A Multi-Model Framework Based on Remote Sensing to Assess Land Degradation in Rural Areas

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a well-written article on a new methodology tested in the rural areas of Italy. However, some minor corrections and modifications are required as follows:

1. Lines 47-53: You have mentioned the lack of a standard methodology to assess land degradation. How the current methodology is helpful in standardizing the land degradation methodology is missing in the discussion or conclusion parts of the article.

2. Lines 54-56: Some of the properties are not true for earth observation; it should be either "remote sensing" or "earth observation satellite."

3. Line 143: cite the figure number for easy reference.

4. Figure 2a, 2b can be superimposed into a single map. Remove all the unnecessary zeros after the decimal in the grid labelling.

5. Line 169: In LDN methodology, you also have a baseline and a reference period. The final degradation is computed by combining both the results.

6. Line 190: EPSG 32633 Coordinate Reference System …

7. Line 228: Why did you resample the NDVI to a coarser resolution? And why not 300 m to match the land cover resolution?

8. Line 269: These are not exactly the IPCC classes. These are based on the IPCC classes but are not the same, so you can refer to them as UNCCD land cover categories.

9. Line 283: One of the main reasons is also that the metrics are calculated based on the relative change, not the actual changes in physical units. Therefore, using NPP does not add much information on the variability, and a vegetation index is much simpler to use.

10. Line 343: Downloaded or calculated?

11. Line 283: The time frame for the productivity and SOC sub-indicators is missing for SDG 15.3.1 indicator.

12. Line 519: correct the section formatting

13. Line 518: The monitoring period for SDG 15.3.1 Land cover matrix is 2017 to 2022, but here the MODIS MOD17A3HGF V6.1 is for 2017 to 2024! Why? As you have compared the results, it is important to mention the time frame properly, maybe in the table, to better understand the context.

14. Figure 6, The legend is a categorical one similar to the previous map, but why is it continuous here? A consistent style would be preferable. What does band 1 (grey) mean here? The visualization can be improved by using some binning techniques (e.g. hexagons)

15. Figure 8: There are some tiling effects on the northern parts of the AOI, which may result from the aggregation of images taken from different times. Can you check if applying preprocessing or something else corrects the issue before applying the Albedo methodology? Also correct the legend.

16. Figure 12: Correct the legend.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions.

The manuscript was revised according to your remarks.

We did our best to improve the presentation of our results, but if you have further suggestions we will be pleased to implement them.

The details of changes and revisions are reported in the “Response to Reviewer 1 Comments” PDF file.

Sincerely,

Andrea Pezzuolo (On behalf of all co-authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

see attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions.

The manuscript was revised according to your remarks.

We did our best to improve the presentation of our results, but if you have further suggestions we will be pleased to implement them.

The details of changes and revisions are reported in the “Response to Reviewer 2 Comments” PDF file.

Sincerely,

Andrea Pezzuolo (On behalf of all co-authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper proposed a RURALIS model by analyzing three commonly used models to assess land degradation in rural areas. It incorporates evapotranspiration, bare soil and tillage exposure, livestock impact, and land productivity. This is a very meaningful work, but there are many problems.

1. The framework of the manuscriptneeds to be adjusted. The limitations and advantages of the three models should be analyzed before proposing the new assessment
2. The accuracy of the new assessment model, i.e., RURALIS,should be verified.
3. The joint evaluation based on the random forest model has no substantive significance.
4. Use tables or logic diagrams to display the indicator system, quantification methods, and data sources for each assessmentmethod, such as MEDALUS model , LDN SDG 15.3.1 model, Albedo-Vegetation feature space model, and the proposed RURALIS
5. Highlight the differences and similarities indicesbetween the proposed method and the other three methods
6. How to calculate ETa and ETp should be introduced in detail.
7. How to quantify the contribution and weight of parameters in RURALIS. Please show the value of weights
8. Check the title of Figure 4
9. Please add administrative divisions to the assessmentresults.
10. Please add a legend for Figure 14
11. Please shorten the manuscript to around 25 pages

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions.

The manuscript was revised according to your remarks.

We did our best to improve the presentation of our results, but if you have further suggestions we will be pleased to implement them.

The details of changes and revisions are reported in the “Response to Reviewer 3 Comments” PDF file.

Sincerely,

Andrea Pezzuolo (On behalf of all co-authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have done their utmost to answer most of the problems. However, there are still three fatal issues that have not been resolved.

1. Is the focus of the paper on the proposed new model or on valuable analytical conclusions? Neither of them received a sufficient description.
2. Quantitative analysis is fundamental to the effectiveness of a new model. If there is no quantitative analysis to validate the effectiveness of the model, the analysis is also meaningless.
3. It is necessary to display the weight of indicators to enhance the credibility of conclusions.

In addition, effectively reducing the length of the article to highlight key parts will be more helpful for readers to understand.

Author Response

Dear EDITOR, Dear Reviewer 3,

Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions.

The manuscript was revised according to your remarks.

We did our best to improve the presentation of our results, but if you have further suggestions, we will be pleased to implement them.

The details of changes and revisions are reported in the “Response to Reviewer 3 Comments” PDF file.

Sincerely,

Andrea Pezzuolo (On behalf of all co-authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf