The Coordinative Evaluation of Suburban Construction Land from Spatial, Socio-Economic, and Ecological Dimensions: A Case Study of Suburban Wuhan, Central China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper analyzes the peripheral areas of Wuhan, China, intended for construction with the aim of evaluating the level of coordination between the various dimensions (spatial, socio-economic, ecological) trying to optimize land use in a context of growing urbanization. The focus is given to peripheral areas because they are areas in which expansion occurs consistently, characterized by inefficiency in land consumption; hence the need to find a balance, balance between urban development and environmental protection. The approach to this investigation uses 4 different indicators, the landscape pattern (to evaluate the distribution of built areas), accessibility (connection between the periphery and the urban center), socio-economic symbiosis and finally ecological suitability, which analyzes the ability of the environment to support development without compromising the balance.

Overall, it emerges that while the areas closest to the city center enjoy good connections, some apparently nearby areas suffer from connection problems due to the presence of territorial-natural barriers (rivers and lakes) that hinder travel. From an economic point of view, however, most suburban areas do not benefit from the growth of the city. The continuous expansion of building zones also leads to an increase in environmental risk with a consequent loss of biodiversity and a reduction in the ecological functions of the territory.

The analysis is particularly thorough and well structured but could be enriched and more detailed in some points. When we talk about a need for balance between urbanization and environmental protection, the problems present in the Chinese urban context are not immediately clear. This contex, for example, differs greatly from the Italian one, from here the reasoning could be enriched with a much more international approach: urban expansion and management of the suburbs is a theme that is expressed in many parts of the world, it would be interesting to try to activate the same procedure in other territorial contexts, even distant in methods and ideas, to see how the relationships between the various aspects are intertwined. Even the upstream choice of indicators could be more articulated and motivated, introducing multi-criteria methodologies on the aspects to be developed and compared. It could then be interesting to understand if this approach is well suited for both ex ante and ex post evaluations, and possibly understand how to integrate the changes.

Author Response

Reviewer #1:

General comments

The paper analyzes the peripheral areas of Wuhan, China, intended for construction with the aim of evaluating the level of coordination between the various dimensions (spatial, socio-economic, ecological) trying to optimize land use in a context of growing urbanization. The focus is given to peripheral areas because they are areas in which expansion occurs consistently, characterized by inefficiency in land consumption; hence the need to find a balance, balance between urban development and environmental protection. The approach to this investigation uses 4 different indicators, the landscape pattern (to evaluate the distribution of built areas), accessibility (connection between the periphery and the urban center), socio-economic symbiosis and finally ecological suitability, which analyzes the ability of the environment to support development without compromising the balance.

 

Overall, it emerges that while the areas closest to the city center enjoy good connections, some apparently nearby areas suffer from connection problems due to the presence of territorial-natural barriers (rivers and lakes) that hinder travel. From an economic point of view, however, most suburban areas do not benefit from the growth of the city. The continuous expansion of building zones also leads to an increase in environmental risk with a consequent loss of biodiversity and a reduction in the ecological functions of the territory.

 

The analysis is particularly thorough and well-structured but could be enriched and more detailed in some points. When we talk about a need for balance between urbanization and environmental protection, the problems present in the Chinese urban context are not immediately clear. This context, for example, differs greatly from the Italian one, from here the reasoning could be enriched with a much more international approach: urban expansion and management of the suburbs is a theme that is expressed in many parts of the world, it would be interesting to try to activate the same procedure in other territorial contexts, even distant in methods and ideas, to see how the relationships between the various aspects are intertwined. Even the upstream choice of indicators could be more articulated and motivated, introducing multi-criteria methodologies on the aspects to be developed and compared. It could then be interesting to understand if this approach is well suited for both ex-ante and ex-post evaluations, and possibly understand how to integrate the changes.

Response: Thank you for your constructive comments and suggestions. The detailed responses are list as follows:

 

Specific comments

1. When we talk about a need for balance between urbanization and environmental protection, the problems present in the Chinese urban context are not immediately clear. This context, for example, differs greatly from the Italian one, from here the reasoning could be enriched with a much more international approach: urban expansion and management of the suburbs is a theme that is expressed in many parts of the world, it would be interesting to try to activate the same procedure in other territorial contexts, even distant in methods and ideas, to see how the relationships between the various aspects are intertwined.

Response: Thank you for your constructive comments and suggestions. We agree that it is important to clarify the specific challenges in the context of China’s urbanization and to strengthen the international perspective on suburban land-use management. In the revision, we have enriched the introduction to emphasize that issues related to urban expansion and suburban land use are not only prominent in China, but are also common in developed countries such as the United States and those in Europe. We have also clarified the ecological and socio-economic impacts of urban expansion in both developed and developing countries. In addition, we have added relevant land use management policies from developed countries to the literature review.

Please see lines 29–56:

Urban expansion and its associated impacts, especially on the suburbs, have been the subject of intense discussion. In developed countries and cities, such as the United States and Europe, urban sprawl has been a persistent phenomenon. Between the 1990s and 2000s, despite a population growth of only 6%, urban areas in developed regions of Europe expanded by 20% (Moroni and Minola, 2019). The causes of expansion include factors such as lack of effective planning, deregulation, transportation development and property tax policies (Ermini and and Santolini, 2017, Garcia-López, 2019). This expansion has also raised concerns about its environmental and socio-economic impacts, including the loss of agricultural land, degradation of soil functions, increased traffic due to urban decentralization, and associated social and economic side effects (Jehling et al., 2018, Monstadt and Meilinger, 2020). Meanwhile, in developing countries such as China, social and economic development has experienced unprecedented progress since the Reform and Opening-up, which refers to the policy initiated in 1978 to transition China to a market economy and promote urbanization. China’s urbanization rate increased from 17.92% in 1978 to 67.00% in 2024 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025), and it is projected to reach approximately 80% in 2050 (Gu et al., 2017, United Nations, 2018, Müller et al., 2021). With urbanization, the population aggregation, industry development, and urban construction raise considerable land demands. Rural land, especially cultivated land, has been proven to be the biggest source of urban land expansion. Being adjacent to urban areas, suburbs are thought to be the most affected areas by urban expansion which are facing the conflict between limited land resources and huge land-use demands for development. The economic benefit of land-use has been focused for a long time, which brings the outcome of a rapid land transition from non-construction land to construction land in suburbs (Deng et al., 2015, Kovács et al., 2020, You et al., 2020, Tian and Chen, 2022). As a result, negative effects such as low land-use efficiency, urban-rural development imbalances, landscape fragmentation, habitat islands, and loss of biodiversity have emerged (Laband et al., 2020). Therefore, urban expansion and suburban land-use management have become common challenges faced globally.

 

And please see lines 159–165:

The United States also implements the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) mechanism to transfer development rights from conservation areas to development zones through market-based transactions, aiming to control urban sprawl while achieving a balance between ecological protection and urban growth (Linkous, 2016). In Italy, recent regional regulations have set thresholds for land conversion to promote the goal of zero land consumption by 2050 (Romano et al., 2023).

 

2. Even the upstream choice of indicators could be more articulated and motivated, introducing multi-criteria methodologies on the aspects to be developed and compared.

Response: Thank you for your professional comments. In the revision, we have clarified the rationale for the selection of indicators across four dimensions and adopted a multi-criteria approach to evaluate suburban construction land coordination. The weights are determined by the Delphi method, except in the socio-economic dimension, where principal component analysis (PCA) is employed to synthesize a symbiotic index. Finally, a coupling coordination model is applied to integrate these dimensions into a comprehensive evaluation framework.

Please see lines 301–335:

Therefore, a comprehensive landscape pattern index is proposed in this study to assess the coordination of suburban construction land. Specifically, four representative indicators are selected from the perspectives of land use scale, dominance, spatial concentration, and fragmentation: TA (Total Area), LPI (Largest Patch Index), AI (Aggregation Index), and FD (Fragmentation Degree). These indicators are described as follows.

TA – total area of construction land, reflecting the extent of human activity and the intensity of land development.

LPI – largest patch index, the proportion of the largest patch of construction land within the total area. Towns with higher LPI values indicate that their construction land exhibits stronger spatial dominance.

AI – aggregation index, evaluates the degree to which suburban construction land patches are spatially clustered. A higher AI value indicates a greater degree of spatial agglomeration, suggesting that the construction land is more concentrated and compact. “Utilize urban and rural stock land” is one of the basic guiding rules of the current Chinese spatial planning system. It is necessary to optimize and re-develop existing construction land to implement intensive land use (Liu et al., 2018c). Therefore, the aggregation level of rural construction land is an important indicator to estimate suburban construction land coordination.

FD – fragmentation degree.

                              (1)

where NP is the number of construction land patches and TA is its total area. FD reflects the extent of the fragmentation of construction land. A higher FD indicates that construction land is highly fragmented, with limited spatial cohesion. From the perspective of agricultural development and ecological protection, FD is an important indicator for estimating suburban construction land coordination.

All the indicators need to be standardized to ensure comparability. For the negative indicator FD, the following formula is applied to convert it into a positive indicator.

                          (2)

Finally, the comprehensive landscape pattern index is calculated as the weighted sum of the standardized indicators. The weights of each indicator are determined using the Delphi method, with values of 0.14, 0.21, 0.35, and 0.30, respectively. A higher index value indicates an ideal suburban construction land distribution at the town level under the framework of suburban coordination. The results are classified into five coordination levels of landscape pattern using the Natural Breaks method: low, medium-low, medium, medium-high, and high.

 

3.It could then be interesting to understand if this approach is well suited for both ex-ante and ex- post evaluations, and possibly understand how to integrate the changes.

Response: Thank you for your insightful comment. We have added a brief explanation in the revised Discussion section to clarify the applicability of the framework to both ex-post and ex-ante evaluations.

Please see lines 777–781:

Currently, this framework is primarily applied in ex-post assessments, that is, to evaluate the existing level of coordination in construction land use. This is mainly because socio-economic symbiosis analysis depends on statistical data. However, with the support of reliable predictive data in future research, the framework could also be adapted for ex-ante assessments based on scenario modeling.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper has potential. But it is unfulfilled.

The authors work to establish the need for and meaning of the research.  They discuss how it is to be done. But they only discuss the results in broad terms. 

For example, suburbs are grouped by the indices constructed. But we do not see the calculations or scores used to construct these indices. Instead, we only know how many suburbs in each district are classified in some select categories.

In other words, the work presented raised as many questions as it answered.

Furthermore, I wondered why the discussion did not draw on literature from the United States about the similar situations found at the urban-rural fringe (see David N. Laband, B. Graeme Lockaby, Wayne C. Zipperer (Editors). (2020). Urban-Rural Interfaces: Linking People and Nature. ACCESS.) Likewise, there are existing studies about development in China’s rural areas that might have been instructive (see Joshua Bolchover and John Lin.  (2013). Rural Urban Framework: Transforming the Chinese Countryside. Birkhäuser.)

At this point, I would recommend offering the authors a major revise and resubmit. But I would not be against an outright rejection given the lack of details in the presentation.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer #2:

General comments

The paper has potential. But it is unfulfilled.

 

The authors work to establish the need for and meaning of the research. They discuss how it is to be done. But they only discuss the results in broad terms.

 

For example, suburbs are grouped by the indices constructed. But we do not see the calculations or scores used to construct these indices. Instead, we only know how many suburbs in each district are classified in some select categories.

 

In other words, the work presented raised as many questions as it answered.

 

Furthermore, I wondered why the discussion did not draw on literature from the United States about the similar situations found at the urban-rural fringe (see David N. Laband, B. Graeme Lockaby, Wayne C. Zipperer (Editors). (2020). Urban-Rural Interfaces: Linking People and Nature. ACCESS.) Likewise, there are existing studies about development in China’s rural areas that might have been instructive (see Joshua Bolchover and John Lin.  (2013). Rural Urban Framework: Transforming the Chinese Countryside. Birkhäuser.)

 

At this point, I would recommend offering the authors a major revise and resubmit. But I would not be against an outright rejection given the lack of details in the presentation.

Response: Thank you for your constructive comments and suggestions. The detailed responses are list as follows:

 

Specific comments

1. The authors work to establish the need for and meaning of the research. They discuss how it is to be done. But they only discuss the results in broad terms. For example, suburbs are grouped by the indices constructed. But we do not see the calculations or scores used to construct these indices. Instead, we only know how many suburbs in each district are classified in some select categories.

In other words, the work presented raised as many questions as it answered.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have revised the Results section to provide a more detailed analysis of both the four single dimensions and the final comprehensive coordination evaluation.

Please see lines 456–468:

Therefore, a comprehensive index is derived through the weighted calculation of four landscape indices to estimate the landscape pattern of suburban construction land in Wuhan, which reflects the level of land-use coordination, as shown in Figure 3(a). The results show that the number of suburban towns with low, medium low, medium, medium high, and high land-use coordination is 14 (17.5%), 22 (27.5%), 20 (25%), 13 (16.25%), and 11 (13.75%), respectively, indicating that suburban towns in Wuhan are mainly characterized by medium-level land-use coordination. Towns with high land-use coordination are mainly distributed in northern Huangpi, southern Jiangxia, and western Xinzhou. In contrast, towns with low coordination are primarily located in western Hannan, eastern Dongxihu, and southern Caidian. These areas are generally closer to main urban areas, where construction land tends to be more fragmented and less aggregated. This reflects a clear spatial heterogeneity in suburban construction land coordination.

Please see lines 477–488:

Based on the accessibility analysis, the capacity of suburban construction land where local people inhabits and work is estimated at the town level, as shown in Figure 3(b). The results show that the number of suburban towns with low, medium low, medium, medium high, and high urban-suburban accessibility is 18 (22.5%), 22 (27.5%), 21 (26.25%), 13 (16.25%), and 6 (7.5%), respectively. This indicates a generally medium-to-low level of accessibility in suburban Wuhan. Towns with the highest accessibility to urban areas are mostly located near the urban area, such as those in southern Xinzhou and Huangpi, and western Jiangxia. In contrast, towns with low accessibility are primarily found in southeastern Jiangxia, which is far from the urban area. Additionally, several towns in eastern Dongxihu District also show low accessibility despite being spatially close to the urban area. The abundant rivers and lakes inside this district lead to its low accessibility to the main city.

Please see lines 501–505:

Spatially, socio-economic symbiosis generally increases with proximity to the main city. For instance, two towns located in southern Huangpi and Xinzhou exhibit the highest symbiotic values. The spatial proximity and well-connected public infrastructure support symbiotic interactions between the main city and its suburban areas.

Please see lines 513–521:

The evaluation results show that the number of towns with low, medium-low, me-dium, medium-high, and high ecological coordination is 32 (40%), 19 (23.75%), 19 (23.75%), 6 (7.5%), and 4 (5%), respectively, as shown in Figure 3(d). This indicates that the overall ecological coordination level in suburban Wuhan is below medium. The ecological coordination generally presents a spatial pattern of low values in the central area and high values in the peripheral areas. This suggests that urban expansion has significantly affected the ecological environment of the inner suburbs, leading to low levels of ecological functional services. For example, ecological imbalance is observed in most towns of Dongxihu, northern Jiangxia, and parts of Caidian District.

Please see lines 526–538:

In general, the number of towns with severe imbalance, mild imbalance, moderate coordination, good coordination, and optimal coordination level are 19 (23.75%), 20 (25%), 10 (12.5%), 18 (22.5%) and 13 (16.25%), respectively. The 19 towns that are with severe imbalance in coupling coordination degree belong to 6 districts; in detail, 7 out of 12 in Dongxihu, 5 out of 17 in Xinzhou, 3 out of 14 in Caidian, 2 out of 18 in Jiangxia, 1 out of 3 in Hannan, and 1 out of 16 in Huangpi were estimated to have most severely imbalanced construction land development. All the 6 suburban districts are diagnosed to have imbalanced construction land distribution; however, there is a difference in the area proportions of towns with poorly coordinated construction land. Dongxihu holds the highest proportion (58.3%); Hannan (33.3%), Xinzhou (29.4%), and Caidian (21.4%) have the medium proportion; Jiangxia (11.1%) and Huangpi (6.3%) have the least proportion. To develop a targeted strategy to solve this imbalance, the main reason of the lack of coordination is analyzed at a town level (Figure 4).

 

2. Furthermore, I wondered why the discussion did not draw on literature from the United States about the similar situations found at the urban-rural fringe (see David N. Laband, B. Graeme Lockaby, Wayne C. Zipperer (Editors). (2020). Urban-Rural Interfaces: Linking People and Nature. ACCESS.)

Likewise, there are existing studies about development in China’s rural areas that might have been instructive (see Joshua Bolchover and John Lin.  (2013). Rural Urban Framework: Transforming the Chinese Countryside. Birkhäuser.)

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We agree with your opinion. Our study is a positive attempt in evaluating suburban construction land coordination. Considering the impacts of urbanization on the suburbs in both developed countries such as the United States and developing countries such as China, we added related discussion in the revision. Please refer to lines 825–828 and lines 839–848:

Therefore, the process of urbanization has had a particularly profound impact on the transformation of rural land, resulting in phenomena such as rural areas near cities being fully embedded into dense urban area, or suburban land becoming increasingly fragmented due to polycentric development and infrastructure expansion (Bolchover and Lin, 2013).

Similar coordination challenges at the urban–rural interface are also widely observed in developed countries such as the United States. As Laband et al. (2020) point out in their study, land use changes resulting from urban expansion tend to be concentrated at the urban-rural interface, where intense resource competition, functional mixing and ecological pressures often converge. The coordinated development of these areas relies on the integration of multidimensional factors, which further confirms the necessity of developing a coordinative evaluation framework for suburban construction land in this study.

 

Specific comments

3. Line 30: You may want to provide some context to these events for those who are not from or familiar with China.

Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We agree that providing context on the Reform and Opening-up policy is important. According to your comments, we added relevant explanations and supporting data in the revision.

Please see lines 39–44:

Meanwhile, in developing countries such as China, social and economic development has experienced unprecedented progress since the Reform and Opening-up, which refers to the policy initiated in 1978 to transition China to a market economy and pro-mote urbanization. China’s urbanization rate increased from 17.92% in 1978 to 67.00% in 2024 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025), and it is projected to reach ap-proximately 80% in 2050 (Gu et al., 2017, United Nations, 2018, Müller et al., 2021).

 

4. Line 52: change (not changing)

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, “changing” has been replaced with “change”.

Please see lines 66–68:

During the process of suburban land transition, the land use structure, landscape, and function are experiencing tremendous change (Tang et al., 2016, Solecka et al., 2017, Mou et al., 2024).   

 

5. Line 54-78: In-text numbered lists generally are not needed. The text itself is sufficient. In other words, "The first ..." is a better construction than "1) the first "

This applies to all four items in this paragraph.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have removed the numbered list and revised the paragraph accordingly.

Please see lines 69–93:

The first challenge is landscape change, which is mainly caused by urbanization. To protect the primary cropland and the ecological environment, the Chinese government encourages intensive land use to improve land-use efficiency (Liu et al., 2014). Spatially, the development of construction land is encouraged to be aggregated and regularized. The second task is to increase the accessibility between suburban and urban areas, which not only enables residents to gain urban services but also increases the functional integration of urban and suburban areas based on people and material flows (Moran-dell et al., 2025). Hamidi and Ewing (2014) pointed out that poor accessibility is one of the main reasons for urban sprawl. Besides, in some cities, the public infrastructure network is not constructed following the construction land development, which results in the so-called spatial inequality (Dadashpoor et al., 2016, Litman, 2017). To improve the land-use efficiency and residents’ life convenience, spatial accessibility needs to be considered when optimizing suburban construction land. The third goal is to promote the co-development of urban and suburban areas. For a long time, the urban-centered development mode widens the development gap between urban and non-urban areas; therefore, optimization of resources and industries are conducted to implement the coordination between urban and suburban areas. Such coordination can be estimated from socio-economic statistical data (Chen et al., 2020). Fourth, ecological coordination is an inevitable indicator. From the macro-scale, ecological civilization construction is the most important goal in current China’s policies regarding land use and regional planning to implement sustainable development (Liu et al., 2018a); from the individual scale, ecological environment has great effects on residents’ objective and subjective well-being. The development of suburban construction land is a complicated process. To estimate the coordinative development of suburban construction land, multiple dimensions regarding the spatial, socio-economic, and ecological effects should be considered.

 

6. Line 94-95: Figure is somewhat out of focus.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have updated Figure 1 and improved its resolution in the revision. Please see line 109.

 

7. Line 104: Not sure of the word choice here -- as it is difficult to know what you are trying to say.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, “referred” has been replaced with “considered”.

Please see lines 118–120:

In the practice of identifying suburbs, low population and settlement density are mostly considered (Roychowdhury et al., 2011, Tian and Qian, 2021, Mou et al., 2024).

 

8. Line 127: Word is correctly used -- but not common.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, “affectable” has been replaced with “affected”.

Please see lines 142–144:

Since suburbs are the most affected areas facing urban expansion, and they are confronted with pressures from both urban and rural construction, the coordinative development of construction land in suburbs is important.

 

9. Line 146: This needs to be either "urbanization rates" or "an urbanization rate"

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, “urbanization rate” has been replaced with “an urbanization rate”.

Please see lines 151–153:

In developed countries with an urbanization rate around 80%, the focus of suburban construction land management is on controlling urban sprawl to protect the rural landscape and natural environment.

 

10. Line 267: This sounds similar to the Transfer of Development Rights mechanism used to protect rural areas in the United States. (Where the development rights from a rural property are severed from the property and sold off to another property owner in an urban area -- allowing more dense urban development).

Response: Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions. We agree with your point that the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) mechanism in the United States is indeed conceptually similar to China’s “Linking the Increase and Decrease of Urban and Rural Construction Land” policy. We have added a discussion on the similarities and differences between these two policies in the literature review section of the revised manuscript.

Please see lines 159–163 and lines 185–183:

The United States also implements the Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) mechanism to transfer development rights from conservation areas to development zones through market-based transactions, aiming to control urban sprawl while achieving a balance between ecological protection and urban growth (Linkous, 2016).

 

To promote efficient land use, the “Linking the Increase and Decrease of Urban and Rural Construction Land” policy (Zeng Jian Gua Gou, ZJGG) controls the total amount of construction land by offsetting increases in urban construction land with reductions in rural construction land. This policy is conceptually similar to the United States’ TDR, where development rights are shifted to balance growth and protection. However, ZJGG is implemented through administrative regulation, while TDR operates through market-based transactions. Moreover, ZJGG emphasizes food security and urban-rural integration, whereas TDR focuses on cultural heritage and ecological preservation.

 

11. Line 287: Why is this expressed as TA' (T-A-prime) rather than just TA?

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. You are correct that it should indeed be  and not . It was actually a comma, and we did not express it clearly. We have updated the formula in the revision. Please see line 320.

 

12. Line 291: How were these weights derived?

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have clarified that the weights were determined using the Delphi method in the revision. Please see lines 329–335:

Finally, the comprehensive landscape pattern index is calculated as the weighted sum of the standardized indicators. The weights of each indicator are determined using the Delphi method, with values of 0.14, 0.21, 0.35, and 0.30, respectively. A higher index value indicates an ideal suburban construction land distribution at the town level under the framework of suburban coordination. The results are classified into five coordination levels of landscape pattern using the Natural Breaks method: low, medium-low, medium, medium-high, and high.

 

13. Line 321: How is this done? Does this relate to the time thresholds noted above in any way?

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have provided a detailed explanation of the time-cost accessibility calculation process in the revision.

Please see lines 358–369:

The accessibility analysis process includes the following steps. First, urban areas are defined as the source for the analysis. The time-cost raster is generated by over-laying multiple time-cost layers, including the unit time costs associated with different land use types and road types (as shown in Table 1). Then, the accessibility surface is produced using the Cost Distance tool in ArcGIS, where each raster cell value represents the cumulative time cost required to reach the urban area. This accessibility sur-face is subsequently classified into five categories based on time thresholds (0.5h, 1h, 1.5h, and 2h), and the proportion of land area within each threshold is calculated for each town. Finally, the accessibility index of each town is computed as a weighted sum of these proportions, with weights assigned as 0.45, 0.25, 0.15, 0.10, and 0.05, respectively. The results are classified into five accessibility levels using the Natural Breaks method: low, medium-low, medium, medium-high, and high.

 

14. Line 402-405: Legend for figure on a different page than graphic itself.

Response: Thank you for your valuable comments. We have updated Figure 3 and improved its resolution in the revision. Please see line 449.

 

15. Line 409: What are they? Where are they discussed in the text? Are they what appears in Figure 3? This is not apparent.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have revised the paragraph to provide a detailed explanation of the coordination level of suburban construction land landscape patterns. Figure 3(a) shows the spatial distribution of this coordination at the town level. The coordination index is calculated as the weighted sum of landscape pattern indices, which represent the four aspects of scale, dominance, aggregation, and fragmentation of construction land.

Please see lines 456–468:

Therefore, a comprehensive index is derived through the weighted calculation of four landscape indices to estimate the landscape pattern of suburban construction land in Wuhan, which reflects the level of land-use coordination, as shown in Figure 3(a). The results show that the number of suburban towns with low, medium low, medium, medium high, and high land-use coordination is 14 (17.5%), 22 (27.5%), 20 (25%), 13 (16.25%), and 11 (13.75%), respectively, indicating that suburban towns in Wuhan are mainly characterized by medium-level land-use coordination. Towns with high land-use coordination are mainly distributed in northern Huangpi, southern Jiangxia, and western Xinzhou. In contrast, towns with low coordination are primarily located in western Hannan, eastern Dongxihu, and southern Caidian. These areas are generally closer to main urban areas, where construction land tends to be more fragmented and less aggregated. This reflects a clear spatial heterogeneity in suburban construction land coordination.

 

16.Line 434: Sigma? Spell this out.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have rewritten the sentence in the revision.

Please see lines 493–495:

The correlation analysis confirmed that the socio-economic development of suburban towns is strongly associated with that of the main city, with all significance levels (p-values) below 0.02 and Pearson’s correlation coefficients greater than 0.900.

 

17. Line 458: Would like to have seen better explanation (or reminder) of how coordination level was defined/determined.

Response: Thank you for your valuable comments and suggestions. We have provided a detailed explanation of the classification of coupling coordination degree in the revision.

Please see lines 441–444:

Based on previous studies, the coupling coordination degree can be classified into five levels: low level (severe imbalance, D∈(0,0.2]), medium-low level (mild imbalance, D∈(0.2,0.4]), medium level (moderate coordination, D∈(0.4,0.5], medium-high level (good coordination, D∈(0.5,0.8], and high level (optimal coordination, D∈(0.8,1].

 

18. Line 474-475: Legend is slightly out-of-focus.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have updated Figure 4 and improved its resolution in the revision. Please see line 544.

 

19. Line 477: Sentences cannot begin with a numeral. The number must be written as a word in that case. This is a problem several places in the paper.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. We have revised the relevant sentences throughout the paper to ensure that no sentence begins with a numeral.

Please see lines 547–548:

Two towns in Dongxihu and three towns in Xinzhou are identified as land-scape-orientated construction land imbalance.

Please see lines 569–570:

One town of Dongxihu and other two towns in Caidian are identified as socio-economic incoordination of construction land.

Please see lines 581–582:

Eight towns are identified as showing ecological functional suitability imbalance, and most of them are located in Hannan, Caidian, and Dongxihu Districts.

 

20. Line 495: Word is correct but not commonly used.

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, “incoordination” has been replaced with “imbalance”.

Please see lines 564–565:

The long distance from the main urban area, combined with weak transportation infrastructure, results in accessibility imbalance.

 

21. Line 547: Did you mean "agrees with"?

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, we have rewritten the sentence accordingly.

Please see lines 628–630:

That result is consistent with the findings of other studies, which indicate that urbanization is sacrificing the rural ecological environment due to land transition (Liao et al., 2018, Martellozzo et al., 2018).

 

22. Line 638: Capitalization unnecessary

Response: Thank you for pointing out this issue. In the revision, “Urban expansion” has been replaced with “urban expansion”. Thank you for pointing this out. We have reworded the sentence to clarify the modeling approach and to ensure consistency with the original discussion.

Please see lines 718–719:

Moreover, urban expansion threatens ecological security and leads to a decline in biodiversity (Kong et al., 2021, Kong et al., 2022).

 

23. Line 714: This is a bit confusing to me as the original discussion talked about how this model looked at all elements together (or at least that was my interpretation of it).

Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have reworded the sentence to clarify the modeling approach and to ensure consistency with the original discussion.

Please see lines 797–800:

This study has two contributions. On the one hand, the coordination of suburban construction land is assessed through four key dimensions including land use, spatial, socio-economic, and ecological aspects, based on which a comprehensive evaluation system is developed.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

You should be commended for the improvements you made to the paper. 

The changes made have addressed all of my previous comments.