UAV Quantitative Remote Sensing of Riparian Zone Vegetation for River and Lake Health Assessment: A Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article takes river and lake health as the research background, analyses the important role of riparian zone vegetation in river and lake health, combines with UAV remote sensing technology, and summarizes the monitoring content, monitoring objects and monitoring indexes of river and lake health assessment and monitoring system in riparian zone vegetation. River and lake health is the focus of attention of countries around the world, in the current era of ecological civilisation ideas prevail, can grasp the direction of the development of river and lake health, make full use of the existing science and technology empowered river and lake health assessment, from five aspects of the health of the river and lake systematic elaboration. This article analyses the characteristics and ecological functions of riparian zones and riparian zone vegetation, and reveals the ecological functions of riparian zone vegetation in the health of rivers and lakes in a more comprehensive way. Combined with the above, the article integrates UAV remote sensing technology into the assessment of river and lake health and monitoring of the ecological function of riparian zone vegetation, and the summary of the monitoring content, monitoring objects and indicators gives a refreshing feeling. Overall, this article is logical, factual, complete, and methodological, which is in line with the theme of the Remote Sensing journal. I have the following comments on this article and suggest that it be revised for publication.

 

1. The content of the article is relatively rich, but it lacks key information, such as what is the relationship between water space, water resources, water environment, water ecology, water services and the river and lake health assessment system defined in the article; the ecological function of riparian zone vegetation described in the article includes seven aspects; the article describes seven ecological functions of riparian zone vegetation, what is the rationale for the categorisation, have other scholars done a similar categorisation, and how does it differ from this article; how is the logical relationship between what is monitored by drones, who is monitored, and what indicators are considered in the article.

2. Whether there are scholars who have already started to study the future scenarios in the article, and it is suggested to add the research progress into the article.

3. The remote sensing technology of drones is not obvious in the introductory part of the article.

4. Bibliometrics in the article is a good research method, which is helpful for scholars to grasp the cutting-edge hotspots, however, the relevance of the two parts of the article, 2.2.1. Annual number of publications and 2.2.2.Nation, to the thematic ideas of the article is not reflected.

5. Please note the units of the vertical axis in Figures 1, 2, and 4.

6. The description of Figure 5(a) in the Riparian zone vegetation UAV quantitative remote sensing monitoring content section of Article 5.2. lacks relevance to the main idea of the article.

7. It is suggested that Figure 5(b) be presented in a separate table.

8. The authors need to double-check the details of the article, such as air-heaven-air in line 36 and RGBLidar in line 16 of Table 3.

9. On the basis of the types of UAV sensors, please specify the types of sensors, resolution and other relevant parameters involved in UAV remote sensing.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

No

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

There are some notes on the paper:

1/ There is a lot of talk that is more constructive than scientific.

2/ There are some sections without references (such as section 6).

3/ How can the authors analyze 3,889 research papers as stated in lines 452 and 453 (In this paper, based on bibliometrics, literature related to UAVs and vegetation was screened, and a total of 3,889 documents were screened......... and the screened documents were analyzed).

I think that artificial intelligence tools were used, so please state that clearly.

4/ There are some other notes inside the yellow box attached to the text.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

This manuscript provides an all-around good and well-ordered review on UAV quantitative remote sensing of riparian zones vegetation for RLHA. The authors of the articles under review have done a great job at integrating the latest and the best available knowledge and, thus, share novel data and new perspectives on this crucial subject. The paper itself is pertinent and useful in providing useful data to the area of riparian ecology.

 Minor suggestions for improvement

a)     Syntax and Grammar: A meticulous examination of the manuscript's syntax and grammar, particularly in lines 5-14, would prove beneficial in enhancing its readability and clarity.

b)     The text would benefit from greater clarity of expression. The sentence on line 42 is unclear and requires rephrasing for enhanced comprehension.

c)     The quality of the figures and the references included in the manuscript should be reviewed. It is noted that Figures 1-3 lack references within the text. Furthermore, the visual quality of these figures could be enhanced by increasing the resolution to ensure clarity and detail.

d)     It is recommended that supporting references be provided. The assertions made in lines 160-164 would benefit from additional references to substantiate the claims presented.

e)     Supporting References: The assertions made in lines 173-177 would be more robustly supported by the inclusion of appropriate references.

f)      Supporting References: Lines 196-201 would be enhanced by the incorporation of citations to substantiate the claims made.

g)     Supporting References: The arguments presented in lines 397-422 require additional references to provide a solid foundation for the discussion.

h)     Figure Labeling: In Figure 5, part (b) could be labeled more precisely, particularly with respect to the context of precision agriculture.

Kind regards

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx