Mapping and Evaluating Human Pressure Changes in the Qilian Mountains
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper investigates changes in the human footprint and the resulting impact on vegetation and ecosystem services in the Qilian Mountains, China between 2000 and 2015. The authors use six categories to quantify human footprint including human population density, roads and rail, light emissions, land use patterns, and grazing pressure. They then explore spatial and temporal correlations between the relative human footprint and vegetation communities and discuss the challenges of balancing environmental protection with sustainable land use in the region.
I commend the authors for their efforts in revising the manuscript. The new introduction and discussion sections concisely frame the study whilst the revised structure of the methods section improves readability and reproducibility.
Given this restructuring I am still not convinced that the section relating to climate needs to be retained (lines 117 - 122 and 210- 215). As mentioned in the introduction "Many studies have revealed the influence of climatic factors and human activities on vegetation in the QLM [33-37]". As there is sparse mention of climate in the discussion and conclusion of the manuscript, the authors should consider removing this section so only the main and most novel elements of the research are presented to the reader.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear all,
Thank you for the opportunity to read this interesting paper.
This work, using Human Footprint method, investigates the role and the effect of several human activities in the ecosystem changes in the QLM in 2000-2015. I think it is well structured even if some parts need to be deepened.
Specifically, the below aspects should be addressed by the authors before publication.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS:
Line 119: I think it has to be justified or some reference has to be made for the sentence “including temperature and precipitation, which are considered the two most important climatic factors affecting vegetation”.
Line 128: What do you mean for “road data”? Can you better explain?
Line 144: Maybe, authors could briefly explain what NDVI is.
Line 151: Could you explain HF method?
Discussion: I suggest changing section titles: “positive effects” “negative effects” and “Uncertainties” because they are unclear.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article is clear structured. Aims, material and methods of the research are well explained. The results and related limitations are also elucidated in sufficient manner. The potential of the collected and analysed dataset should be exploited in the future in order to develop the static model into a dynamic (predictive) model.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
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 authors have improved significantly the contents of the paper. They have given important comments on results and useful remarks to continue their reserarch. In my opinion, the paper deserves to be published in the Journal of Remote Sensing, after having checked some minor features:
rows 100-101 Figure caption should be more synthetised. there is no space between the figure caption and the following text. Both aspects can be found throughout the paper.
row 204: please make a check of the style of mathematical equations. This could be related to the use of Math function in doc templates. For example, Eq.(3) parameters are hard to read with respect to Eq.(1) or Eq.(2).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The revised version of the manuscript "Mapping and evaluating human pressure changes in Quilian Mountains" is now much improved compared to the initial submission and the Authors addressed thoroughly all the points raised after my previous review. I particularly appreciated the separation of the impact of the various human activities on the different types of vegetation cover in the study area, from which a more clear picture of the drivers of ecological change emerges. Several sections of the paper were re-written in a more concise form, improving their readibility, yet providing all the necessary details to the reader. I therefore recommend the publication of the paper in the journal Remote Sensing, in its present form.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper investigates changes in climate, vegetation and the human footprint between 2000 and 2015 in the Qilian Mountains, China. The authors use six categories to quantify human footprint including human population density, roads and rail, light emissions, land use patterns and grazing pressure. They then explore correlations between the changes in relative human footprint and changes in vegetation cover across the region.
The authors have addressed many of my earlier concerns about the previous version of the paper by providing additional details regarding metric selection and analysis as well as addressing many issues associated with the structure and the contextualisation of findings. Whilst I commend the authors on these efforts, there is still potential to improve the manuscript through further attention to structure and editorial details.
The introduction of the paper, particularly the first paragraph, is quite disjointed and jumps haphazardly across a wide range of themes including the Anthropocene, human footprint, climate change, ecosystem services and functions, lack of data for evaluation, and vegetation as a producer of bio-energy. Perhaps the authors could consider selecting two or three of these themes and explaining them in greater detail to give readers a simplified and concrete impression of what to expect from the research paper. For example, the authors could talk about how increasing human pressures threaten ecosystem services and functions, and how the Human Footprint can be used to assess where these threats and pressures are the greatest.
Several sections of the paper seem to include the wrong content, for example the introduction contains information about measuring the human footprint that would be better suited to the methods section (e.g. lines 48 – 53). Similarly, content included in the discussion may also be better suited to the methods (e.g page 13 lines 419 – 423).
There is also quite a bit of repetition in the manuscript that could be edited to enhance readability. For example, results are presented in text, tables and figures. In addition, editorial attention is needed throughout the manuscript to improve flow and readability (E.g. page 8 line 245, page 13 line 372, page 13 line 403).
Further minor issues are detailed below:
Page 8 lines 238 – 242: Given the methods used to score human footprint, it is unsurprising that built up areas with many roads and high populations score higher than grass land, wetland and bare land. The authors should consider removing this sentence.
Page 8 lines 245 – 247: Results from relevant statistical tests should be supplied alongside statements reporting significant findings.
Page 10 lines 291 – 294: The authors find that significant decreases were observed in grassland and bare land, whilst significant increases were also found in grassland and bare land. This section could be better structured and phrased to more clearly convey the author’s intended meaning.
Page 11 lines 318 and 326. The findings regarding the types of vegetation that were affected the most (“grassland, shrubland, forest, bare land and wetland were the vegetation types most affected by human activities (in decreasing order)” ) only needs to be reported once.
Page 10 table 2: The information presented in this table seems to be repeated in text and in figure 7. I would suggest presenting this information in either the table or the figure and editing the information reported in text.
Page 12 line 355: “These findings indicate that human activities have had a positive effect on the growth of vegetation in the QLM” – By this statement do you mean the work the government has done to increase forest protection during development? If so, this should be made clear as the current phrasing suggests that the human footprint has had a positive impact on vegetation.
Page 13 line 398: There seems to be some confusion between correlation and causation here. Night time light does not change on its own, changes in human activities result in changes to night time light. Consider re-phrasing.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
