Cross-County Characteristics of Water–Ecology–Economy Coupling Coordination in the Wuding River Watershed, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript integrated remote sensing data, meteorological data with social and economic statistical records to investigate coupling coordination of water-ecology-economy system and its cross-county characteristic in the Wuding River watershed, which is one of the largest tributaries of the Yellow River. The cross-county characteristics of the water-ecology-economy coupling coordination between upstream and downstream can provide a decision-making support for constructing trans-domain coordination governance in the Wuding River watershed. This paper is interesting and clearly written. The structure of the full-text is reasonable and logical. So I recommend to accept it after minor revision.
Some suggestions are as follows:
1. Introduction
It is recommended to clarify the contribution of the manuscript.
2. Materials and Methods
It is better to add more information on the data used in the study, and add reasons why you selected these indices in Table 1.
A map of the location of the study area should be added, for the convenience of non-Chinese readers.
3. Results
Labels/legends in figure 3 are not clear to be read.
4. Discussion
It is better to add more data or studies about pollutant emission in the watershed.
5. The language and writing need to be improved.
The authors should use the present tense, the past tense correctly.
For example:
Line 251: Water resource in upstream counties have a significant positive
Line 265: The economy in upstream counties have a significant positive correlation
In Line 34,page 1, is this sentence, The world’s big cities, whose population are over 750,000, correct?
Author Response
The manuscript integrated remote sensing data, meteorological data with social and economic statistical records to investigate coupling coordination of water-ecology-economy system and its cross-county characteristic in the Wuding River watershed, which is one of the largest tributaries of the Yellow River. The cross-county characteristics of the water-ecology-economy coupling coordination between upstream and downstream can provide a decision-making support for constructing trans-domain coordination governance in the Wuding River watershed. This paper is interesting and clearly written. The structure of the full-text is reasonable and logical. So I recommend to accept it after minor revision.
Some suggestions are as follows:
Point 1: Introduction
It is recommended to clarify the contribution of the manuscript.
Response 1: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added more literatures about water resource, ecology, economy development, and clarify that the contribution of the manuscript is “Based on the coupling coordination relationship and its cross-county characteristics, our study can provide decision support to construct a collaborative governance mode in the watershed”.
Point 2: Materials and Methods
It is better to add more information on the data used in the study, and add reasons why you selected these indices in Table 1.
A map of the location of the study area should be added, for the convenience of non-Chinese readers.
Response 2: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added more information on the data used in the study in the second paragraph of section 2.2, and add reasons why you selected these indices in Table 1 in the first paragraph of section 2.2. In figure 1a, we added a submap of the location of the study area.
Point 3: Results
Labels/legends in figure 3 are not clear to be read.
Response 3: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we revised labels/legends in figure 3 to be more clear to be read.
Point 4: Discussion
It is better to add more data or studies about pollutant emission in the watershed.
Response 4: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added more data about pollutant emission in the watershed in lines 331-336 and lines 364-365.
Point 5: The language and writing need to be improved.
The authors should use the present tense, the past tense correctly.
For example:
Line 251: Water resource in upstream counties have a significant positive
Line 265: The economy in upstream counties have a significant positive correlation
In Line 34,page 1, is this sentence, The world’s big cities, whose population are over 750,000, correct?
Response 5: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, our manusript has undergone english language editing by MDPI. The text has been checked for correct use of grammar and common technical terms, and edited to a level suitable for reporting research in a scholarly journal. We also checked the population number of 750000 in the first paragraph, and affirm it is right.
Reviewer 2 Report
The overall methodology is well developed, results of this manuscript can be very helpful to solve ground base problems in the Wuding River Watershed. In my opinion, the manuscript is well-written and explained everything already required for this paper. However few references in material and methods are missing which must be added.
Line 102-109: Add references from where you obtained data.
Line 115-116: add a link (if any) from where you obtained official statistical yearbook.
Line 132-135: Add a reference for Coupling coordination model, or it is your own method author should mention it.
Author Response
The overall methodology is well developed, results of this manuscript can be very helpful to solve ground base problems in the Wuding River Watershed. In my opinion, the manuscript is well-written and explained everything already required for this paper. However few references in material and methods are missing which must be added.
Point 1: Line 102-109: Add references from where you obtained data.
Response 1: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added references from where you obtained remote sensing data in section 2.2.
Point 2: Line 115-116: add a link (if any) from where you obtained official statistical yearbook.
Response 2: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added website link from where you obtained meteorology data and official statistical yearbook records in section 2.2.
Point 3: Line 132-135: Add a reference for Coupling coordination model, or it is your own method author should mention it.
Response 3: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added a reference for coupling coordination model in section 2.3.1.
Reviewer 3 Report
A good attempt has been made on the assessment of “Cross-county Characteristic of Water-Ecology-Economy Cou- 2 pling Coordination in Wuding River Watershed, China”. But the paper has several flaws to my eyes. These are as follows:
1. In the abstract section, methods are not clear. It should be mentioned clearly in the abstract sections.
2. The findings in the abstract section should be mode empirical rather than the theoretical.
3. The introduction section needs to be strengthened. The literatures from the Chinese perspectives should added more focusing on the water, ecology and economy. Few of the litterateurs can be:
# https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JG004589.
# https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125440
# https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-4309-2019.
# https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101085
I would suggest incorporating more relevant literatures in the introduction section.
4. Better to remove grids from the maps (Figure 1)
5. The data used should be presented in a Table
6. Why grey correlation?
7. Results section are well presented.
8. In the discussion section, policy implications, limitation and future research directions should be presented.
Author Response
A good attempt has been made on the assessment of “Cross-county Characteristic of Water-Ecology-Economy Coupling Coordination in Wuding River Watershed, China”. But the paper has several flaws to my eyes. These are as follows:
Point 1: In the abstract section, methods are not clear. It should be mentioned clearly in the abstract sections.
Response 1: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added descriptions about our methods in the abstract section. “Taking the Wuding River watershed (one of the largest tributaries of the Yellow River) as an example, we used the coupling coordination model to analyze the coupling coordination relationship of the water–ecology–economy system between 2001 and 2020, and then used grey correlation and partial correlation analyses to explore the main influencing factors and cross-county characteristic of the coupling coordination.”
Point 2: The findings in the abstract section should be mode empirical rather than the theoretical.
Response 2: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we revised the abstract section and clarified that “Our findings provide an empirical mode to measure transregional characteristics of coupling coordination and could support the construction of a coordination governance mode in the Wuding River watershed”.
Point 3: The introduction section needs to be strengthened. The literatures from the Chinese perspectives should added more focusing on the water, ecology and economy. Few of the litterateurs can be:
# https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JG004589.
# https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125440
# https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-4309-2019.
# https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101085
I would suggest incorporating more relevant literatures in the introduction section.
Response 3: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we strengthened the introduction section and added more relevant literatures focusing on the water, ecology and economy in watersheds of China.
Point 4: Better to remove grids from the maps (Figure 1)
Response 4: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we removed grids from figure 1, figure 4 and figure 7.
Point 5: The data used should be presented in a Table
Response 5: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added data source in table 1 and added more information on the data used in the study in the second paragraph of section 2.2.
Point 6: Why grey correlation?
Response 6: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added introduction about the grey correlation model in section 2.3.2 to clarify how this method can compare contributions of different subsystems on their coupling coordination relationship.
Point 7: Results section are well presented.
Response 7: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we revised the results section to make it to be well presented.
Point 8: In the discussion section, policy implications, limitation and future research directions should be presented.
Response 8: Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we added more discussions about policy implications, limitation and future research directions in the watershed in the discussion section.
