Evaluation and Driving Forces of Ecosystem Service Change in Maqu Alpine Wetland: An Emergy Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

(1)   In table 5, you said “The monetary ratio of emergy value used in this paper in the process of monetary value equivalent accounting is calculated from the ratio of emergy value converted from local standard coal consumption in each selected year to local GDP in the same year.”    Why you did use total energy consumption?   I think it should be all natural resources input.  can you give some reference that use the same method?

(2)   The author should also add some discussion, such as whether your method is more credible?

(3)   Can you calculate the ESV with market approach and non-market approach? Then compare with your results. As you mentioned in Table 5, I'm not sure if your calculation results are more reliable

(4)   can your method be applied to other ecosystem types or other regions? This will increase the scientific innovation value of your paper.

good

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript by Han et al describes a study using energy to compare the effect of different driving forces on alpine wetland ecosystems in a county in Tibet. This is opne of a growing number of studies using energy as the currency of comparison. In particular, Han et al use Odum’s Emergy concept to detail these effects. This makes the study quite interesting and increases its importance. I do have a few criticisms of the manuscript in its current form, however.

1.      The authors cite Table 3 before citing Tables 1 or 2 in the text. This is quite wrong; citing should be done in numerical order when tables or figures are first cited in the text. Please either change the numbers of the tables or re-write the text to put the tables in their proper and numerical order.

2.      In the results, the numbers given in the text differ from those shown in Figure 4. Please explain why that is?

3.      The Conclusion section is actually a summary. The real conclusions seem to be in the Discussion sub-section Recommendations for Improving ESV (sub-section 4.2). I recommend making that sub-section the Conclusions. Therefore, please change the text to show this.

4.      Linguistic changes:

Lines 58-59: Remove However at the start of the sentence and replace with Only.

Lines 101-104: “Hence, we utilize the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to explore the driving factors of ESV changes (41, 42). When evaluating the contribution of each driving factor, the LMDI method is one of the most commonly used indicator decomposition methods (40).” If need be, change the order of the references.

Lines127-128: “The Yellow River accounts for up to 45%...”

Line 198: “…additive or multiplicative form…”

Lines 286-288: “The results show that Ep significantly decreased in the first stage (1990-2000) and increased in the other two stages, especially the third stage. Overall, Ep increased by 15.47% during the whole study period.”

Line 344: Remove the word “other” before unprotected wetlands. It is redundant and not needed.

Lines 414-415: “…the ESV of the Maqu wetlands first decreased and then increased. The ESV of provisioning services continually increased…”

1.      Linguistic changes:

Lines 58-59: Remove However at the start of the sentence and replace with Only.

Lines 101-104: “Hence, we utilize the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) method to explore the driving factors of ESV changes (41, 42). When evaluating the contribution of each driving factor, the LMDI method is one of the most commonly used indicator decomposition methods (40).” If need be, change the order of the references.

Lines127-128: “The Yellow River accounts for up to 45%...”

Line 198: “…additive or multiplicative form…”

Lines 286-288: “The results show that Ep significantly decreased in the first stage (1990-2000) and increased in the other two stages, especially the third stage. Overall, Ep increased by 15.47% during the whole study period.”

Line 344: Remove the word “other” before unprotected wetlands. It is redundant and not needed.

Lines 414-415: “…the ESV of the Maqu wetlands first decreased and then increased. The ESV of provisioning services continually increased…”

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Manuscript ID: land-2840534

The manuscript is interesting as it contributes to the knowledge and awareness of the important roles of the wetlands. Their role has been neglected and great proportion of wetlands has been destroyed. However, there are some issues to be cleared and explained before the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Ln 38: please correct the sentence: …the interaction of the processes characteristic for aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems…

Ln 48: please correct the sentence: …to gain the land for more productive agricultural practices and ….

Ln 101: The explanation of the abbreviation is at its first appearance in the text.

Ln 155: Table 1.

I suggest adding another important regulation service: Flood wave mitigation and stormwater mitigation. If you do not have quantitative evaluation just mention this important role of the wetlands.

Water purification: beside HM removal there is also efficient nutrient removal, especially nitrogen compounds, such as nitrates.

Table 3: Is Deep heat Latent heat ?

Figure 4: The Figure 4 contains important information, but it should be clearer. All abbreviations must be explained in the caption. I also suggest more contrasts between colors for GI, LS and WC.

Ln 414-15: I suggest to separate the decades when writing so important findings of the study: first decreasing – decreasing from 1990 to 2000 and increasing from 2000 to 2020….

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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 authors present an extensive and interesting paper conducted with the aim to a better understanding of the ecosystem services (ESs) of wetland ecosystems, point out that the drivers of their change must be revealed in order to propose appropriate conservation policies. With this in mind, the authors assess the ESV of alpine wetlands in Maqu, analyzing the changes in their ESV in conjunction with the changes in wetland area between 1990 and 2020.

The thinking behind the research in the manuscript is clear. My major concern on this paper was that some parts of the manuscript are difficult to understand. The introduction is cohesive, but the methodology is unclear. For example in line 181 appear “Changes of the aggregated indicator (ΔEp) caused by various driving factors from baseline year (Ep 0) to final year (Ep n ) could be calculated using Eqs. (3)-(10…. “. Maybe not being a mathematician I don't understand these formulas, but I know that many other readers of this journal will have the same thing happen. Therefore, I beg to explain more clearly.

 Results and discussions parts needs to be strengthened. In general, this manuscript would be of interest to readers of the journal, but needs some improvements before being ready for publication in this journal. I would like to make the following comments in order to contribute to the paper's improvement:

Keywords: Wetland ecosystem; Ecosystem services valuation; Emergy; Non-monetary accounting; LMD. Tittle and key words must not conntain the same words.

I suggest not using acronyms in the abstract.

For someone not familiar with the area, how are the two figures in Figure 1 related?

Please improve figure 2

Line 352-387. This sentence is not clear. Rewritten it. Consider also breaking down this long sentences (and others) into smaller paragraphs to enhance readability.

Need to re-write the conclusion based on the major findings.

Limitations of study should be highlighted.

 I wish those changes will contribute to improve your paper.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The location of the Maqu County has to be exactly shown in the plateau in Fig.1 

The methodology followed for the measurement of ecoservices have not been discussed. Especially oxygen release and carbon sequestration have to be discussed.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The work of Han and colleagues addresses the capitalization of ecosystem services of wetlands in the Yellow River area (China). Although the topic discussed in this work is interesting and current, the writing of the manuscript does not allow its publication in a highly prestigious journal such as Land. In this way, in the Introduction section there is no clear common thread, there being an overlap of ideas that does not facilitate the understanding of the problem in question. Furthermore, no working hypothesis is proposed, something fundamental and necessary in a scientific research. The methodology is also not adequately explained and the choice of the methodology used is not adequately justified. Finally it is unacceptable a scientific discussion where only 2 bibliographical references are cited (there are two others that refer to the methodology used) and where the results obtained are not compared with those that exist in the scientific literature. For all these reasons I must reject this manuscript.

Some other small details could be:

1.- In objectives the LMDI method is mentioned for the first time, without indicating its meaning

2.- Figure 1 lacks a general reference (Asia and China)

3.- If you want to publish in an international journal, the results obtained cannot be given in yuan (Chinese currency), which does not allow comparison with the results that other scientists can obtain in other areas of the world. These must be expressed with the most common international money (dollar).

4.- Greater attention should be paid to the details of the manuscript (spaces, superscripts and subscripts, etc...)

5.- Excessively long sentences that make reading the manuscript very unappealing and understandable

6.- Excessive use of local bibliography (Chinese), there being a lot of information about it in the rest of the world

English is difficult to undestand, with excessively long sentences that make reading the manuscript very unappealing and understandable

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have corrected the mistakes detected and they have followed most of the recommendations given. Therefore, as a consequence of the changes and corrections incorporated in this new version, the scientific quality of the manuscript has considerably improved. However, the conclusions are very extensive. Please shorten the extension.