Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript titled “Unlocking Natural Capital through Land Tenure Reform and Spatial Reconfiguration: Evidence from the ‘Spatial-First’ Mode in Nanhai, China” presents a potentially interesting attempt to link natural capital theory with land system reform and spatial restructuring through a coupling coordination model. The topic is relevant to current debates on urban–rural transformation and natural capital governance; however, the novelty and academic contribution are not sufficiently articulated. The manuscript claims to propose a “Spatial-First” mechanism and a coupling evaluation framework, yet the theoretical originality of this contribution remains unclear because similar coupling-coordination approaches have already been widely used in land-use and regional development studies. The abstract lacks structural clarity and theoretical precision: first, it does not clearly state a concrete research gap in relation to existing natural capital or land governance literature; second, methodological information is introduced abruptly without specifying dataset scale, variables, or analytical procedure; third, key findings such as the rapid rise of the coupling coordination degree from 0.100 to 0.978 are presented without contextual interpretation, which may raise concerns about realism and validity; fourth, the abstract mixes empirical results and normative policy statements, which weakens its conciseness and academic focus. In the introduction, several structural problems are evident: the literature discussion is fragmented and does not critically synthesize existing debates on natural capital governance or institutional land reform; the research question is vaguely formulated and appears only implicitly in the final paragraph rather than being clearly defined; theoretical concepts such as “natural capital value realization,” “property rights definition,” and “spatial allocation” are described descriptively rather than being integrated into a coherent analytical framework; and the novelty of the Nanhai case is overstated without demonstrating why this case contributes new theoretical insights beyond existing Chinese land reform studies. Furthermore, the introduction does not sufficiently explain how the proposed “spatial-first” logic differs conceptually from existing institutional or spatial planning theories, which weakens the claimed contribution to urban studies literature.  The methodological section also presents several structural and theoretical shortcomings. First, the justification for selecting the short observation period of 2020–2024 is weak, and such a limited timeframe undermines the robustness of longitudinal policy evaluation. Second, the indicator system lacks conceptual justification: several indicators (e.g., “production space aggregation” or “living space support rate”) are introduced without explaining their theoretical relationship to natural capital or spatial governance. In order to increase the external validity of the study i highly recomend to cite the following articles:  Peri-Urban Pressures: The Interplay of Land Strategies and Urbanization in Algeria’s Oran Metropolis; Strategies for Streamlined Urban Development: A Case Study of Land Use Succession in Upper Hill, Nairobi; Comprehensive Evaluation of Urban Renewal Based on Entropy and TOPSIS Method: A Case of Shandong Province. Third, the entropy weighting method is applied mechanically without validating whether the indicators satisfy assumptions of dispersion-based weighting, which raises concerns regarding statistical reliability. Fourth, the coupling coordination model is used without critical reflection on its limitations, despite the well-known methodological criticisms of this model in regional planning research. Additionally, the presence of technical issues such as “Error! Reference source not found” indicates insufficient manuscript preparation and weak editorial quality. In the discussion section, the interpretation of results is conceptually narrow: the authors attribute the “spatial-first trajectory” primarily to transaction costs but do not compare this explanation with alternative theoretical frameworks such as institutional path dependency, governance capacity, or regional political economy; the dramatic increase of the coordination index is discussed descriptively but not critically evaluated for potential data bias or model sensitivity; the discussion also fails to situate findings within broader international literature on land reform or ecological urbanism; and empirical claims regarding ecological transformation remain weakly supported by ecological indicators. Finally, the conclusion section suffers from several structural weaknesses: it repeats results rather than synthesizing theoretical insights; policy implications are normative and speculative without empirical validation; the claim of global applicability of the “Nanhai Model” is overstated and unsupported by comparative evidence; and the manuscript again fails to clearly articulate its academic contribution to urbanism, natural capital governance, or spatial planning theory. For these reasons, although the study addresses an important topic, the article in its current form requires substantial conceptual clarification, stronger theoretical grounding, and methodological justification before it can make a meaningful contribution to the field. I therefore recommend that the manuscript may be considered for publication in the journal only after major revision, and I would like to thank the editor for giving me the opportunity to review this work; however, at this stage the article requires major corrections based on the issues discussed above.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper presents a study on natural capital and the impact of land tenure reform and spatial reconfiguration on it.

Abstract: This section contains all the necessary elements required to describe the design and results of a study. Yet it is too long and should be shortened.

Introduction: In this section the authors presented the study’s background and its objectives. I suggest a more referenced background presentation and including a brief presentation of the paper’s structure as it does not follow the typical MDPI paper structure.

Core Concepts, Theoretical Foundations, and Research Framework of Natural Capital: This section is divided into sub-sections which in my opinion is not necessary and not conducted in the right way as the research framework section includes only the figure. I suggest deleting these sub-divisions. Moreover, the research framework presented only in the figure should be also explained in more detail in the text.

Coupling Synergy Logic and Practical Foundation of Land Reform and Spatial Reconfiguration in the Nanhai District Region: This section is divided into sub-sections. I suggest a more detailed description as the topic is very specific. Moreover, “mu” is not a commonly known metric and should be accompanied by an explanation and recalculation is SI metrics system.

The authors did not clearly mention the data sources. The readers do not receive information, how the figures presented in this section were collected/ calculated.

Assessment of Coupling Synergy Effects in Land System Reform and Spatial Reconfiguration in Nanhai District: This section is also divided into sub-sections. Here the authors presented the data sources and methods applied. The methods are clearly presented and correctly chosen. Yet, they should have been introduced earlier in the paper to make the theoretical section more comprehensive.

Results and Analysis: Here again the authors divided the section into sub-sections. In my opinion this is not needed as they are too short – sub-section 5.1 includes only one paragraph. The results are compelling, but they should be presented in closer link with the previous sections so that the readers clearly understand their meaning.

Discussion: I my opinion there is no use in dividing this section into sub-sections. In my opinion this section needs to be extended. There is also need to make this section more of the actual discussion and present comparison of studies on similar issues.

Conclusions and Policy Implications: In my opinion dividing this section into sub-sections is not necessary as the section is short. Moreover, the conclusions should be supplemented by the study’s limitations and future study needs.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript has been sufficiently improved based on the given comments. It has been developed theoretically. The methodological part of the article has also been developed. It has now clearly stated contribution in the article. I can see that the internal validity of the revised manuscript has also been increased. From my point of view, the article is ready for publication.