A Study on the Dynamic Effects and Ecological Stress of Eco-Environment in the Headwaters of the Yangtze River Based on Improved DeepLab V3+ Network

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study, based on the image data of “Sentinel-2”, the improved Deeplab V3+ Network was used to extract the ecological elements in the headwater area of Yangtze River, and the connectivity and interaction among the eco-environment elements were analyzed. The research puts forward a theory in the field of evaluation of eco-environment elements interaction. However, I think there are also many problems in the research. I hope the authors can think carefully and make corresponding changes. The specific comments are as follows:

1. Please use the general framework by “Introduction-Materials-Methods-Results….”
2. Abstract: Data demonstration is especially important for research article. Expression of pure words can't resonate well with readers. It is suggested to add some data to support the conclusions of this study, such as the accuracy of the improved model in extracting ecological elements and the results in analyzing connectivity of eco-environment elements.
3. In fact, eco-environment elements extraction is a process of land classification. As for the target objects in this study, it is not difficult to use conventional algorithms to extract them based on the Sentinel-2 images. And if the target objects with strong shape characteristics, the object-oriented segmentation is also suggested. Therefore, please explain the advantages of DeepLab V3+ on other methods.
4. Introduction: Line76-77, please check grammar of this sentence. Are “expand” and “improve” should be changed into “expanding” and “improving”?
5. Line 118: Figure 1. Please label the name of the region in the map.
6. Line 196 and 200, these two indexes are proposed based on some other landscape metrics, please explain the reason that the two indexes construction.
7. Line 215. Methods was important and should be carefully detailed. This part is irrelevant with the methodology. I think it is not necessary.
8. Line 246. Please add the image RGB band combination. As for the pixels color, different band combination will show different results. At the same time, the color of objects in the image is within a certain range, and can't be identified by a specific color. Therefore, it is unreasonable to distinguish objects just by color.
9. Line 261. Please add unit of the data (Resolution and size) in Table 4.1
10. Line 296. Please add the title axis in Figure 7.
11. Line 355. Please improve the clarity of Figure 10.
12. Line 380. Please add data unit in Figure 11.
13. Line 384. Please add the title axis in Figure 12.
14. Line 427. Please add the data unit in Figure 13 and add commas to numbers with more than four digits.
15. Line 466. Please use specific data to reveal the reciprocal effect of four elements.
16. Line 481. Please add the title axis in Figure 16.
17. Line 504. Please mark data unit in Figure 17.
18. The Conclusion section. The goal of this research is to reveal the relationship and interaction among the eco-environment elements. However, these were not presented in the conclusion.

Author Response

To Reviewer 1.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

As describe in the paper, the study aims to implement the specific measures of ecological rehabilitation projects scientifically, orderly and efficiently. The idea of to reveal the current situation of eco-environment in the study area, we have conducted in-depth research from dynamic effects and ecological stress is very interesting.

However, to improve the quality of the paper, the following changes are proposed:

Introduction: For this type of paper, the introduction is very important. It is advisable to add references from other studies also in other sectors to make people understand the importance of sustainability. For instance:

Analyzing the environmental sustainability of glass bottles reuse in an Italian wine consortium, Procedia CIRP Open AccessVolume 80, Pages 399 - 4042019 26th CIRP Conference on Life Cycle Engineering,

Conclusions: it is necessary to make the conclusions stronger. The main results obtained could be added

Author Response

To Reviewer 2.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors use the Deeplab V3+ network ( CNN based) to segment the Sentinel-2 images to study the ecological changes occurring on the Yangtze River. Several comments are given as follows:

1. The study areas illustrated in Figure 1 and Figure 9 are hard to find out because the authors use white color to show the boundaries of the study areas. However, it is difficult to visualize the boundaries of the study areas because their neighborhoods use similar colors.
2. In Figure 8, the meanings of "A", "B", and "C" are not specified and explained.
3. The processed results illustrated in Figure 8 show that the differences employing SVM, UNet, Deeplab V3, and Deeplab V3+ are hard to visualize. What is the author's motivation to employ Deeplab V3+? Maybe the authors are supposed to emphasize the performances of Deeplab V3+. 
4. The parameters presented in the accuracy assessment are supposed to give more explanations because the processed results that employ different methods are almost the same. 
5. The authors did great work but few modifications are encouraged to make for further publication.

Author Response

To Reviewer 3.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic of the paper, and its research questions, are highly relevant and of great practical interest.
The paper demonstrates knowledge of comparable methods presented in the literature.
The case study is an important part of the paper. The proposed methodology is very interestig.

Some issues that may enhance the contribution of this work:
- the authors should better explain the figure 1;
- the authors should better explain the questionnarie structure and the reasons (it is a highly relevant part of your paper)
- the authors should correct some grammatical errors

Please improve english and references, e.g.:

- 

Circular economy strategy of reusing olive mill wastewater in the ceramic industry: How the plant location can benefit environmental and economic performance

Silvestri, L., Forcina, A., Di Bona, G., Silvestri, C. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2021, 326, 129388   - 

 

Author Response

To Reviewer 4.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

paper is ok 

Author Response

To Reviewer 4: Thank you very much for your recognition of our article. Under English language editing by MDPI, we have adjusted the shortcomings of the English Expression in this article. Thanks for your thoughtful insights, it made a big difference.

 

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.