Spatially Non-Stationary Relationships between Changing Environment and Water Yield Services in Watersheds of China’s Climate Transition Zones

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper addresses an interesting subject for the Remote Sensing readership. The manuscript is well written and easy to read and follow. Nevertheless, in my opinion, the manuscript should address properly some issues to be published. 

1. INTRODUCTION:

The introduction should be improved. The authors should make an effort to clarify the novelty of the paper, especially from a methodological point of view regarding previous studies in the same pilot and in other case studies.

Moreover, some parts of the review could also be improved, as for example explain (briefly) what is InVEST model and when it is used (for that purpose) (line 64 of the manuscript).

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

I miss a figure representing the temporal variability (daily or monthly) of climatic variables and a spatial representation of the land uses and soils. Authors could also include some statistics of climatic variables (although it is included in results, I think it should be in data section).

4.     DISCUSSION

The discussion is well substantiated although I miss a comparison of the methods and results with the related-previous studies in that basin (mentioned in the introduction section).

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors used a multiple spatial-scale analysis to: (i) quantify the spatial and temporal variations of the water yield ecosystem service (WYs) of that of the Wei River Basin (WRB) from 2000 to 2020 using the InVEST model and remote sensing data; and (ii) look at how human activities, climate, topography, and vegetation affect the WYs at the climate transition zone sub-catchment scale using the geographical detector model and Multi-Scale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR). This research gives the readers abundant information about this important watershed in the Loss Plateau in China, however, some key points like the scientific question, the main destination are not clear compare to the data that presented in the manuscript. All these issues make the innovation of this research hide behind the multi-data and multi-methods. Before it can be published in this journal, some questions below should be answered by the authors clearly.

(1)   First question is the destination of this research is not clear or the innovation is not clear, this should be explained in the introduction.

(2)   Title. Spatially non-stationary relationships between changing environment and water yield services in watersheds of China's climate transition zones. First, “Spatially non-stationary relationships” this is confused to the readers, from the manuscript now, I can’t understand the meaning clearly. Secondly, “climate transition zones” is in the title, but the character of this zones should add more information or why choose this watershed?

(3)   Introduction. Now, the logic of this part is not clear, and the key issue isn’t presented in this part.

(4)   From line 127-130, these sentences are not proper to here.

(5)   Line 157, “China” should be deleted.

(6)   Table 1, the data range should be added.

(7)   Part of the 2.3, too many methods are used in the research, I think some methods should be deleted and show the main methods. Are these methods proper to this study region?

(8)   Results. Now, the result is not present the “Spatially non-stationary relationships”.

(9)   Line 306, Figure 2, Spatial or temporal?

(10)  Title of the 3.4 is not proper, the authors get what information from these analyses?

(11)  Line 429, the title of the 3.5 is the same like the 3.4.

(12)  Conclusion is too long and redundancy. Line 650-651, these sentences are not need here. Line 657, “Guanzhong Plain” in not mentioned in the study area or other part of the manuscript. Line 666-669, these sentences descript the validation of the methods, in fact, these are not the key points in this researches.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Reviewer 3 Report

Paper need just minor revision as follows:

1- highlight more your research gap, your novelty and motivation, and what exactly want to address

Author Response

请看附件

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have enhanced the manuscript based on my suggestion, and it can be published in this journal.