A Framework for Assessing the Effectiveness of Carbon Storage Change During the Process of Land Consolidation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1 Page1, line 23. The authors focus on a biomass model based on field studies of carbon storage. However, the abstract does not specify which biomass model the authors used.

2 The publication would have been much more informative if the authors had compared such biomass models as empirical, process-oriented, and dynamic.

3 Repetition of text (plagiarism). Page 1, lines 19-21 and page 2, lines 46-48.

4 The authors did not clearly formulate the main aspects of the Trade-offs and Ecosystem Services Model, for example, they did not consider aspects such as recreation, tourism, spiritual values, or soil formation and nutrient cycling.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Please avoid quoting Line 78 and Line84. Each study has unique value. If necessary, please list these results in the text.
2. In the last paragraph of introduction, please briefly explain the design of this study and the results obtained, instead of just introducing the structure of this manuscript;
3. Please add a description for Figure 2 to help readers to understand. At present, it is impossible to effectively distinguish the significant differences between the three sections.
4. Line 196- Line202, is there a reliable information source for this conclusion? At present, Reference 48 is an Ethiopian study, and it is directly inferred that China has similar decision-making means. Is this statement reasonable? Please ask the author to rearrange the description of this paragraph;
5. Please ask the author to reorganize the structure of Chapter 2.2, be concise and to the point, and sum up all the hypotheses. The current structure is difficult to capture effective information quickly, and it is all endless text descriptions;
6. Many explanatory words in Figure 3 are too small to be recognized;
7. Please add latitude and longitude to Figure 4;
8. Please check the fonts of all formulas. The fonts of the current formulas are incorrect.
9. The discussion chapter needs to be revised. At present, it seems that there are many references cited, but the author is simply analyzing them, which is not in contrast with similar studies.

10. Ask the author to rewrite the conclusion. The current conclusion is vague and not concise enough to effectively summarize this study.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study “A framework for accessing the effectiveness of carbon storage change during the process of land consolidation” is an important investigation to understand the complex dynamics of carbon storage during land consolidation, strategies of planification and considerations in such processes. The topic and method used are relevant to the field of LAND. The research made by these authors on this topic and merits to be published in “LAND” after the introduction of the following minor changes.

-In the abstract section the lines 30-31: “The effectiveness of CO is 24.71%, with considerable variation between 30 counties, ranging from 1.26% to 97.55%” (explain the considerations or specific points that affect the variation of the range 1.29-97.5%).

-In the abstract section is important a conclusion about future possible investigations after the founded in this study and about the method used.

-is important not repeat keywords the terms used in the tittle

-In the introduction section is important a better explication about the importance of carbon storage as an environmental service and the importance of the type of ecosystems or different vegetation in such function.

-In all the text is necessary a space between the words and the number of references. Examples in the introduction section lines 45,46,48.

-In introduction section line 84. Numerous studies… (only there are two references -17,18-to increase)

-In the last part of the introduction section, is important a clear objective of the study and a possible hypothesis

-The authors may consider statistical analysis to compare densities and carbon storage?

- In Table 3, is it possible to include the standard errors or deviations of the average values?

-In the figure 1 is important to make sure that the phrases or words are clearly visible, that they do not go outside the frame or cross the lines

-In figure 3 is necessary a space between the words and the abbreviations CS, LC, CO.

-There is an important discussion section, however, greater use of references is required to discuss more about of the results detected and the methods used.

- Try to contrast the discussion with recent works (2024-2025)

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In their research authors state that “land consolidation (LC) plays an important role in disturbing carbon storage (CS) change.” Stating that “evaluation of how LC affects CS is crucial for mitigating global climate change” authors have been noticed that “existing research overlooks differences in various aspects of land remediation, making it challenging to propose targeted policy adjustments to enhance CS effectiveness.”

The main idea, to my opinion, is explicated in the sentence (lines: 21-23) which reads: “This study presents a framework to assess the effectiveness of CS changes throughout the LC process, encompassing policy formulation stages (PF), construction stages (CO), and post-management stages (PM).”

In further text authors have given the resulted effectiveness of each stage in the proposed framework.

The topic of the paper is very interesting because it deals with a very important issue of carbon storage in the world which is burdened by greenhouse gasses emission and every effort in that direction deserves attention especially when it is related to land consolidation.  

In general, I could agree that the paper is well structured, and that the literature is comprehensive. The literature could be improved by some newer references (as far as I could see only four references are dated by the year 2024). For example the following paper deals with the issue of the soil layers depth and their carbon storage capacity.

Dongxue Li, Zhonghua Ning, Guogui Chen, Yi'na Li, Baoshan Cui, Qing Wang, Tian Xie, The effect of land use and land cover on soil carbon storage in the Yellow River Delta, China: Implications for wetland restoration and adaptive management,Journal of Environmental Management,Volume 367, 2024, 122097, ISSN 0301-4797,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.122097.

Even though the paper deals with important topics, that it is well structured and well referenced I still have some notifications which, in my opinion, could improve the text. Those are as follows:

1. Some data about the global volume of CS could improve the text.
2. In the introduction part the main idea of the research should be explained explicitly.
3. Some hypotheses on which this research is based should be formulated in the introduction part to focus the reader on the essential idea.
4. The conclusion is too short and should explain the results in details as well as the better explanation of results and their significance with focus on the impact of land consolidation on carbon storage supported by numbers obtained.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx