Long-Term Evolution of Ecologically Fragile Waterside Rural Areas and Strategies for Local Spatial Planning: An Empirical Study in Baiyangdian, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The objectives are clearly defined, namely to find answers to three questions: (1) What kind of spatial-temporal evolution occurred in the settlements in this area from their initial state to the period after urbanization? (2) What is the driving force behind this evolution, and has it undergone any changes? (3) How can we apply lessons learned from historical evolution to optimize strategies in this region?

Pursuing this objective leads to a congruent structuring in 6 parts.

 I think that the first question (Line 48) should define what is meant by The initial state.

 The text is clear, the methodology is correct and well mobilized to solve the objectives. Without seeking at all costs to reformulate or deepen the methods, the article is an example of a well done case study, the results of which can be transferred to the socio-economic system.

 A few observations:

 In Figure 2, the title (Figure 2. Three types of settlements in Anxin County (a) Land settlements.(b) The main roads and water body in Anxin County) indicates only a and b. However, the figure contains three images and a, b and possibly c are not indicated.

 Figure 3 should have a legend, detailing the acronyms (UNA, OLS, GWR, GWRWG, GTWR, SFCA)

 Figure 5 should be enlarged, there is enough space.

 In Figure 12, (a) and (b) appear in the caption, but they do not exist on the figure. If there is a link to figure 11, it should be described.

Author Response

Comments 1: I think that the first question (Line 48) should define what is meant by The initial state. 

Responses 1: I agree with this comment. I also think if use the word “The initial state” lead to ambiguity. Therefore I changed it to the term “before and after rapid urbanization”(line 71), and I have also included an expanded description of the state of the area prior to rapid urbanization in the second paragraph of the Introduction section to assist readers in understanding the context.

In the previous version, the term "initial state" refers to relatively pristine habitat environment which experienced prolonged human-environment interactions prior to urbanization. It was characterized predominantly by water-based transportation and industries heavily reliant on water bodies, such as fishing, reed cultivation, and related handicrafts, with terrestrial agriculture as a secondary activity. This state was disrupted after the 1970s. With the reform and opening up in 1978 serving as a pivotal point, followed by several decades of accelerated industrialization, infrastructure development, and economic growth. The government also introduced relevant policies (such as the Ninth Five-Year Plan) to promote rural urbanization, all of which led to significant changes in the rural landscape.

 

Comments 2: In Figure 2, the title (Figure 2. Three types of settlements in Anxin County (a) Land settlements.(b) The main roads and water body in Anxin County) indicates only a and b. However, the figure contains three images and a, b and possibly c are not indicated.

Responses 2: Thank you for pointing this out，I am very sorry for my previous oversight. I have modified the title of Figure2 and highlighted.

 

Comments 3: Figure 3 should have a legend, detailing the acronyms (UNA, OLS, GWR, GWRWG, GTWR, SFCA) 

Responses 3: I agree with this comment. I attempted to add legend to the chart but found that an excess of text would affect the simplicity of the chart. So I modified the first paragraph of the Methodology section. I provide a detailed description of the technical route and introduce the meaning of all abbreviations.

 

Comments 4: Figure 5 should be enlarged, there is enough space.

Responses 4: Agree. I have enlarged figure 5.

 

Comments 5: In Figure 12, (a) and (b) appear in the caption, but they do not exist on the figure. If there is a link to figure 11, it should be described.

Responses 5: I apologize for incorrectly entering the title of Figure 12. It has been corrected.

 

Thank you very much for your meticulous attention. I’m sorry for my inexperience and carelessness with LaTeX; those errors have been corrected and highlighted, and I have carefully reviewed the rest of the text.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Your text needs to be thoroughly revised as it is unclear what the hypothesis and objective on which the research is based is; consequently, the methodology is confusing.

The results are suggestive as well as the discussion and conclusions. Evident is the lack of analysis of the literature (also visible by having only 35 bibliographical references) which makes the text unscientific.

The diagrams and formulae are not well explained or framed in the theoretical description of the text.

I consider there are many objectives and assumptions in the text that make it confusing, I suggest focusing on one issue at a time.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

Comments 1: Your text needs to be thoroughly revised as it is unclear what the hypothesis and objective on which the research is based is; consequently, the methodology is confusing.

Responses1: Thank you for pointing this out. In revising this document, I have made substantial modifications to the Introduction, Theoretical foundations and state of the art, and Methodology sections to clarify the presentation. In the introduction, I have expanded the background exposition. And I explicitly specified in the third paragraph that this paper has a singular objective—to provide recommendations for the future green development of the region as mandated by the planning requirements of the Xiong'an New Area. It is my contention that proposing suggestions for the future development of settlements necessitates a comprehensive understanding of their evolution over extensive historical periods. To achieve this objective, we have delineated the following three steps, which correlate with the three queries posited in the third paragraph:

1. To objectively analyze the evolutionary process of the area's settlements using all available materials.
2. To attempt to elucidate the underlying driving mechanism of these evolutionary trends.
3. To predict future evolutions based on identified historical evolutionary mechanism and formulate development strategies based on these predictions.

Besides, In the “Theoretical foundations and state of the art” section, the process of deduction from background, literature review to problem hypotheses has been supplemented. In the methodology section, the first paragraph has been revised to offer a more detailed account, elucidating how each method contributes within the technical trajectory.

Comments 2: The results are suggestive as well as the discussion and conclusions. Evident is the lack of analysis of the literature (also visible by having only 35 bibliographical references) which makes the text unscientific.

Reponses 2: Thank you for pointing this out. I conducted a more comprehensive review of relevant studies and increased the number of references.

Comments 3: The diagrams and formulae are not well explained or framed in the theoretical description of the text.

Reponses 3: Thank you for pointing this out. I have revised the fist paragraph of methodology section to better explain the technical steps in the article, as well as how each model functions.

Comments 4: I consider there are many objectives and assumptions in the text that make it confusing, I suggest focusing on one issue at a time.

Responses 4: Thank you for your very helpful suggestion. I have clarified that the ultimate issue this paper aims to address is land consolidation suggestion(also mentioned in Response 1). It is assumed that to propose a land consolidation plan, it is necessary to throughly analyze the evolution process and driving mechanisms of the settlement in the area as a prerequisite step. The social background of the times, as well as the proximity relationship between villages and water bodies, can lead to uneven rates of settlement evolution, with varying degrees of impact from different factors. Therefore, a model that considers spatiotemporal heterogeneity is developed for evolutionary prediction, and the prediction results are used for strategy formulation.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article looks at the expansion of urbanization in China, into more rural regions as an approach to relieve the growing population pressure in cities.  I think the authors provide a very interesting topic, and a methodology that is appropriate to the research question.  I do appreciate the use of spatial autocorrelation as this is a critical issue in spatial regression models.  

I have two minor concerns with the article as it is currently written.  First, I think the literature review is too restrictive.  There is a rich body of research on urban sprawl and counterurbanization that would provide some interesting insights to the study from a non-Chinese perspective.  I also think including the situating the research into the larger sphere of urban sprawl and counterurbanization research would generate greater reader interest in your article, as this is the modern example of US suburbanization and counterurbanization from a few decades past.  

Second, I found the abstract to be a bit disjointed in its prose.  I would suggest a review of the whole document, but the abstract in particular as it relates to grammar, style, and prose.   It is still readable, but I think you can improve the writing to help engage the reader from the beginning of the article. 

Overall, I think the topic is outstanding.  It is well conceived and the methods are well designed and well executed.  This is a textbook approach to using quantitative methods for a spatial research problem.  Thank you for the opportunity to review your paper.  Best of luck in your future research.   

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I think the abstract is a bit disjointed.  The sentences do not flow together as well as they could.  I would suggest one more proofread of the entire document, with a focus on the abstract, for style, grammar, prose, and readability.  

Author Response

Comments 1: I think the literature review is too restrictive. There is a rich body of research on urban sprawl and counterurbanization that would provide some interesting insights to the study from a non-Chinese perspective.  I also think including the situating the research into the larger sphere of urban sprawl and counterurbanization research would generate greater reader interest in your article, as this is the modern example of US suburbanization and counterurbanization from a few decades past. 

Responses 1:

We are immensely grateful for your valuable suggestions. Upon reviewing the relevant literature, We discerned that there are distinct differences between the concepts of urban sprawl and counterurbanization. We think counterurbanization is more closely related to the content of this study. Consequently, We have augmented the sections on “Introduction” and “Theoretical foundations and state of the art” with additional information regarding counterurbanization. After an extensive review of research on counterurbanization in developed countries such as those in Europe, America, and Japan, as well as in China, we have reorganized our thoughts as follows:

Both rapid urbanization and counterurbanization serve as the backdrop for this research, with counterurbanization presenting opportunities for rural development. The establishment of the Xiong'an National New Area is also related to the government's intention to seize this opportunity to address the imbalance in urban-rural development. Land consolidation is presented as a means to help Anxin County’s rural settlements capitalize on this opportunity and meet the planning requirements of new district construction, which is the direct objective of this paper.

Comments 2: I found the abstract to be a bit disjointed in its prose.  I would suggest a review of the whole document, but the abstract in particular as it relates to grammar, style, and prose.   It is still readable, but I think you can improve the writing to help engage the reader from the beginning of the article. 

Responses 2: Thank you for your suggestion. I acknowledge that in the previous version, in order to reduce the word count, the methods and results of the study were not clearly expressed. In this version, we have made a complete revision of the abstract to ensure that it includes all the content and is free of grammatical errors.