A Comparative Study on Land Use/Land Cover Change and Topographic Gradient Effect between Mountains and Flatlands of Southwest China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study is based on index and diversity index to analyze the tem-poral-spatial evolution and topographic gradient differentiation characteristics of LULC in mountains and flatlands of Yuxi City from 2000 to 2020. It can provide some scientific reference for the planning and decision-making of land development and utilization in this area.The research content is very meaningful, but there are some problems：
1. The conclusion in the abstract needs further modification, and currently it is not the conclusion of the entire text.
2. The preface needs to be rewritten from scratch. Currently, many are scattered and there is no good summary of recent progress.Especially in the second paragraph of the Introduction.
3. The section of analysis on LULC changes requires major modifications, and currently there is no clear explanation of different landforms.
4. There is too much discussion, and many of the content is not closely related to the theme. It is recommended that the author streamline the content.It is recommended that the author carefully read the following two articles and can be appropriately cited:
(1) Factors influencing the evolution of human-driven rocky desertification in karst areas,Land Degrad Dev. 2021;32:817–829.
(2) Spatial heterogeneity of soil organic carbon in a karst region under different land use patternsEcosphere 11(3):e03077.
5. There are too many paragraphs in the conclusion, and there is no good summary or refinement of the final conclusion. It is recommended that the author describe the content from two perspectives: edge and impact.
6. Line 56-59. This sentence seems unclear.
7. Lines 224-227: Please simplify this sentence.
8. Lines 187-190：Please rearrange this sentence. It looks sudden. And the author need to improve its readability.
9.The resolution of Figures 7 and 8 is not very high, it is recommended to draw a new Figure.
10Are there too many references?
This study is based on index and diversity index to analyze the tem-poral-spatial evolution and topographic gradient differentiation characteristics of LULC in mountains and flatlands of Yuxi City from 2000 to 2020. It can provide some scientific reference for the planning and decision-making of land development and utilization in this area.The research content is very meaningful, but there are some problems：
1. The conclusion in the abstract needs further modification, and currently it is not the conclusion of the entire text.
2. The preface needs to be rewritten from scratch. Currently, many are scattered and there is no good summary of recent progress.Especially in the second paragraph of the Introduction.
3. The section of analysis on LULC changes requires major modifications, and currently there is no clear explanation of different landforms.
4. There is too much discussion, and many of the content is not closely related to the theme. It is recommended that the author streamline the content.It is recommended that the author carefully read the following two articles and can be appropriately cited:
(1) Factors influencing the evolution of human-driven rocky desertification in karst areas,Land Degrad Dev. 2021;32:817–829.
(2) Spatial heterogeneity of soil organic carbon in a karst region under different land use patternsEcosphere 11(3):e03077.
5. There are too many paragraphs in the conclusion, and there is no good summary or refinement of the final conclusion. It is recommended that the author describe the content from two perspectives: edge and impact.
6. Line 56-59. This sentence seems unclear.
7. Lines 224-227: Please simplify this sentence.
8. Lines 187-190：Please rearrange this sentence. It looks sudden. And the author need to improve its readability.
9.The resolution of Figures 7 and 8 is not very high, it is recommended to draw a new Figure.
10Are there too many references?
Author Response
Thank you very much for your insightful comments, which further help us in improvement of quality and innovation of the manuscript. The attached PDF file is a point-by-point response to your comments.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Abstract: Change “varia-tion” to variation
Line 53-54: Should this not be the study of topographic gradient on LU pattern change…since LU does not affect gradient, but just the reverse. In fact, this sentence can be deleted as the next sentence covers the same idea.
Line 55: what is “change law of land use”? I am not familiar with that law.
Line 68-69: This sentence can be deleted.
Line 76: change “it” to “them” to make it correspond with mountains.
Line 80: “the” land use map….
Line 83: change “some” to “a”
Line 126: change “and can meet the research needs” to “which was deemed appropriate for this study.”
Line 130: “the” DEM
Line 130 to 132: “refer…”. First this line does not read well, and the reader is not sure what it means. Is the author telling the reader to go find the information on how the study was carried out from the work of others? If so, this is very awkward. Why not just say “the methods for making the LULC divisions and their statistical analysis were those used by [29,30].
Line 153: “the” topographic
Line 154: change “researches” to “studies”
Figure 3: Figure legends should stand on their own, therefore please provide a complete legend for this figure.
General: There is no need to begin a section with phrases like: “Formula 3 was used to calculate…”. This is all outlined in the methods section. There are multiple occurrances of this type of introductory sentence that can be changed.
Lines 368-375: Is this a repetition of results? This section could begin on line 375 with some rewriting.
After line 375, “policy” was mentioned several times, but the nature of the policies being referenced is not well established. The idea of policy needs was not included in the introduction as a justification for this study. I suggest that this provides background information which is necessary to understand why the study is being done. If the point is to equate these LCLU changes to current policy, it would be necessary to give an outline of the policies. Then a main objective of the study would include how LCLU changes were affected by policy with a discussion of what is good and bad about current policies.
Line 464-465: The authors note that more policy needs to be developed. This would be the place to suggest some “practical” policy issues that should be considered. This study looks in detail at one landscape and shows changes with time and position in the landscape. The implication throughout the paper is that this information is valuable. The authors could take the next step and give us a better idea of why it is valuable.
Basic evaluation: This study needs to have a justification which right now it does not have. Noting that this is one study of a relatively small area, the question becomes, what is the justification for doing it and what value it has. Otherwise, it is one more landscape study. While it is a well-done study, simply justifying it; maybe as described above would greatly enhance the value of the work.
Generally the English is easy to understand. I noted a number of small issues. As far as I can tell that takes care of any issues, although it may be useful to make one last pass on verb tense and dropping articles.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your insightful comments, which further help us in improvement of quality and innovation of the manuscript. The attached PDF file is a point-by-point response to your concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
I carefully read paper "Analysis on temporal-spatial evolution and topographic gradient effect of LULC in different landforms of karst region". I noticed some key flaws in the work. To begin with, the title of the work itself does not correspond to what is shown. If you are talking about the forms of karst, it is not enough to talk only about the mountain and plain part. Other forms of karst would have to be included. Reading the paper, the hypothesis of the paper is not clear to me. That should be emphasized. You only presented the factual situation through three periods, and a simple comparison. A more detailed statistical analysis with clear indicators is necessary. The discussion should be more detailed. I believe that it is necessary to redo the paper in its entirety and enrich it with statistical analyzes and connect it with the problem for which you did this research. Attached you will find some comments. Тhe idea of analyzing such changes is good, but it needs to be analyzed in more detail.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you very much for your insightful comments, which further help us in improvement of quality and innovation of the manuscript. The attached pdf file is a point-by-point response to your concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has basically made detailed modifications as required, and it is recommended to receive the manuscript after following the suggestions:
1. Lines49-64: Please simplify this sentence.At present, this statement is quite verbose.
2. 4.1 The foming causation of diferences.There is too much content in this section, and many elements cannot be identified in this article.
3. Lines490-504: Please simplify this sentence.At present, this statement is quite verbose.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your insightful comments, which further help us in improvement of quality and innovation of the manuscript. The attached pdf file is a point-by-point response to your comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
I am satisfied with the answers and corrections made.
Author Response
Thank you very much.
It is my great honor to get your approval for this work, and thank you for your valuable revision suggestions. It is precisely because your guidance has taught me how to revise my paper.
