Analysis of Eco-Environmental Geological Problems and Their Driving Forces in the Henan Section of the Yellow River Basin, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented article should be rewritten according to English language rules. It is not readable in its current form and is unsuitable for review.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

According to your suggestions, I have revised the article, please review

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper analyzes the driving factors leading to ecological environmental geological problems and analyzes some eco-environmental geological problems. The authors should consider the following issues:

1.     Few studies statement in line 71 should be followed by at least one or two samples of current papers.

2.     Statement ‘the objectives …’ in line 75, should be replaced with the manuscript's contribution to creating the scientific article style, instead of a project report.

3.     The authors should explain all the data, do not use ‘etc.’ since the authors used quantitative analysis, in line 97.

4.     Some details are needed, e.g., version of ArcGis, date of USGS - Landsat capture.

5.     How to classify the land use/cover class? Line 102

6.     Limitations are needed, e.g., without socio-economic, etc.

7.     What is the superposition function in ArcGis? Is it a Weight Overlay Method?

8.     Need a reference for weight in Table 2, what is 2.2.5 in line 354?

9.     For a precise method, use a figure to show your research framework.

10.  Three different dates of maps (fig 2,3, etc.) are better shown also in a spatial distribution map that shows the change in direction.

11.  Are all the driving factors in table 3 valid statistically? (Based on explanatory factor shown) Line 430

12.  Do not use too many old citations.

 

 

Author Response

1.Extensive revisions have been made to the English language and style of the article.

2.More detailed information has been added about data sources and ArcGis versions.

3.Land use type data for the national aeronautics and space administration (https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/) provides MCD12Q1 products, containing a variety of land cover classification scheme, this paper selects the international geosphere biosphere program (IGBP) classification scheme.

4.ArcGis overlay function is weight overlay analysis.

5.All of the drivers were statistically valid but the size of the effect varied

Reviewer 3 Report

Good work, well presented. 

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewers for their valuable comments

Reviewer 4 Report

1. The abstract is very long and had many repeated phrases.

2. the ref. et should be like this Liu et al.,2016

3. you need to put the climate table for the study area for 30 or mor than 30 years.

4. You need to put the date of collecting data.

5. Fig. 2 ,3, and 4 need more improvement and put in the caption the years.

6. Fig. 6 ,a need to exchange the axis. 

7. The table-2 need to explain from where the ref. and how were the factors determine and the limitation of use those factors.

8. Line 365 ,what does this mean? disasters prone area?? you must explain in detail with respect to the date and analysis.

9. you can merge the discussions with the results to avoid the repeated phrase and shorten the paper, I think it is very long and have many paragraphs that you can shorten it.  

10. form lines 551 to 563 in the conclusion can be rewritten to make it more condense and more specific.

11. I suggest making the conclusion as items (numbering) and precise it more( see from line 573 band so on).

12. I suggest to put " Evaluation and analysis....) in the title.

 

 

 

Author Response

Revisions have been made according to the opinions of the reviewers

Reviewer 5 Report

Analysis of eco-environmental geological problems and its driving forces in Henan section of the Yellow River Basin, China

 

Reviewer Comments

The setting if this manuscript is the Henan section of the Yellow River Basin in China. The study explores the driving forces responsible for eco-environmental geological problems especially soil erosion in the study area. Three objectives have been stated for the study as follows: (i) “to clarify the ecological environmental and geological status of the study area based on the regional survey results” (ii) “the five major research topics were divided into different topics, and the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of ecological environmental geological problems in the study area were quantitatively reflected” and (iii) “determine the main factors affecting regional development, and corresponding strategies and suggestions were put forward to achieve high-quality development of the Yellow River basin”

Various datasets including meteorological data, DEM data, soil data, land use type data, remote sensing images, etc. have been secured and analysed to achieve the objectives of the manuscript. Results revealed six different types of soil erosion in the study area including: slight erosion, mild erosion, moderate erosion, intense erosion, extremely intense erosion and severe erosion. Severe erosion occurred at the south western side of the study area. There is high amount of weathering caused by increased rainfall. The study further revealed that the soil and water conservation function of the study area has improved over the years. However, the mean water conservation in the study area shows a downward trend from 2001 to 2019 and water conservation function is very low. Areas of intense human activity shows low biodiversity maintenance function as compared to areas of low human activity. Nine driving forces have been identified to be responsible for the eco-environmental and geological issues of the study area. These include- elevation, slope, rainfall, temperature, evapotranspiration, vegetation coverage, land-use type, net primary productivity of vegetation (NPP) and mining activities. The study concluded that ecological environmental geological problems existed and were prominent in the study area but got improved within the period of 2001 to 2019.

The data published in this article is extensive and revealed a lot of intricacies surrounding ecological, environmental, geological problems in the study area. However, the study could be best improved for publication after:

1.       Extensive correction of the English language of the manuscript.

2.       Some of the objectives of the study are rehashed especially objective 2. It is difficult to understand what the authors seek to explore in that objective.

3.       Numerous repetitions in the manuscript are corrected

 

Author Response

Numerous corrections have been made to the language of the article based on the opinions of the reviewers

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

the authors have revised the manuscript following the review

Author Response

Thank you very much for the reviewer's valuable advice. Best wishes

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Try to improve the conclusion with more specific results

Author Response

Thanks very much for the reviewer's valuable comments, and the conclusion has been modified according to your suggestions. Best wishes

Author Response File: Author Response.docx