A Review on Land Use and Land Cover Change in Ethiopian Basins
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper addresses an interesting topic that traces land use changes that have occurred in Ethiopia through a review of scientific work published in the literature. 17 previous works about the spatio-temporal LULC changes in Ethiopian basins were analyzed with the aim to make a comparison, identify the most frequent transformation dynamics and understand which drivers contribute most to these changes. The works analyzed and the statistics derived by the authors allow to draw interesting considerations about what happened in Ethiopia although, as pointed out by the authors themselves, there is a lack of indications regarding future forecasts. This limits the operational applicability of the results obtained as it is not possible to translate the work into recommendations to be integrated within the decision-making or planning process in general. The work to me is worthy of publication, noting that this is a review and therefore there are no contributions to the advance on land use change dynamics.Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
many thanks for the encouraging words. We revised the manuscript accordingly with the other comments received, and we hope that this version fits your expectations as well.
Reviewer 2 Report
The study aims to present the research on “A review on Land Use and Land Cover Change in Ethiopian basins.” The manuscript is presented clearly and nicely. However, I think it is better to incorporate more articles for the review. I would like to suggest a Major revision for this paper.
- The introduction needs to modify by adding some more articles especially focus on the LULC changes in Ethiopia.
- I think it is better to use some studies related to the main cities in Ethiopia. It will help to find some new method and findings for the LULC related. You have to use more articles and discuss your results. The 17 articles are not enough for the review paper.
- What are your findings? How it will help to manage the LULC in the study area. The originality of the study is week.
- The conclusion is week.
- Impossible to complete a review article with 27 references. You have to read and review more papers.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to kindly thank you for the comments, which were considered in revising our manuscript. We hope that the present version fits more your expectation.
Your comments were addressed in detail:
1. The introduction needs to modify by adding some more articles especially focus on the LULC changes in Ethiopia.
Additional articles were reviewed, to better pinpoint the situation of LULC change in Ethiopian basins.
2. I think it is better to use some studies related to the main cities in Ethiopia. It will help to find some new method and findings for the LULC related. You have to use more articles and discuss your results. The 17 articles are not enough for the review paper.
More articles were reviewed, not limiting to cities but looking also at more natural environments. We extended our discussion of each article, providing additional details to improve the comparison of the analysed studies.
3. What are your findings? How it will help to manage the LULC in the study area. The originality of the study is week.
This review is intended for setting the baseline on LULCC in Ethiopia basins. The analysis of past studies pointed out the lack of using such information for deriving future trends, which are, however, needed for developing adequate management strategies. We extended our manuscript to better showing such points, but, being a review article, we acknowledge the reduced novelty of our work.
4. The conclusion is weak.
We improved both the Discussion and the Conclusions, pointing out the actual state of LULCC studies in Ethiopia, and the open questions to be addressed in the future.
5. Impossible to complete a review article with 27 references. You have to read and review more papers.
As anticipated, we added additional article, to provide a better overview of LULCC in Ethiopia, and discuss the importance of such works from a global perspective.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript entitled by “A review on Land Use and Land Cover Change in Ethiopian basins” The main goal of the present work is to review previous studies, discussing the spatio-temporal LULC changes in Ethiopian basins, to find out common points and gaps that exist in the current literature, to be eventually addressed in the future. Seventeen articles, published from 2011 to 2020, were selected and reviewed for his purposes. The objective of this study is quite sound and I have the following suggestions/comments (revision) that authors be asked to incorporate before the manuscript is accepted for publication.
COMMENTS
- Need include some figures (maps) based on findings, results.
- Need rewrite the kewords, appropriately acording to manuscript. İnclude LULCC, literature reiew, gap etc.
- Include more information about similar types of previous, especially recent studies in introduction section and include them in reference section.
- May consult/read following articles also:
Md. Surabuddin Mondal, N. Sharma, M. Kappas, P. K. Garg (2012). Modeling
of spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC - a review and assessment. Journal
of Geomatics, Vol. 6 (2), pp. 93-103. ISSN 0976-1330.
https://isgindia.org/JOG/abstracts/oct-2012/VOL%206%20No.%202_OCTOBER%202012.7.pdf
Agarwal, C., G. M. Green, J. M. Grove, T. P. Evans and G. M. Schweik (2001). A Review and Assessment of Land-Use Change Models. Dynamics of Space, Time and Human Choice. Bloomington and South Burlington, Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, Indiana University and USDA Forest Service, CIPEC Collaborative Report Series 1.
5. The conclusion of the paper is weak. Rewrite this section. Include more description about merit/demerit of your study and should compare your results with similar types of previous studies carried out by another authors.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to kindly thank you for the useful comments provided. We have revised the manuscript accordingly with them, and following the input received by the other reviewers.
In detail,
1. Need include some figures (maps) based on findings, results.
We included a map reporting the location of the case studies (Figure 2), as well as a table summarizing the main characteristics of each basin (Table 2).
2. Need rewrite the kewords, appropriately acording to manuscript. İnclude LULCC, literature reiew, gap etc.
In our opinion, the present keywords are appropriate to describe our work.
3. Include more information about similar types of previous, especially recent studies in introduction section and include them in reference section.
The present review focuses on LULCC in Ethiopia. As far as we know, this is the first tentative of providing a review of LULCC-related studies in this region. We improved the literature review by adding additional references to better place our work in the present state-of-art.
4. May consult/read following articles also:
Md. Surabuddin Mondal, N. Sharma, M. Kappas, P. K. Garg (2012). Modeling
of spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC - a review and assessment. Journal
of Geomatics, Vol. 6 (2), pp. 93-103. ISSN 0976-1330.
https://isgindia.org/JOG/abstracts/oct-2012/VOL%206%20No.%202_OCTOBER%202012.7.pdf
Agarwal, C., G. M. Green, J. M. Grove, T. P. Evans and G. M. Schweik (2001). A Review and Assessment of Land-Use Change Models. Dynamics of Space, Time and Human Choice. Bloomington and South Burlington, Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, Indiana University and USDA Forest Service, CIPEC Collaborative Report Series 1.
We added these reference into the text. Thanks for the hints
5. The conclusion of the paper is weak. Rewrite this section. Include more description about merit/demerit of your study and should compare your results with similar types of previous studies carried out by another authors.
We added a Discussion section and reviewed the Conclusions to provide the readers with a more thorough overview of our work.
Reviewer 4 Report
The article makes a literature review of land use cover change in Ethiopia. It is quite a descriptive paper, which needs to be significantly improved before getting published. I would recommend it for publication in the journal after the following suggestion will have been addressed:
- Table 1: Here, I suggest adding the method of land cover classification used, as well as the agroclimatic zone and the area of the analysis.
- A map showing the position of the case studies would be very useful to assess spatial coverage of the analyzed areas.
- You briefly presented the methods used and findings of the 17 selected articles. The next step should focus on the integration of the outcomes and finding common patterns as well as differences. Besides, it is required a critical overview of the analyzed articles, as well as of your findings. A very superficial attempt to realize this was made at the end of the Article analysis section (lines 408-440), but it is, definitely, not enough. The article requires a significant Discussion section, where all the above-mentioned suggestions should be presented consistently.
- Line 411: It should be table 2
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to thank you very much for your comments, which helped us in better shaping our article, and in providing more insightful information on LULCC in Ethiopian basins. We hope that the present version is more in line with your expectations.
Your comments were addressed in details:
1. Table 1: Here, I suggest adding the method of land cover classification used, as well as the agroclimatic zone and the area of the analysis.
Table 1 was revised, adding more details on the presented studies, which could help in better comparing the various research. We added more comments on the description of each work (section 4). We also included more articles in our review.
2. A map showing the position of the case studies would be very useful to assess spatial coverage of the analyzed areas.
The map is now present in the article. Many thanks for the suggestion.
3. You briefly presented the methods used and findings of the 17 selected articles. The next step should focus on the integration of the outcomes and finding common patterns as well as differences. Besides, it is required a critical overview of the analyzed articles, as well as of your findings. A very superficial attempt to realize this was made at the end of the Article analysis section (lines 408-440), but it is, definitely, not enough. The article requires a significant Discussion section, where all the above-mentioned suggestions should be presented consistently.
We expanded both the article dataset and their discussion, revising each work in a more critical way. We hope that the new Discussion section could adequately satisfy your requests.
5. Line 411: It should be table 2
Corrected, thank you.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The author had incorporated my comments. Now the paper has been improved well.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
thank you very much for your kind words. Your comments were very helpful in better structuring our work.
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear Authors,
After addressing all the suggestions and comments, the article looks much better. I recommend it for publication in the journal, however, some technical details should be solved:
- The Ethiopian national boundary should be added on Figure 2
- The size of tables and figures should be adjusted in order to properly fit within the page.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
we would like to thank you for the provided comments, which helped in better shaping our work. In this new version such comments were included, as well as the feedback received from the reviewers.
Specifically:
The Ethiopian national boundary should be added on Figure 2
The map was updated and the borders added.
The size of tables and figures should be adjusted in order to properly fit within the page.
The formatting of the whole manuscript was revised.
