Study on the Construction of the Ecological Security Pattern of the Lancang River Basin (Yunnan Section) Based on InVEST-MSPA-Circuit Theory

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented text shows an interesting study. The results seem to be a good basis for further steps to ensure sustainability in the region. Below are some comments and observations.

1) Using a list of lumped references is not helpful to the readers. At least a short justification should be provided - individually.

2) Check the format of the numbers, use the dot as a decimal separator and use the comma as a thousand separator. Eg Tab. 5.

3) Check the quality of the figures, eg Fig. 4 seems to me to be of low quality for the readability of the legend.

4) It is necessary to describe the novelty of the work more in relation to the existing articles. There is a need to comment more on the benefits and weaknesses of existing publications. In this context, it is necessary to look at the novelty of the article.

5) Is it possible to apply the method in general for other regions and what should be taken care of when applying it?

Author Response

Dear respected Reviewer:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript. We appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper. Those changes are marked up using the “Track Changes” function in the manuscript. Please see the attached file, in red, for a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments and concerns. All line numbers refer to the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for allowing me to review this work.  I think it has potential to be useful for the field of sustainability with significant revisions.  I hope you take my comments to be constructive and can use them to improve the document moving forward.

Overall, I think the idea of the InVEST model, MSPA, and Circuit Theory need to be discussed more in the introduction.  As it currently stands, even though these concepts are in the title, it does not 'jump out' at the reader as to why they are valuable for this study, nor are any of them clearly described.  It seems like I'd have to go find a separate document to read about or understand InVEST?  

Because the models you discuss are not very clearly defined, I feel as though this research would be difficult to replicate by an independent scientist.  Please work on improving this in your methods section.  

Additionally, because I have a hard time understanding what these models are and what they do (I do NOT believe it is my responsibility nor the reader's to take the time to read separate documents in depth in order to understand this work), I cannot be convinced that the results, discussion, and conclusion of this work are sound.  The authors must do a better job at presenting these models.

The above are my major comments.  I think they need to be addressed before the article is ready for thorough review.  That said, a nitpicky comment I have is please refrain from using 'etc.' the way it is in Line 75 and 388, as it seems like a weak way to get out of a train of thought.  

Author Response

Dear respected Reviewer:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript. We appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper. Those changes are marked up using the “Track Changes” function in the manuscript. Please see the attached file, in red, for a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments and concerns. All line numbers refer to the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is generally well written and understandable, although an english revision is recommended.

Few comments:

line 179: how did you select the value of 0.8, and the size of 100km2?

 line 279 and 305: there are two TABLE 6 - I wonder whether the second table 6 (Interaction strenght..) is really necessary

Line 301: i guess the one you refer is not Table 5

Line 308-313: in Figure 5 you do not show the "16 pinch Points", but just few, and not so visible

Paragraph 4.1.3.2.: very general paragraph that does not add any information to the paper - perhaps you can join it with 4.1.4.

Conclusions: it seems like a repetition of the abstract - please re-write 

 

Figures: all very small and at low resolution, difficult to see and understand.

please add to all figures the info on DATA sources and cartographer

Figure 3 should be before figure 4 - numbers in figure are very small

figure 4 is very small and probably not needed

References: please be consistent in reporting the references.

Author Response

Dear respected Reviewer:

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of the manuscript. We appreciate the time and effort that you dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for the insightful comments on and valuable improvements to our paper. Those changes are marked up using the “Track Changes” function in the manuscript. Please see the attached file, in red, for a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments and concerns. All line numbers refer to the revised manuscript file with tracked changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have answered the comments sufficiently and in great detail. I consider the revision of the text to be sufficient.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors

thank you so much for adjusting the paper following my suggestions. I think that now it has been improved and can be considered for publication in its present form. 

I just encourage you to have an english review by a mother tongue

For the rest, I have no additional comments

best regards