragraphs of the discussion.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx