Analysis of Landscape Change and Its Driving Mechanism in Chagan Lake National Nature Reserve

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper "Analysis of landscape change and its driving mechanism in Chagan Lake National Nature Reserve" which examines landscape change and its factors in the Chagan Lake National Nature Reserve. The paper appears impressive but requires some changes before it could be published. In the abstract, the factors driving the lake's landscape change is not mentioned. So, it is not easy to follow the argument of the paper from the begining. Also, one vital issue the paper seems to contribute to literature (spatial heterogeneity of the factors of the lake's landscape change) it not mentioned in the abstract, so, the value of the paper gets lost from the start. Readers would like to know whether the paper is worth reading from the start. However, I wonder whether spatial heterogeneity is a new phenomena that studies have not explored. So, it is not. The author(s) would have to state what the contribution of the paper to broader literature is. However, it seem like the analysis of landscape change and its driving factors in Chagan Lake National Nature Reserve has not been explored except for (Wang, F., Ding, Q., Zhang, L., Wang, M., & Wang, Q. (2019). Analysis of land surface deformation in Chagan Lake Region using TCPInSAR. Sustainability, 11(18), 5090.). I wonder why the author(s) omitted this paper in their review. It will be good the author include this paper in their review and show how their work is different from this paper. 

In the introduction, the main argument or conclusion of the paper gets lost again. So, it is not easy for the reader to follow how the conclusion of the paper is developing. I will suggest that the authors should include thus at the end of the introduction section in one paragraph the main argument of the paper which is how the factors have influenced the pattern of the lake's landscape change of the study period. What are the factors driving the change and how do they drive the change. What does this teach us about lake's landcape changes generally? Further, the structure of the paper is not known from this introduction. How is the paper organised so that the reader can know what to expect. 

Result

In Table 1, the coefficient of flourine content does not seem to support what this paper is saying. With a coefficient of -0.279368, it shows that a unit increase in flourine content is associated with 0.279 decrease in the lake landscape changes. So, as the landscape changes increases, flourine content of the lake decreases overall. This is the correct interpretation of your result. In undersatnd the patial heterogeneity of the factors shows a better unserdtandig of the dynamics, but this needs to be stated first before providing the spatial pattern of the factors which helps to show why the spatial analysis is a better approach for understanding this phenomenon and helps in better planning. This should come in section 4.2. The driving mechanisms in page 18.

In page 19, the authors tries getting to the argument of the paper but leaves it incomplete. They stated:

"The results of this paper show that in the past 15 years, natural factors, especially precipitation and lake fluoride content, have had a significant impact on the landscape changes of Chagan Lake Nature Reserve. This result is consistent with most other studies on lakes[48,49]. In contrast, the results show a lesser effect for the factor of the gross domestic product (GDP) comparing to the findings of previous studies[50,51]. This is probably due to the economic income of the study area mainly comes from agriculture and tourism."

This needs further unpacking. Here they indicated that precipitation and lake fluoride content are the main factors shape the landscape changes but we cannot see the relationship between precipitation and lake fluoride content and how that influences landscape changes. Further, a summary of the implication of this finding has to be part of the argument of the paper which should be reflected in the abstract in a very concise sentence and at the end of the introduction. 

In the conclusion, the authors state that "The temporal and spatial differentiation patterns of different driving factors of land-701 scape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve are different" but leave the statement hanging in the balance. why is there a difference in the temporal and spatial differentiation patterns of different driving factors of landscape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve? This needs to the included here briefly and make sure it is stated in the paper in the approriate section. 

Author Response

We really appreciate you for your carefulness and conscientiousness. Your suggestions are really valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. According to your suggestions, we have made the following modifications to this manuscript and marked it with the "Track Changes" function:

• Spatial heterogeneity of the factors of the lake's landscape changehas been added to the abstract.
• We are very sorry for our carelessness, and the paper you mentioned has been added in the article. (Line 108-111)
• The main argument of the paper has been added at the end of the introduction section. (Page 3)
• Table 1 shows the regression results of OLS model of driving factors from 2005 to 2010. In fact, the lake fluorine content in 2010-2015 and 2015-2019 are positive. We are sorry for our negligence. We will supplement the other two tables as additional data.
• Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the relevant content of spatial heterogeneity in the driving mechanism in Section 4.2. (Page 17)
• The relevant contents of precipitation and fluoride content in lakes have been added in the summary. How they affect landscape changes is in the second paragraph of section 4.2 driving mechanism
• Thank you for your suggestion. This is a mistake in our expression. We have revised it to "the spatial distribution of the regression coefficients of the driving factors of landscape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve has the spatial heterogeneity".

Reviewer 2 Report

The flowchart (figure 2) should be less intricate in order to be longer and more fluid.

 

The final presentation of the paper needs to be improved.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We have changed the flowchart (Figure 2) to be longer and more fluid and corrected the format error.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors/Editor

I reviewed the paper Analysis of landscape change and its driving mechanism in Chagan Lake National Nature Reserve. The authors have made progress in revising the paper.
I have no special observations, except for formatting the paper according to the requirements of the journal, and I suggest that the paper be published in its current form.

Best regards

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. We will format the article as required by the journal. Thanks again.

Kind regards

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I can see that the authors have attempted to revise the manuscript. However, there are still some changes to be made. 

I suggested that the authors should answer these questions briefly and put their response at the end of the introcution and not just state these questions."how the factors have influenced the pattern of the lake's landscape change of the study period. What are the factors driving the change and how do they drive the change. What does this teach us about lake's landcape changes generally? 

These previous comments have not been addressed or offer a response as to why they dont want to do what I said:

1. In Table 1, the coefficient of flourine content does not seem to support what this paper is saying. With a coefficient of -0.279368, it shows that a unit increase in flourine content is associated with 0.279 decrease in the lake landscape changes. So, as the landscape changes increases, flourine content of the lake decreases overall. This is the correct interpretation of your result. In undersatnd the patial heterogeneity of the factors shows a better unserdtandig of the dynamics, but this needs to be stated first before providing the spatial pattern of the factors which helps to show why the spatial analysis is a better approach for understanding this phenomenon and helps in better planning. This should come in section 4.2. The driving mechanisms in page 18. The author provided a response but did make the corrections in the manuscript itself. 

2.In the conclusion, the authors state that "The temporal and spatial differentiation patterns of different driving factors of land-701 scape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve are different" but leave the statement hanging in the balance. why is there a difference in the temporal and spatial differentiation patterns of different driving factors of landscape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve? This needs to the included here briefly and make sure it is stated in the paper in the approriate section. 

3. "The results of this paper show that in the past 15 years, natural factors, especially precipitation and lake fluoride content, have had a significant impact on the landscape changes of Chagan Lake Nature Reserve. This result is consistent with most other studies on lakes[48,49]. In contrast, the results show a lesser effect for the factor of the gross domestic product (GDP) comparing to the findings of previous studies[50,51]. This is probably due to the economic income of the study area mainly comes from agriculture and tourism."

This needs further unpacking. Here they indicated that precipitation and lake fluoride content are the main factors shape the landscape changes but we cannot see the relationship between precipitation and lake fluoride content and how that influences landscape changes. Further, a summary of the implication of this finding has to be part of the argument of the paper which should be reflected in the abstract in a very concise sentence and at the end of the introduction. 

Author Response

We are very grateful to Reviewer for reviewing the paper so carefully. We sincerely apologize for neglecting your previous suggestions due to our lack of understanding of your comments. We have tried our best to improve and made some changes in the manuscript.

Responds to the reviewers' comments：

Point 1: I suggested that the authors should answer these questions briefly and put their response at the end of the introcution and not just state these questions."how the factors have influenced the pattern of the lake's landscape change of the study period. What are the factors driving the change and how do they drive the change. What does this teach us about lake's landcape changes generally?

Response 1: Thank you very much for your advice. Considering the length of the paragraph, we have added brief answers to these questions at the end of the introduction.

Point 2: In Table 1, the coefficient of flourine content does not seem to support what this paper is saying. With a coefficient of -0.279368, it shows that a unit increase in flourine content is associated with 0.279 decrease in the lake landscape changes. So, as the landscape changes increases, flourine content of the lake decreases overall. This is the correct interpretation of your result. In undersatnd the patial heterogeneity of the factors shows a better unserdtandig of the dynamics, but this needs to be stated first before providing the spatial pattern of the factors which helps to show why the spatial analysis is a better approach for understanding this phenomenon and helps in better planning. This should come in section 4.2. The driving mechanisms in page 18. The author provided a response but did make the corrections in the manuscript itself. 

Response 2: We are very grateful to the Reviewer for the positive comment of our efforts. We have added 'the impact of each driving factor on the changes of landscape types in different regions is different' to this paragraph, and provided examples.

Point 3: In the conclusion, the authors state that "The temporal and spatial differentiation patterns of different driving factors of land-701 scape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve are different" but leave the statement hanging in the balance. why is there a difference in the temporal and spatial differentiation patterns of different driving factors of landscape change in Chagan Lake Nature Reserve? This needs to the included here briefly and make sure it is stated in the paper in the approriate section.

Response 3: We appreciate it very much for this good suggestion. We have read some literature and briefly explained in the conclusion why the regression coefficients of different drivers of landscape change in the Chagan Lake Nature Reserve are spatially heterogeneous, and added explanations in Sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.2 in the paper.

Point 4: "The results of this paper show that in the past 15 years, natural factors, especially precipitation and lake fluoride content, have had a significant impact on the landscape changes of Chagan Lake Nature Reserve. This result is consistent with most other studies on lakes[48,49]. In contrast, the results show a lesser effect for the factor of the gross domestic product (GDP) comparing to the findings of previous studies[50,51]. This is probably due to the economic income of the study area mainly comes from agriculture and tourism."

This needs further unpacking. Here they indicated that precipitation and lake fluoride content are the main factors shape the landscape changes but we cannot see the relationship between precipitation and lake fluoride content and how that influences landscape changes. Further, a summary of the implication of this finding has to be part of the argument of the paper which should be reflected in the abstract in a very concise sentence and at the end of the introduction. 

Response 4: We appreciate for your valuable comment. How precipitation and lake fluoride content affect the landscape changes in Chagan Lake has been added here and briefly mentioned at the end of the abstract and introduction. However, the relationship between precipitation and fluorine content in lakes is not the main content of this paper, and we may further explore it in future research.

Thank you again for your positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript.

We hope you will find our revised manuscript acceptable for publication.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the author(s) have improved the paper and can now proceed to publication.