Lessons Learnt from the Influencing Factors of Forested Areas’ Vulnerability under Climatic Change and Human Pressure in Arid Areas: A Case Study of the Thiès Region, Senegal

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

The topic of your manuscript “Lessons Learned from the Influencing Factors of Forested Areas Vulnerability under Climatic Change and Human Pressure in the Arid Area: A Case Study of the Thiès Region, Senegal” is relevant and interesting. However, I have the following comments and questions:

The manuscript is disorganized and confusing. The literature review, results and discussion are intermingled through the paper, without a clear organization or sequence. I strongly recommend the manuscript to be entirely restructured applying the traditional sections of a research paper: introduction, literature review (can be included in the introduction), methods and materials, results, discussion, and conclusion.

Material related to literature review (with its references) should be included in the introduction (or literature review). Currently is intermingled in the different sections of the manuscript creating confusion on results coming from this study and results of previous studies.  

The novelty and scientific contribution of the study are unclear and should be reinforced. Indicating the hypothesis and research questions would be critical to better indicate the scope of the study. In the results and discussion section it should be indicated how the study was able to prove or disprove the hypothesis and how the research questions were answered.

The title of the manuscript appears to indicate that the study focuses on the broader topic of Influencing Factors of Forested Areas Vulnerability under Climatic Change and Human Pressure in the Arid Area. However, the manuscript focuses exclusively on the Thiès Region, Senegal. It is very important to clarify if the results of this study can be applied to other arid areas with similar characteristics to the region under study or are exclusively for this region. Having a broader application for the study would expand the interested readership of the manuscript.

The description of the area under study needs to be clarified. A map with the continental, national and regional location of the area would be important for the global readership. The relevance of this area on the global, continental, or national level should be reinforced to highlight the reasons for selecting this location for the study. What are the factors making this region relevant for the study: economic, proportional area, resources, environmental impact?

The factors being considered for the study are explained and described in a disorganized manner in the manuscript. The literature review should indicate the relevance of the factors which studies have used in the past and their impact on these previous studies. Including a table with the factors and its literature review provenance, a flow chart, or other charts to highlight its relevance, would be very important.

The connection between the ten factors and its impact on deforestation should be expanded and discussed in more detail. Including in the literature review the methods that have been applied in the past by previous studies to showcase their impact on arid regions would be very important. Describing the geographic extent of each factor and how they were overlaid with the other factors to create the analysis presented in the study would be very important.

Are there other factors, that were not considered for the analysis, that other studies evaluated?

In the 2.3 method section it is indicated that “The extraction of land use information from the remote sensing image data was achieved through a combination of human and computer interaction interpretation methods”. This needs to be significantly expanded and described. What was the extent of the interaction? What are the uncertainty levels generated by this approach? Indicating in the literature review the application of this approach by previous studies and its reliability would be very important.

Extensive editing of English language required.

The grammar, narrative and structure of the manuscript should be significantly improved.

Author Response

Dear review,

Thank you for your time and helpful suggestions. Your comments were beneficial in improving our article as they were interesting. Additionally, we have gained a tremendous of experience during this editing process. These skills will come in very handy in the future. All of your recommendations have been carefully considered and included in the article.

Consequently, we proceeded step by step to make the correction clear and readable. The steps are described below.

• We started by reading all of the reviews' suggestions and recommendations. After that, we prepared a draft to enhance the literature by considering the reviewers' suggestions.
• Following a comprehensive examination of the draft, we used "Track Changes" to include each comment and suggestion in the paper one by one. After this, we get through the spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.
• In the final stage, we submitted the manuscript in two native languages to improve the written English.
• The article is finally checked and submitted.

We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to this section. Please address all correspondence concerning this manuscript to us at [email protected]

With my best regards,

Bonoua FAYE

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciated the effort of authors to conduct this interesting study regarding the  land use change in Thiés region of Senegal during the period 2005-2020, in order to highlight the loss of forested areas and investigate the main factors influencing this phenomenon. The study is carried out using reproducible geospatial and statistical analyses. However, the results are presented in a confused way and this issue represents a negative aspect of the manuscript which needs an improvement. In addicion, I strongly sugget to review the English, which would make the manuscript reading more fluent.

I'm listing my comments and doubts below.

Introduction

Lines 44-47: I would replace with “Therefore, in recent years, several issues related to forest decline, including in rapidly growing cities in the tropics, and unregulated urban development have presented a significant risk to groundwater quality and exerted critical pressure on natural resources.”

Line 54: In order not to repeat the term “include”, I would replace with “It depends on various factors, including….”

Line 78: Please, correct “Thies region” with “The Thiès region”

Lines 80-81: Pease replace with “Our results agree with those previous findings…”

Line 92: Please, replace “in contradiction of” with “in contradiction with”.

Line 110: It is not much clear to me the aim of this paragraph, as it seems a bit confused. Please, authors should better explain what is already investigated in the previous studies and what is missed.

Lines 111-116: I suggest authors summarizing the questions in order to avoid repetitions.

Line 118: What is the “previous study” which the authors refer to.

Lines 139-141. This part is very much confused. I suggest removing it or explaining it more clearly.

Lines 141-146: I suggest listing the study’s aims in the following way “Our study aims to: 1) explore the forested areas and….; 2) describe….; 3) understand the process of fragmentation…through a mixed linear model….

Materials and Methods

Line 150: I suggest changing the title of this paragraph to “Study area”

Lines 151-153: Please, I suggest writing the coordinates as latitude 10°44’46” N etc.

Line 159: Please, replace with “Regarding the land use classification, Figure 1 indicates that agricultural land constituted…”

Line 210: Authors should provide the link to the software used, i.e. ENVI and ArcGis

Lines 223-224: what are the values 0.91 and 0.924? Please, authors should explain the meaning of this index

Line 227: Authors should indicate the source of the Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) data.

Line 240: the function for the transition matrices is not clear. Please, authors should better explain the indexes.

Line 261: I suggest using the same letter “n” used in the equation 2.

Line 291: Please, replace “landscape index” with “landscape shape index”.

Line 303. If authors refer to only one previous study, they should correct “In addition, a prior work…”.

Lines 305-306: This sentence is not clear. Please, authors should better explain the concept.

Line 314: I suggest using the term “study areas” in place of “research area”.

Line 315: What do authors mean with “terrain”? If it means altitude, please correct the term.

Line 316: In my opinion, authors should explain the reason why the elevation may negatively impact the conservation of forested areas.

Lines 318-320: As slope and erosion are linked, I suggest replacing the sentence in the following way: “the slope degree (7) can cause potential soil erosion that can reduce the soil quality and induce degradation of forested areas.”

Line 324: Please, avoid the repetition of the term “added” within the same sentence.

Results

In this paragraph, authors should only list the results of their study without add any comment linked to previous study, which must be included in the discussion or introduction section.

In addition, authors must be more clear regarding the changes in land cover types surfaces along the study period.

Line 351: Is this sentence “The Thiès region is marked by dunes and inter-dunes[15]” a result of this study?

Line 357: please, authors should specify “compared to 10.18%” of what period?

Line 359: The term “the period study” is uncorrect.

Lines 356-360: Are these results derived from the values in table 2. If yes, please indicate the table in the text. Otherwise, I suggest adding a table to highlight the change in the surface of the different land cover types from 2005 to 2020.

Line 363: this sentence “Consequently, as noted in the South Asian region, in the Thies region, there is expansion and intensification of cropland and urbanization, as well as shrinking of forests[40]” must be moved to the discussion section.

Lines 379-380. This sentence “As a result, we note that, during this period, ecological gains were made on agricultural land. This situation may indicate a decrease in agricultural land area” is not clear because it sounds as a contradiction.

Line 381: What does authors mean with “ecological sfurface”?

Line 389: Are about 370.5 km2 gained from forested areas?

Lines 422-424: Please, authors shouldn’t repeat the meaning of the different indexes, such as the patch density, in the results.

Line 453: Again, authors should move all the comments regarding the results to the discussion section.

Lines 454-455: please, rewrite this sentence more clearly and avoiding repetitions

Discussion

Discussion must be presented more clearly and concise, without the repetition of “in other words”.

Figures

The numbers occurring in legend of the Figures 3 and 6 must be increased in size as well as the numbers of the axes in Figure 4.

I strongly sugget to review the English, which would make the manuscript reading more fluent.

Author Response

Dear review,

Thank you for your time and helpful suggestions. Your comments were beneficial in improving our article as they were interesting. Additionally, we have gained a tremendous of experience during this editing process. These skills will come in very handy in the future. All of your recommendations have been carefully considered and included in the article.

Consequently, we proceeded step by step to make the correction clear and readable. The steps are described below.

• We started by reading all of the reviews' suggestions and recommendations. After that, we prepared a draft to enhance the literature by considering the reviewers' suggestions.
• Following a comprehensive examination of the draft, we used "Track Changes" to include each comment and suggestion in the paper one by one. After this, we get through the spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.
• In the final stage, we submitted the manuscript in two native languages to improve the written English.
• The article is finally checked and submitted.

We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to this section. Please address all correspondence concerning this manuscript to us at [email protected]

With my best regards,

Bonoua FAYE

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Many of the comments were included in the new version of the manuscript. However, among the changes I believe these issues needs to be reviewed and further developed.

Hypothesis 2 does not have any discussion. It should be indicated how this hypothesis drives the scientific contribution and novelty of the research. Afterwards, in the results it should be highlighted how the results prove (or disprove) the hypothesis.

In Table 2 the forested area increased between 2010 and 2015. This is not discussed or explained in the manuscript. This needs to be explained and discussed in detail.

Additionally, some of the previous review comments still need to be fully implemented.

The manuscript results and discussion in the manuscript continues to be disorganized and confusing. Elements that should be in the introduction or literature review are included in results and discussion creating confusion on results coming from this study and results of previous studies. 

I continue recommending a map with the continental, national and regional location of the area, which would be important for the global readership.

The factors being considered for the study are explained and described in a disorganized manner in the manuscript. The literature review should indicate the relevance of the factors which studies have used in the past and their impact on these previous studies. Including a table with the factors and its literature review provenance, a flow chart, or other charts to highlight its relevance, would be very important.

The connection between the ten factors and its impact on deforestation should be expanded and discussed in more detail. Including in the literature review the methods that have been applied in the past by previous studies to showcase their impact on arid regions would be very important. Describing the geographic extent of each factor and how they were overlaid with the other factors to create the analysis presented in the study would be very important.

Are there other factors that were not considered for the analysis, that other studies evaluated?

Extensive editing of English language required and the narrative should be improved.

Author Response

Dear review,

Thank you for your time and helpful suggestions. Your comments were beneficial in improving our article as they were interesting. Additionally, we have gained a tremendous of experience during this editing process. These skills will come in very handy in the future. All of your recommendations have been carefully considered and included in the article.

Consequently, we proceeded to make the correction clear and readable. The steps are described below.

• We started by reading all of the reviews' suggestions and recommendations. After that, we prepared a draft to enhance the literature by considering the reviewers' suggestions.
• Following a comprehensive examination of the draft, we used "Track Changes" to include each comment and suggestion in the paper one by one. After this, we get through the spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.
• In the final stage, we submitted the manuscript again in two native languages to improve the written English.
• The article is finally checked and submitted.

We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to this section. Please address all correspondence concerning this manuscript to us at [email protected]

With my best regards,

Bonoua FAYE

Response to review comments

Many of the comments were included in the new version of the manuscript. However, among the changes I believe these issues needs to be reviewed and further developed.

Point 1: Hypothesis 2 does not have any discussion. It should be indicated how this hypothesis drives the scientific contribution and novelty of the research. Afterwards, in the results it should be highlighted how the results prove (or disprove) the hypothesis.

Response 1: This section has been improved. Kindly see lines 164 to 204. In addition, proving or disproving the hypothesis by the results has been added to the text. Kindly see lines 531-536.

Point 2: In Table 2 the forested area increased between 2010 and 2015. This is not discussed or explained in the manuscript. This needs to be explained and discussed in detail.

Response 2: Table 2 has been commented on in the discussion section. Kindly see lines 599-605.

Additionally, some of the previous review comments still need to be fully implemented.

Point 3: The manuscript results and discussion in the manuscript continues to be disorganized and confusing. Elements that should be in the introduction or literature review are included in results and discussion creating confusion on results coming from this study and results of previous studies.

Response 3: The result and discussion section has been revised. Kindly check pages 10 to 18.

Point 4: I continue recommending a map with the continental, national and regional location of the area, which would be important for the global readership.

Response 4: The map has been improved. Kindly see Figure 2 on page 6: The localization of the study area: (a) regional location of the area; (b) Senegal, and (c) African continental; (d-e) land use features of the study area.

Point 5: The factors being considered for the study are explained and described in a disorganized manner in the manuscript. The literature review should indicate the relevance of the factors which studies have used in the past and their impact on these previous studies. Including a table with the factors and its literature review provenance, a flow chart, or other charts to highlight its relevance, would be very important. Point 6: The connection between the ten factors and its impact on deforestation should be expanded and discussed in more detail. Including in the literature review the methods that have been applied in the past by previous studies to showcase their impact on arid regions would be very important. Describing the geographic extent of each factor and how they were overlaid with the other factors to create the analysis presented in the study would be very important.

Response 5&6: As highlighted in the limit in this study, data access is one of the main challenges in African countries. In Senegal, data such as rainfall, agricultural added value, and manufacturing added value are not available on a small scale (Communes). Therefore, it was challenging to describe the geographic extent of the factors and how they were overlaid with the other factors, like in Figure 7. For this reason, the factors influencing the forest issues in this study have been explored at the regional level.

However, the literature review has been improved, and the flow chart has been added. Kindly see 109 to 208. In addition, the comments related to the methods have been analyzed in the literature review. Kindly see lines 110 to 131.  

Point 7: Are there other factors that were not considered for the analysis, that other studies evaluated?

Response 7: There are other factors, such as education level and farmers' environmental knowledge, available water capacity, infiltration capacity, etc., that were not considered for this analysis and that other studies evaluated. These factors have been heightened in lines 657 to 660.  

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have answered all the comments. I appreciate the efforts to solve all the doubts and I considered the manuscript very improved. 

Author Response

Dear review,
Thank you for your time and helpful suggestions. Your comments were beneficial in improving our article, as they were interesting. Additionally, we have gained a tremendous amount of experience during this editing process. These skills will come in very handy in the future. 
Best regards.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of the review comments were addressed in this new version of the manuscript. 

I would recommend to reinforce the connection between the ten factors and its impact on deforestation in more detail. 

I would also recommend to expand on the other factors that were not considered for the analysis.

I would recommend the manuscript to be further edited and its narrative improved. 

Author Response

Dear review,

Thank you for your time and helpful suggestions. Your comments were beneficial in improving our article as they were interesting. We proceeded to make the correction clear and readable. After correction, we submitted the manuscript again to a native speaker for editing.

We confirm that this manuscript has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal. All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to this section. Please address all correspondence concerning this manuscript to us at [email protected]

With my best regards,

Bonoua FAYE

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Response to the review comments

Point 1: I would recommend to reinforce the connection between the ten factors and its impact on deforestation in more detail.

Response 1: The connection between the ten factors has been improved. Kindly see the sections highlighted in yellow.

Point 2: I would also recommend to expand on the other factors that were not considered for the analysis

Response 2: This section has been improved. Kindly see lines 679-684

Point 3: I would recommend the manuscript to be further edited and its narrative improved

Response 3: The manuscript has been entirely edited by an expert native speaker. (Abdellah  Yousif Abdelrahman Yousif, The Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory for Fungal Diversity and Green Development, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, Yunnan, China, [email protected] )

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf