Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

This is an improved version of the previously submitted paper. In this version, the authors concentrated on presenting the results of conducting field surveys. I have no major concerns.

Author Response

Comments - Reviewer One

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an improved version of the previously submitted paper. In this version, the authors concentrated on presenting the results of conducting field surveys. I have no major concerns.

Author response to reviewer One

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an improved version of the previously submitted paper. In this version, the authors concentrated on presenting the results of conducting field surveys. I have no major concerns.

As earlier advised, we appreciate the guidance provided by this reviewer towards this modification by majorly presenting socio-economic findings.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

This paper studies desert locust effects on household food consumption and effective control interventions, which is an interesting topic. This paper focuses more on the impact of locusts on household food consumption on the basis of previous studies. It has improved but there are still some details need to improve.

The method is reasonable, but it is not fully explained. Please explain the baseline hazard function clearly, such expressions are liable to be misunderstood.

The household food consumption in this paper should be introduced more clearly to be more rigorous.

Finally, I still have a doubt. The author also mentioned that during the outbreak of locusts, COVID-19 is popular and lockdown restrictions. How can this study be peeled out of this impact and only analyzes the impact of locusts?

 

Author Response

 

Comments - Reviewer Two

This paper studies desert locust effects on household food consumption and effective control interventions, which is an interesting topic. This paper focuses more on the impact of locusts on household food consumption on the basis of previous studies. It has improved but there are still some details need to improve.

The method is reasonable, but it is not fully explained. Please explain the baseline hazard function clearly, such expressions are liable to be misunderstood.

The household food consumption in this paper should be introduced more clearly to be more rigorous.

Finally, I still have a doubt. The author also mentioned that during the outbreak of locusts, COVID-19 is popular and lockdown restrictions. How can this study be peeled out of this impact and only analyzes the impact of locusts?

Author response to reviewer Two

This paper studies desert locust effects on household food consumption and effective control interventions, which is an interesting topic. This paper focuses more on the impact of locusts on household food consumption on the basis of previous studies. It has improved but there are still some details need to improve.

The method is reasonable, but it is not fully explained. Please explain the baseline hazard function clearly, such expressions are liable to be misunderstood.

Thank you for this observation, the hazard function formulae have been incorporated in the paper for further details for those who would like to deeply understand what it means and do in determining survival times of locusts.

The household food consumption in this paper should be introduced more clearly to be more rigorous.

The authors appreciate the guidance provided that the food consumption component was silent in the introduction. This has been presented in this section, but also clarified in the methods and results sections

Finally, I still have a doubt. The author also mentioned that during the outbreak of locusts, COVID-19 is popular and lockdown restrictions. How can this study be peeled out of this impact and only analyzes the impact of locusts?

Thank you for this observation, we totally agree with the reviewer that much as the locusts invaded when the country was faced with the challenges of COVID19, these had no impacts on the effects of locusts on the studied variables. Therefore, the COVID19 aspects in the paper have been removed to direct our readers towards locust invasion and their associated impacts on the above ground biomass, but also on human food consumption.

 

 

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The research design regarding producing relationships between locust outbreak and rainfall and vegetation abundance and health is not convincing to me and is flawed.

Major comments:

1. Why did you take the averages of MODIS 16-day data to get monthly data? Do vegetation conditions in the area change during the month? Averaging might obscure some details needed for the analysis.

2. Do you think 50-km CHIRPS data is good choice for achieving the goals of the study? I believe 50 km pixel size might be too large!

3. Figure 4 shows the linear relationships between rainfall and SAVI in four months in three years. How did you conclude that these relationships triggered the locust outbreak? I am not convinced!

4. For performing regression analysis, I am not convinced that four points are enough to generate the desired relationships. From literature, minimum number of points are required. Some scientists argue that for every independent variable, at least 10 points are needed.

5. In figure 4, I believe that some of the relationships are not linear.

6. I am not convinced that the ANOVA analysis produced the desired conclusions about the effect of locust outbreaks on land use land cover.

7. I believe that the results of analyzing the oral interviews should be included (might be in the form of an appendix). I am not expecting presenting the confidential information about the interviewed persons.

Minor comments:

1. More information about MODIS data should be included. This information should include (for example) the product name, pixel size (i.e., 250 m not 250 km), and specific website from where the product was downloaded (i.e., not just USGS EarthExplorer). This applies also to CHIRPS data.

2. How did you produce the land use land cover map for the study area? Did you use visual analysis and experience in the fieldwork campaign? I think you used governmental maps!

3. In page 3 lines 111, what do you mean by “high bandwidth coverage”?

I suggest that the paper might concentrate on presenting the findings and conclusions that might be obtained from the oral interviews. Conducting the interviews and analyzing the results of the questionnaires might lead to a good paper. If necessary, other clear and robust research design methods should be adopted to analyze the relationships between locust outbreaks and rainfall and vegetation.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper seeks ways of addressing desert locust outbreaks by examining the triggers including vegetation-health and rainfall and assesses the effects on LUCC types and agricultural land-demands. This paper studies locust outbreaks and control in desert areas, which is an important topic. The paper uses modis image data and household survey to study. I think the quality of the presentation needs much improvement.

1.      In the scatter diagram composed of only four points in Figure 4, is the relationship between the three-year vegetation greenness and rainfall which lacking rigor?

2.      Please show spatial effect on vegetation health and rainfall on desert locust outbreaks.

3.      The MODIS images were resampled to downgrade the pixel size to 50km to facilitate relational analysis. In fact, downgrade the pixel size in resolution has lost the advantage of using remote sensing images. It is suggested to use some fusion methods to improve.

4.      Judging from the existing description, for increasing cropland, it is hard to distinguish whether the reason is the food demand of desert agro-pastoralists or the response to the locust plague. This requires in-depth and detailed research.

5.      Please summarize some new conclusions and suggestions based on the results of this study.

The Quality of English is fine.