Trends of Aboveground Net Primary Productivity of Patagonian Meadows, the Omitted Ecosystem in Desertification Studies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors of the manuscript entitled "Trends of aboveground net primary productivity of Patagonian meadows, the omitted ecosystem in desertification studies" aims at evaluating the trends of mean and spatial heterogeneity of annual ANPP in Patagonian meadows and neighboring steppes and relate them with precipitation and temperature; the impact on the livestock carrying capacity of meadows in this region. This study is interesting for the remote sensing community, because it is focusing the ANPP of meadows and steppes in Patagonian from the remote scale. Overall, the manuscript is well-logical and easy to comprehend with a good English language. I have some minor concerns for the manuscript before publication.

1.     According to the results, Authors could propose some targeted suggestions for the meadows protection.

2.    I recommend that the authors provide some suggestions for future research to stimulate the curiosity of future readers.

Author Response

For reading purposes, all changes in the manuscript were done following the control change format.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The comments can be found in the attached PDF.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

For reading purposes, all changes were done following the control reading format.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The research “Trends of aboveground net primary productivity of Patagonian meadows, the omitted ecosystem in desertification studies”, evaluated the degradation of areas of meadows and steppes, from the integration of environmental data and remote sensing. The research brings a series of analyzes to quantify significant changes in the study areas, in this case, as it brought numerous adjustments to the data, the methodology was a little confusing.

I suggest some key points below:

·        I suggest that a flowchart of the methodology be included, since several adjustments were made to the data.

·        Discuss the benefits of the research for the integrated environmental management of the region.

·         Furthermore, the question of desertification was reinforced in the introduction and in the title itself, but the discussion did not bring a great connection with this theme.

 

And some minor points:

Figure 1. Verify the feasibility of inserting numerical labels within classes on maps to facilitate the identification of phytogeographic units or use another form of color in place of grayscale.

Figure 1S. I suggest that figure 1S be entered as figure 2, since it details the manual classification of study areas.

L169. Are there any specific problems with this scene?

2.2.2. Was a filter used to minimize the impact of atmospheric noise? If not, I suggest informing that the results are subject to this interference.

Figure 3. Consider the possibility of including the trend line in the second graph, to illustrate the low significance.

Author Response

For reading purposes, all changes in the manuscript were done following the control reading format.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx