The Influence of Urbanization to the Outer Boundary Ecological Environment Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques—A Case of the Greater Bay Area

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review on the paper entitled “The Influence of Urbanization to the Outer Boundary Ecological Environment Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques-a case of the Great Bay Area”.

In this paper, the authors attempt to find correlation between the increasing urbanization in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the changes in the peripheral environment. The main research question of the study if the environment in peripheral areas will improve if people move from those areas into cities. They picked grasslands and forests as the areas being investigated.

In my opinion, this is a very nice, interesting, and straightforward paper. The research questions are well-outlined, the methodology is clearly presented, and the results are interesting. The discussion is one of the strongest parts of the study. I liked how the authors explained the difference between the distributions of FVC in the case of grassland and forest (lines 418-451).

However, I have some recommendations that the authors should consider to further improve the paper’s quality.

The authors define the term “agglomeration” this way (lines 75-78): “Urban agglomeration refers to an urban group with more than one mega-city as the core and more than three large cities as the constituent units, forming a compact spatial organization, close economic ties, and finally achieving a high degree of urban integration and integration.” I do not think that this would be the general definition of an agglomeration but rather the definition of an agglomeration in China. For example, Greater Manchester is considered an urban agglomeration in Europe, but its population is less than 3 million which is about one-third of the population of a mega-city as defined by the United Nations. So, please either find and include an international definition of agglomerations in the paper or make it clear that the definition here applies to China only.

In line 142, the following quotation can be found with no reference being included: "surrounded by mountains on three sides, three rivers converge". Please include a reference here or remove the quotation marks.

In line 202, the following reference is quite unusual: “The data[41]…” What data are referred here or whose data are referred here?

Please check the caption of Figure 5.

Figure 7 cannot be found in the paper; however, it is referred in lines 345-346.

Please check the content of Figure 9. I assume that authors did not mean to merge the two different parts of Figure 9 (i.e., the maps and the graphs).

In line 417, this can be read: “…leads to the fragmentation and fragmentation of the landscape…” Is it correct?

In line 419, the authors refer to a large number of people who moved from the surrounding area to the Great Bay Area. Urbanization is a key concept of the study; yet, we have hardly any information about the characteristics of urbanization in the region. When did urbanization start? What were the major factors pulling people into cities? How many people have been involved in urbanization? What is the pace of urbanization? I think the authors should provide more information about urbanization in Guangdong Province.

Author Response

Thank you for your appreciation for our research. We have made detailed changes and explanations based on your comments, and hope to get your acceptance recommendation this time. Our reply is in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting and can be published pending major revisions. The weak points of the paper, that should be improved substantially, are:

1) language usage, possibly avoiding longer sentences.

2) Novelty and originality of the approach should be clarified a bit more.

3) LIterature review should be widened considered a comparative analysis of past experiences all over the world, not only in the study region.

4) The specific contribution of remote sensing should be better qualified.

5) Policy guidelines stemming from the results of this paper can be delineated more carefully at the end of the discussion section.

Thank you and good luck with your revision!

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to read our article, we carefully considered your suggestions and made changes. Our reply is in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Good revision overall. Thank you