Spatiotemporal Patterns and the Development Path of Land-Use Carbon Emissions from a Low-Carbon Perspective: A Case Study of Guizhou Province
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
The authors used remote sensing and statistical data within Guizhou Province to determine changes in land-use structure and causes of land-use carbon emissions from 2009 to 2019. The manuscript covers a crucial and necessary topic in analyzing changes in land-use structure and carbon emissions. However, the paper must provide more critical information about the Chinese climate change policy and its relevance to net land-use carbon emissions from land-use changes. The manuscript is weak and must be improved.
Please see specific comments below:
Line 56-57: The context of continuous economic expansion, rapid industrialization, and urbanization in China must be addressed better and more profoundly.
Line 78-79: The “dual carbon” strategy needs to be contextualized in terms of its impacts on the industrialization increase of China.
Line 78: A temporal trend of the Chinese carbon emissions is necessary here.
Line 79: The paper’s objectives regarding general and specific goals are unclear.
Line 107: Please explain the temporal subset from 2009 to 2019. Why 2009 as an initial date? Is it related to the financial crisis of 2008?
Line 113: Here is the main issue: the process of the elaboration of the LULC maps is missing. The use of geospatial data is too vague. How was it processed and validated?
Line 181: Please explain the “specific types of land use.” It is too vague again.
Line 161: What is the relevance of such “energy types” in the context of the study area and China?
Line 181: The use of ArcGIS is a method and not results.
Line 418: The Discussion section must be better confronted with international literature, as it only addresses the Chinese context.
Figures must be improved.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind and constructive comments on our manuscript. We have accepted all of them and have revised the manuscript accordingly. Please see the attachment.
Yours sincerely,
Ms. Xiaoping Li
On behalf of co-authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
The paper present an important and interesting issue of land-use changes and their carbon emissions on an example of the Guizhou Province, China.
I suggest to re-phrase references in Introduction – lines 47, 49 and 52 where full names of authors are used. In addition, the paragraphs on using national tourism survey data if rather off-topic for this paper. I also suggest to re-consider terms “new crown pneumonia pandemic” (line 48-49) – is it COVID-19? and “Construction for the urbanisation of China” (line 68).
Did authors distinguish residential and industrial (maybe including power plants?) construction land use for direct carbon emissions calculations and how exactly? Or was it only calculated as indirect emissions? What about double accounting in sense (direct from construction land + indirect from statistical records)?
Figures 4, 5, 6 – missing units in legend, how can we understand “spatial changes” when each maps is for exact year 2009, 2014 or 2019? what is the meaning of sign ±?
In Discussion, I strongly suggest to refer to other authors who dealt with land-use changes and their implications to carbon emissions in China, there is plenty of papers in the Land journal itself.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind and constructive comments on our manuscript. We have accepted all of them and have revised the manuscript accordingly. Please see the attachment.
Yours sincerely,
Ms. Xiaoping Li
On behalf of co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
The manuscript is well done. The topic is actual and important. The study is logical and coherent, and the methods and results are correct. The figures and tables are significant. International readers can find relevant information and scientific aspects.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind comments on our manuscript. Please see the attachment.
Yours sincerely,
Ms. Xiaoping Li
On behalf of co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
My comments and suggestions were adequately accommodated, and I believe the manuscript can be accepted for publication.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The innovation of the paper is not enough, and there are too many similar research results. This article selects mature research methods and models, lacking scientific increment, and more like a consulting report for a service area.
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your constructive comments. As you pointed out, there have been many research on land use carbon emissions, with global climate change becoming the focus of the academic community. However, we found that there are few special subject studies on Guizhou Province as a research area through the bibliometrics analysis. As a typical karst mountainous area in western China, Guizhou Province is extremely short of plain support and has limited land resources. However, Guizhou Province is rich in minerals, water, energy, and other natural resources. From 2009 to 2019, the GDP growth rate in Guizhou Province has remained among the top three in China. The rapid economic development of Guizhou Province has also caused significant ecological damage. It is essential for the harmonious development of the ecological environment and economy in Guizhou Province to explore the land use carbon emission change pattern in the context of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality". Therefore, Guizhou Province is selected as the research object in this paper. A specific study has been carried out on areas that have received less attention in existing studies to fill in the research results in this field.
On the other hand, the existing research results on land use carbon emissions in Guizhou Province are not particularly relevant to the topic of this paper. Most of them focus on a single perspective, such as cultivated land use efficiency evaluation, carbon agriculture, soil, and inorganic nitrogen. We have conducted an in-depth reading and analysis of the literature in this field. On the basis of the existing research, more factors such as land use dynamic degree change, land use carbon emission calculation, carbon emission intensity, carbon emission efficiency, population density, and energy consumption structure were comprehensively considered. Compared with some of the existing research results, our research may be more comprehensive and complete.
In addition, we have maintained good cooperation with the natural resources management department in Guizhou Province. A lot of work has been carried out in land planning and environmental protection before, but there is a lack of academic research guidance in some practical activities. Our research has identified problems in the low-carbon development of Guizhou Province through scientific analysis of data and models. This is of great practical guiding significance to the work of the natural resources management department in Guizhou Province.
Finally, we have carefully revised the manuscript according to your and several other reviewers’ comments to meet the high scientific standards of the journal of Land.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Land-2507653_14JUL2023
Review: Spatio-Temporal Pattern and Development Path of Land Use Carbon Emissions on Low-Carbon Perspective-A Case Research Guizhou Province
First, I would like to express my congratulations for touching on an issue, analysing the spatio-temporal evolution of land use and carbon emissions in a case study area and determining existing problems in low-carbon development. However, the scientific quality of the manuscript should be improved, clarifying particular research questions, the overall aim of the research and adding some references. The discussion of the results is well enough, however, the final conclusions of the manuscript should reflect on the research questions and clearly stated the overall research aim. Thus, the quality of the manuscript is average for now and should be improved by considering the following suggestions:
1. The Abstract should be improved, clearly stating the aim of the study – one sentence instead of tasks + a method like it is described for now (see lines 13-16). Results 1-3 are fine, however, they could be more concise. 4th looks more like research outcome and recommendation to further gains, which, of course, is necessary to indicate also in the Abstract. It is suggested the construct of “the sustainable development of land use” (see line 25) rewrite either “sustainable change in land use” or “sustainable land use and development”.
2. As the dynamics of spatio-temporal patterns in relation to land use carbon emissions is the study's main concern, the authors should add more references from the scientific literature review, starting with an explanation of the construct of “spatio/spatial-temporal”.
3. Several terms used should be shortly explained as well, e.g. the local socio-economic system, ecological environment (see line 78).
4. Abstract can be read separately from the article. Also, in the Introduction, should be clearly stated the aim of the research. It is also suggested to set 3 research questions in the Introduction properly to those 1-3 results already mentioned in both the Abstract and Conclusions.
5. The references must be added to mentioned before the last paragraph of the Introduction, regarding China vs. US and “1+N” (see lines 65-73).
6. Mentioned in the last sentence of the Introduction should be clarified – what is “It” that offers? How “It” may offer a “theoretical foundation”? (see lines 81-83)
7. Section 5, the Discussion has been developed very well and both subsections reflect on the aim of the research, as it is already stated in the very first sentence of the Discussion. Conclusions (Section 6) have to respond to the overall research aim and include suggestions for further research at the end.
In view of all the above-mentioned issues, I recommend to the editors that MAJOR REVISION is addressed before accepting the paper for publishing.
Wishing you the best of luck with your research, and thanking you again for conducting this study.
With best regards
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind and constructive comments on our manuscript. They are helpful to improve the quality of the manuscript. We have accepted all of them and accordingly revised the manuscript. Point-by-point responses please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Congratulations to your excellent research and it can be accepted directly.
Good
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind and constructive comments. We are honored that our manuscript has been reviewed and recognized. According to your suggestions, we have used MDPI's English editing services to conduct extensive English revisions to our manuscript. We have attached the editing certificate in the resubmitted manuscript file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The research method selected in this paper is appropriate, and the research work is relatively solid, but a considerable number of academic achievements have been published in the fields involved, which greatly reduces the innovation and progressiveness. Moreover, the Development Path in the title is not reflected in the content at all; The paper does not put enough effort into the specificity of the topic selection to the generality of the research results, and remains focused on discussing the situation as it is; The academic contribution of the paper is not significant.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind comments. We sincerely agree and accept your comments and suggestions. First of all, there are very few researches on land use carbon emissions in Guizhou Province. Guizhou Province is a special province in terms of ecological environment, natural resources and economic development. Scientific and academic analysis and guidance are urgently needed in the critical period of spurting high-quality development. We still hope to provide academic, theoretical, and even practical help for the low-carbon development of Guizhou Province in this paper.
Secondly, we have made some efforts to make the paper innovative and advanced. For example, in terms of the selection of indicators for the calculation of energy consumption carbon emissions, almost 6-9 fossil energy sources are selected in the existing research results, and the energy type tends to be primary energy. It is well known that fossil energy has primary energy and secondary energy. Guizhou Province, as a famous province with large mineral resources, needs to be more scientific and rigorous in energy indicators. Not only are primary energy sources including coal, oil and natural gas covered, but secondary energy sources including electricity, gasoline and coke are also selected in this study. A total of 12 types of energy consumption are retained, which is more in line with the actual carbon emissions of Guizhou Province.
Finally, thank you again for your review and comments. According to your suggestions, we have added the description of the research background of land use carbon emission in the Introduction. We added and revised the analysis and countermeasures of low-carbon development path in the Discussion, and highlighted them in yellow. Please see the attachment.
Yours sincerely,
Ms. Xiaoping Li
On behalf of co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The quality of the improved version of the manuscript is high enough.
In view of it, I recommend to the editors that the paper can be considered for publishing in its present form.
Wishing you the best of luck with your research, and thanking you again for conducting this interesting discussion.
With best regards
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your kind comments on our manuscript. It is a great honor to participate in this interesting discussion, which has brought us a lot of help and progress.
Yours sincerely,
Ms. Xiaoping Li
On behalf of co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
