Confirmatory Analysis of the Effect of Socioeconomic Factors on Ecosystem Service Value Variation Based on the Structural Equation Model—A Case Study in Sichuan Province

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is actual and the ecosystem services are considerable worldwide. The study examines the complex phenomenon very comprehensively. However, the article focuses too much on Sichuan province, and the international relevance of ESV is incomplete. This should be replaced in the introduction and more European or American references should be included. The conclusion does not have clear international relevance.
The limitations of the methods used must be presented. (The authors attempt to apply SEM, but the methods were only partially successful.)
The legend in the figures is unreadably small.
The numbering of in-text links is ambiguous. 

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

 

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions/corrections in the re-submitted files.

 

COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR:

Reviewer #1

This is a nice paper as it discussed the effect of socioeconomic factors on ecosystem services value by means of structural equation model (SEM). To my knowledge, the use of SEM in Ecosystem Sevices (ES) study is still rare. Still, there are some points that should be clarified or corrected as follows:

 

1. I think you should shortly explain about methods that you used based on others’ research such as STIRPAT and equivalent factor method, thus the readers at least could briefly know about the concept.

Response: Thanks for your advice. We have added brief introductions of the equivalent factor method (section 2.2) and STIRPAT model (section 2.4), and we reconstructed the part of Materials and Methods to make it more readable.

2. You need to put the unit analysis of the SEM into the method section, and not in the results as you mentioned in lines 284-286 (i.e. 183 county-level).

Response: Yes, agree with that. I have revised this part accordingly.

3. In the text you mentioned Table 4 (line 197) dan Table 5 (line 335) which actually do not exist.

Response: Admittedly, there are some mistakes in the numbering of the Figures and Tables in the manuscript. We have rechecked it and corrected them.

4. Most of the figures are too small, thus it is hard to see the values

Response: We have realized this issue. The main reason why the figures is hard to see is that those figures are is compressed and the legend in the figures is too small. In the new manuscript, we have modified those figures to make it more clearly.

5. You monetized all ecosystem services value in US$, unfortunately in the discussion, you didn’t explain the importance of the monetary value, except you only used it to define the increasing and decreasing of ecosystem services in different areas. I think you need to explain the possibilities of developing economic policies in influencing prices of economic services as well as managing land-use changes via tax policies, incentive-disincentive, etc.

Response: This point of view is highly instructive. In the new manuscript we have added some discussion about fiscal taxation policy (in the section 4.3.3). The evaluation of the ESVs (in US$) can be regarded as one of the basic bases of ecological compensation, and there do some studies have demonstrated the possibility of this approach. This paper also illustrated necessity and feasibility of introducing the horizontal financial transfer payment system to reform the current ecological compensation policy mainly based on the vertical financial transfer payment system.

6. The result of the SEM model is quite good. However, the discussion about how each latent variable affects ecosystem service value is still lacking. For instance, how the indirect impact is greater than the direct impact regarding the situation in Sichuan. How the relationship between population, affluence, and science and technology affect land-use/land cover changes. You need to explain the findings that you get from the SEM model.

Response: In section 4.3, we have added more discussion about the result of the SEM. Specifically, we have elaborated the relationship among population, affluence, science and technology, land-use/land cover, ecological service value and explain the implication for these relationships.

7. In the conclusion section, you mainly explained about findings. This section should briefly mention research findings, how it’s related to other research, how these findings could close the gap (producing novelty), what is the limitation of this research, and what further improvement can be developed. I think you need to improve this section.

Response: Thank you for your advice. In this section, we add a brief comparison of other research findings and point out the main innovations of this study. In addition, we elaborated the research limitation of this paper, as well as the direction of future research improvement in a separate section (limitation).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see my comments in a separated file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

 

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions/corrections in the re-submitted files.

 

COMMENTS TO THE AUTHOR:

 

Reviewer 2

 

1. The topic is actual and the ecosystem services are considerable worldwide. The study examines the complex phenomenon very comprehensively. However, the article focuses too much on Sichuan province, and the international relevance of ESV is incomplete. This should be replaced in the introduction and more European or American references should be included. The conclusion does not have clear international relevance.
2. Response: Thanks for your advice. In the introduction section, we have added more references about international relevance of ESV. And in the conclusion section, we have added a brief comparison of other research findings and point out the main innovations of this study. Admittedly, due to the availability of data, the scope of this study is limited to Sichuan Province, the universality of the results needs further verification. We also have added this limitation.
3. The limitations of the methods used must be presented. (The authors attempt to apply SEM, but the methods were only partially successful.)

Response: It is true that in the result of SEM, some indicators do not well represent latent variables, resulting in the overall fitting evaluation of the model is not high as expected. We have added this limitation as well as the direction of future research improvement.

4. The legend in the figures is unreadably small.

Response: We have realized this issue. The main reason why the figures is hard to see is that those figures are is compressed and the legend in the figures is too small. In the new manuscript, we have modified those figures to make it more clearly.

5. The numbering of in-text links is ambiguous

Response: Admittedly, there are some mistakes in the numbering of the Figures and Tables in the manuscript. We have rechecked it and corrected them.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

All of my comments have been well responded.  Still, I just have a bit confused regarding the terms high west and low east when you discussed ESV as you also explain western area has high ESV values compared to eastern area.     

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript. I really appreciate all your comments and suggestions! Please find my itemized responses in below and my revisions/corrections in the re-submitted files.

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All of my comments have been well responded. Still, I just have a bit confused regarding the terms high west and low east when you discussed ESV as you also explain western area has high ESV values compared to eastern area.

 

Response：Thank you for pointing that out. Admittedly, the use of the terms high west and low east is a little less rigorous, which may make people confused. The term should be replaced by the statement of the western region has a higher value relative to the eastern region. All references to this term throughout the article have been amended accordingly.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx