Evaluation and Optimization of Landscape Spatial Patterns and Ecosystem Services in the Northern Agro-Pastoral Ecotone, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
1. The legends in all the figures are very small, making it difficult to see the intended message clearly. It is necessary to focus on modifying them to avoid affecting normal reading.
2. The figures should be placed near the position indicated when first mentioned in the main text, and should not appear before it is mentioned (such as Figure 7).
Introduction:
3. "[3] used the InVEST model to assess the dynamic changes of ... Nelson et al. (2009) assessed ESs ... Redhead et al. (2016) calculated the water yield of ..." The citation format in these contents is incorrect. Also the next citation after the reference [3] jumps directly to [6]. Please revise and cite according to the standard format of the journal.
4. "The results of these studies suggested that evaluation of ESs based on the InVEST model is widely used. It is essential to use appropriate methodologies for the assessment of ESs in watersheds." There is no causal relationship here. The previous literature review only cited examples of research on ecosystem services assessment, and a detailed description of why watershed ecosystem services assessment methods need to be emphasized in this study based on existing research results is needed.
5. "Recently, the Chinese government has planned and carried out a series of ecological restoration project in this region, including GFGP and BTSSCP, and the Beijing-Hebei Water Protection Forest project [16]." When abbreviations are first mentioned, their full names should be indicated, such as "including the Grain for Green Program (GFGP), the Being Tianjin Sand Source Control Project (BTSSCP) and...".
6. "The study involved the collection and analysis of comprehensive data on land use and land cover, soil types, hydrology, climate, and other relevant factors." The data involved in the study are suggested to be merged into the research methodology for detailed description. The end of the introduction should highlight the key research contents.
Study Area:
7. Inconsistent format of terms related to ecosystem services in Figure 1 ("Water yield""Sediment retention""carbon storage"). Check and verify that the initial letters are consistently capitalized or lowercase.
8. The contents in "2.2. Study Area Selection" mainly focuses on the natural environmental characteristics of the area, needs to be supplemented with the reasons for selecting the site for the study.
9. Ecosystem services encompass a wide range of service types, and the reasons for selecting only three ecosystem services (water yield, sediment retention, and carbon storage) in this study need to be explained. It cannot just be stated in the limitations that no other services were studied.
Methods:
10. "Table 2" first appears in "2.3. Data Collection": "The biophysical table containing the properties, which includes ... and carbon density in soil and dead matter (Table 2)." However, the detailed introduction of the corresponding content in the table is in "3.5. Classification of the Importance of Ecosystem Services". It is necessary to check whether the labeling of Table 2 is in the wrong place.
Results:
11. "The Xigou watershed covers a total area of 702.88 km2, ... covering around 10% of the total area (Table 3). Following ... an area transfer of 29.21 km2 (Table 3)." "Table 3" was not found in the manuscript, focusing on carefully checking for the missing table.
Discussion:
12. "While all three ecosystem services were positively correlated with CONTAG and SHEI. This was consistent with the findings of many studies [53,54]." Only partial results of the studies are described here, and the differences between the different results presented by the other landscape pattern indices in relation to ecosystem services and those of the existing studies, as well as the reasons for the different results, also need to be discussed to a certain extent.
13. "The results showed that the average annual water yield decreased from 2004 to 2020, while both sediment retention and carbon storage increased. The data suggested that there was a trade-off between water yield and other ESs, and that there were synergies between sediment retention and carbon storage." Is this part of the discussion based on the results of Table 5? The exploration of trade-off and synergistic relationships between ecosystem services is not determined by a simple increase or decrease in data, and it may be fortuitous to arrive at the same conclusions as other studies. In addition, there are not only trade-off and synergistic relationships between ecosystem services. It is recommended to read more literature on ecosystem service relationships or to add more data analysis to support the content here.
14. "From the optimized ecosystem services, the total sediment retention in the study area increased from 16.85×106 t to 20.57×106 t; the water yield increased from 1586.22×104 m3 to 1685.01×104 m3; the carbon storage increased from 5.935×106 t to 7.465×106 t (Fig. 7c)." How were these optimized ecosystem service data derived? It is not represented in Figure 7c.
Conclusions:
15. "Finally, the comprehensive ecosystem service was derived by overlay analysis in ArcGIS in the Xigou watershed of Chongli district of the Winter Olympic Games." The " Winter Olympic Games" mentioned here only found similar content in the Abstract "managing other watersheds at major sporting events", and the study area is also directly introduced with an overview of the Xigou watershed. The rest of the text is not explained more details about "Winter Olympic". So why is "Typical Watershed Around Winter Olympic Venues" highlighted in the title? How do the innovations studied in this paper manifest themselves in the Winter Olympics? How do the results of the study inform the specifics of the sporting event? The relevant content still needs to continue to be enriched.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe concepts described in the paper are relevant and should in fact be included in a paper.
Some problems where detected in the presented text which I'll try to describe in short:
1. Title includes the reference to the Olimpic Games. According to the text this reference is not relevant for the methods or goals and therefore I believe it should not be included in the title. The methods seem to be relevant by it self and mentioning the Olimpic Games does not seem to have any relevance. The Games may be mentioned in the Intro or the study area description
2. Many, many errors in the text. All text must be revised.
3. Study site location figure lacks coordinates and essential spatial reference as it is does not allow the reader to easily recognize the location.
4. Methods are not easily understood, and text is sometimes confusing
5. Invest model not described (but referenced); implementation not clear although model is relevant for the results.
6. Figures are of low quality. Patterns presented in maps are unable to support an opinion from the reader and correlations in Fig 4 seem to be unclear -to much dispersion? Although correlation values are presented it is not clear how these results, if good or bad, are seen by the authors.
7. Some conclusions are drawn from the study, but the paper does not give enough description that would allow the repetition of the presented work.
In conclusion, presented work does seem to have relevant for landscape planning and makes good suggestions on methods and procedures. These are on the other hand not described with enough detail. Results are difficult to access and should be presented in ways that would give a more reliable to evaluate the relevance of the obtained values.
In my opinion the paper should be totally revised, with necessary improvements in the editing. Methods must be better explained, and results made clearer and its relevance better explained.
Not to be accepted as it is.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Text requires thorough revision.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsTitle: Evaluation and Optimization of Landscape Spatial Patterns and Ecosystem Services in a Typical Watershed Around Winter Olympic Venues, China
Authors: Yuxin Wu et al.
Manuscript No. land-3030555-peer-review
The authors evaluated landscape spatial patterns and ESs in the Xigou watershed of Chongli district of the Win-ter Olympic Games. The subject is interesting and relevant. It is unclear what novelties are. There are several major issues that need to be addressed before it can be accepted. My detailed comments are listed below:
1. Abstract and Conclusions should have some quantitative results.
2. Page 1, LUCC should be spelled out for the first time.
3. In Introduction, the authors should review briefly the methods of landscape spatial patterns (LSPs) and ecosystem services (ESs) in watersheds. What are other methods? What are the existing problems to be addressed? Why did you choose the InVEST model? What are novelties of this study? What are novelties?
4. The authors should add a paragraph to review the studies of combined LSPs and ESs in Introduction
5. In Introduction, the authors stated that the study involved the collection and analysis of comprehensive data on land use and land cover, soil types, hydrology, climate, and other relevant factors. However, it is unclear what soil types are collected, what hydrological parameters were collected, and so on. Similarly, it is unclear what input data were collected in Section 2.3.
6. Page2, “However, it is an ecologically fragile area, is located in a wind-…” sentence is not correct in English grammar.
7. In Table 1 and Section 2.3, the authors mentioned several models supposed by [5], [21-23]. These models were not input data but methods. These models should be merged with the method section. In this section, you should focus on the input data, such as land use, climate, carbon, and soils. You should add tables to list these input parameters and data collected time. You should provide references for these data sources.
8. Figure 2 caption should describe more.
9. Results need to be explained more. For example, in Figure 4, LVIWY, LVISR, and LVICS are very similar. This is somehow strange. You should explain why.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageI found some typos and grammar errors. A proofreading should be required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAfter my review, I believe that after the authors' revisions, the manuscript has met the criteria for acceptance and I recommend that the editorial board accept the manuscript.
