Remote Sensing Applications for Pasture Assessment in Kazakhstan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Introduction

 

Need to define RS first; Abstract stands alone so definitions do not carry

 

 

Methods:

 

The description of all the RS metrics is background material, not methods, and should either be shortened significantly or placed in an appendix

 

The field data don't match up to the collected RS data. Are you measuring LAI on the ground and then comparing it to the LAI generated by the RS approach? Each metric should have a match or matches to have this be a true ground truthing or comparison.

 

Results:

 

Descriptions of each region should be moved to an appendix as these are not results.

 

Information in lines 372-395 is very convoluted. I can't tell if this is a results summary or a description of some sort. It ends with "pasture is a plot of land whose grass is systematically..." but we're already on page 17 of a manuscript with 'pasture' in the name. This entire section should be removed.

 

Just about everything in this section past line 399 belongs in 'methods'. With the exception of 478-480 which should be moved to discussion.

 

Discussion:

 

Everything in this section is 'results'. 

 

Conclusions:

 

This section is a mix of introduction, methods, and results. It should be the key takeaways from the results and a detailed explanation of how these results can be applied to these systems.

 

 

Tables:

 

Table 1 is unnecessary. At the very least the test points column should be removed

 

Table 2 is extremely difficult to follow. I don't have any suggestions here.. it is very difficult to understand what's going on here.

 

 

Figures:

 

As a whole - all figure captions should have abbreviations spelled out. Captions should be able to stand on their own independent from the text of the manuscript.

 

Figure 1

illustrated workflows are great for this type of work. In this figure there are several changes I would make:

you have two methods (RS Sentinel-2 and Field geobotanical) squares. I would ensure each metric listed within has a corresponding metric. For example - 1) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI; vegetation condition, vegetation type) 2)Leaf Area Index (LAI; vegetation type) and the others.

 

There is a wavy double arrow in between the two methods boxes that seems misplaced

 

Small areas from the regions pointing back up to the methods should be deleted.

 

I would take the regions out completely and only list them in the figure caption. The methods boxes above imply application. If authors would rather leave them in, regions should be merged together into one block.

 

Figures 4-9 should be moved to an appendix along with region descriptions

 

Figure 15:

Replace the names of the regions with a smaller identifier (e.g., a two letter abbreviation for each region) that is then defined in the caption. The plot is too busy and difficult to read.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

If authors revise this manuscript, I would recommend a formal review/editing by a native English speaker and writer. The main messages are received but only after a considerable amount of time with each sentence. It is a struggle to read in its current form. *I do want to commend any author for writing in a language that is not their first; I, myself, am not able to do that and I understand how difficult that can be. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your time and very valuable comments! We worked on your recommendations. The response file is attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript presents a methodology for assessing pastureland conditions in six Kazakhstan regions that first extracts and calculates several vegetation indices and biophysical vegetation parameters using Sentinel-2 images. These values are then spatially analysed in conjunction with field geobotanical survey.

 

The manuscript presents a technically-sound methodology. However, the main shortcoming in the manuscript is the extensive length and the confusing structures of some paragraphs and sentences that rendered the manuscript less useful and valuable for the general readership.

 

In my opinion, the manuscript can benefit of another round of editing that aims mostly to shorten the manuscript and provide smoother flow. It is clear that the source for the manuscript is a technical report that was written by different authors with different styles.

 

One may suggest that the authors:

1-     Use only one of the regions throughout the manuscript for illustrating the methodology then summarize the findings for the other regions in a short paragraph or a table.

2-     Reduce the number of figures by selecting only the most relevant and informative ones.

3-     Combine the relevant figures of different regions and present them at smaller dimensions.

These suggestions are general for the whole manuscript, but they are very relevant and crucial to the text in sections 3.1 and 3.2.

 

Other remarks and suggestions:

On line 27, the authors write “The current applied indicators show that pastures have been following climatic changes with connected vegetation and weather conditions”. The statement is vague as it does not indicate what kind of “following” the authors are referring to; is it a direct/linear or an inverse following? Further, I don’t recall reading in the manuscript any discussion of the findings that support this statement.  

 

Restructure Section 2 so that “Study area” becomes the first subsection to be followed by “Methods”. Further, I suggest that the heading for the “Method” subsection is changed to “General methodology and indices” and then insert a new heading for a third subsection before line 202 such as “Implementation” or “Method”.

 

Lines 82-85 are vague and confusing, try to restructure the sentence/paragraph.

 

Why are there horizontal arrows entering into the extreme left and right boxes on line 106 (Figure 1)?

 

On line 126, insert a comma between “vegetation the RS”.

 

Line 205, “for each of 65 districts” may be more appropriate structure than “for each district (65)”.

 

Line 241, change “the” into “to” in “task was the provide”.

 

On line 245, insert a comma after “geospatial data” and before “the preliminary”.

 

On line 276, correct “oS” to “°C”.

 

With respect to “References”, the authors need to verify the URLs for the listed publications. For example, reference 19 has a wrong URL. Additionally, references 24-28 use a style for listing the publication that is different from the rest of the list.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is fine, but it could be improved to more clearly express the research. I have indicated some incidents above.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your time and very valuable comments! We worked on your recommendations. The response file is attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Some revisions have been made. I still do not feel it's in a state suitable for publication. There is very little differentiation between sections - I'd almost suggest starting over with a blank document and filling in each section with sentences or text chunks throughout this manuscript. The introduction has no objective(s) statement, the methods include some background information, the results include discussion and vice-versa. It's just very muddy. The findings may be valuable but it's just too hard to follow

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is acceptable. It's really more sentence structure (redundant words, out of place clauses, etc.) that remains an issue.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments!

Please excuse us, we missed some recommendations in the first round.

The second reviewer has had similar concerns to you. We worked on these issues. We updated as much as we could in line with both your comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is very clear that the authors have addressed my comments and suggestions. Although, partially successful, the result is an improved presentation of the manuscript.

 

One can now spot another set of flaws, especially in the contents and the discussion flow in sections 2, 3 and 4. The material presented in these sections still suffer from redundancy, duplication, and confused flow. The reader would be lost and confused without a very clear and explicit indication on the flow of the sections (e.g., at the end of section 1) and the proposed methodology (e.g., at the beginning of section 2.2). Once this is done, the authors MUST follow their own declared structure.

 

Below are some suggestions based on my current interpretation of the text.

 

The text that starts at line 102 to line 138 is relevant to the methodology rather than the study area. As such these lines should come under the heading of “2.2 General methodology”.

 

The heading for the section starting at line 139 should be changed into “2.3 Vegetation indices and biophysical parameters”.

 

At line 209 insert a heading for a new section; “3. Data collection and information extraction”, followed by a heading for a subsection “3.1. Satellite data processing with preliminary thematic maps preparations”.

 

On line 239, insert a heading for a subsection “3.2. Collection and analysis of geobotanical composition”.

 

Line 287 seems to be a start of a new section on 3.3 Biomass assessment. The text in subsection 3.2 seems relevant to this discussion. As such delete the heading at line 322 “3.2 Implementation”.

 

On line 361, change the number for the section into “4. Results”.

On line 630, change the number for the section to “5. Discussion”.

On line 600, change the number for the section to “6. Conclusion”.

 

Section “4. Results” is 8 page long. It can be divided into subsections with indicative headings. Additionally, it MUST be edited to remove duplication and redundancy. Other than being redundant (being discussed in earlier sections), lines 385- 396 are very similar to lines 591-610.

 

Figure 17 (line 445-446) is redundant. It can be deleted or merged with Figure 14.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is fine, but it could be improved to more clearly express the research. The major problem is the structure of the manuscript that MUST be improved.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your recommendations.  We followed your suggestions, please review the attached response file. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx