Characterizing Production–Living–Ecological Space Evolution and Its Driving Factors: A Case Study of the Chaohu Lake Basin in China from 2000 to 2020

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, I have reviewed the manuscript "Characterizing Production-Living-Ecological Space Evolution and its Driving Factors: A Case Study of the Chaohu Lake Basin in China from 2000 to 2020", prior to further processing I recommend applying the following recommendations:

The abstract should be rewritten, keep a logical order, about two sentences introduction (if any), objective, methodology, results, conclusion.

The study objective in the last paragraph of the introduction should be rewritten and be very clear, as it is not understood.

 I would redesign the map with a scale or indicator at country or continental level, so that the reader can quickly locate the study area in relation to the continent.

Reviewing the results of (Figure 6a), I consider that this should be reconsidered, the results are not legible.

Something that calls my attention is the modification of the water body, especially the increase in surface area, to what do the authors associate this increase, I ask this because it is not clear in the results and even less in the discussion. I recommend the authors to simplify more the methodological process and results. Data that are not so relevant should be included in the supplementary materials.

Try to reduce the page number to a maximum of 20, the fewer and more precise the better. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your constructive suggestions and comments for improving our manuscript. After careful reading of your comments, we have made the corrections point by point as described below. The changes based on the comments of Reviewer #1 are marked in grey in the revised version. All revision lines are in the “simple markup" state of Word.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting and the topic is worthy of investigation.  The content is relevant and well structured, although in my opinion it is not in a position to be published under current conditions.  The article is missing some improvements from the visual point of view and a greater focus on the international public.  The revision of the state of the art is a bit poor from a methodological point of view and wider perspective beyond pure theoretical analysis could also be included within the framework of scientific discussion.  If some improvements detailed below are included, I think the article may be considered for publication in the journal.  Below I detail the issues that should be addressed by the authors.

A WIDER INTERNATIONAL APPROACH

The focus of the article is too localistic.  Why is this problem addressed only from the casuistry of China?  Why 100% of the bibliographical references correspond to Chinese authors?  IJGI has a very international audience, so it would be important to raise the analysis in the research by commenting on other case studies beyond those existing in China, since the phenomena addressed is a very diverse and abundant problem worldwide.  This would help to raise the level of scientific scholarship in the article and make it appealing to a wider audience.

REVIEW OF THE STATE OF THE ART

The review of the state of the art is interesting, but it is excessively limited to a conceptual approach of the problem of territorial anthropization of the lake basins.  A greater methodological approach to the phenomenon studied is lacking, especially on the space-time analysis proposal given that there are many other alternative spatial approaches that could be cited (see, for example, the use of GIS territorial indicators of urban fragmentation, compactness of the landscape and speed of agricultural transformation by urban sprawl in https://doi.org/10.3390/su10061820 or land cover change dynamics through remote sensing indicators such as CVA, NDVI or NDWI in https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrs.2016.12.003).

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The scientific discussion section is interesting. However, it would benefit from a higher level of scientific scholarship if it also addressed more specifically on the policy implications of the results obtained.  How should the authorities interpret the results generated by the investigation?  Should this trend be taken into account in some way on a practical level?  In the current format, the content of the discussion is approached from an excessively theoretical approach, and it is necessary to convey to what extent the results generated by the research can help reverse the aforementioned phenomenon.

VISUAL QUALITY OF FIGURES

Sometimes images have poor quality or a size that makes it difficult to read their content.  For example, figure 5 is intelligible at the current size and resolution level, it should be enlarged and inserted in a sharper way.  The legend of figure 6 is difficult to understand with such a diversity of codes, these should be detailed and grouped in a way that is easier to understand.  Figure 7 could for example be enlarged a bit by fitting it to the full width of the page to make it easier to read, etc.  In general, it is recommended to make a small revision of the figures to improve their quality and make a more homogeneous insertion in the document as a whole that facilitates its reading.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your constructive suggestions and comments for improving our manuscript. After careful reading of your comments, we have made the corrections point by point as described below. The changes based on the comments of Reviewer #2 are marked in yellow in the revised version. All revision lines are in the “simple markup" state of Word.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper titled “Characterizing Production-Living-Ecological Space Evolution and its Driving Factors: A Case Study of the Chaohu Lake Basin in China from 2000 to 2020” presents an interesting research which fits to the scope of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. However, I have some comments which should be taken into consideration while improving the paper.

1.       Line 86: references [21-23] are duplicated.

2.       The paper is missing clearly defined gap of knowledge based on the literature review.

3.       Does the study area constitute a basin of Chaohu Lake? Visualization on figure 1 shows parts of rivers which are not entering Chaohu Lake. Is the presented area a watershed or an administrative unit? Considering the context of the research, watershed/basin (as defined in the title) would be more suitable.

4.       Discussion section should include more scientific comparisons between obtained results and other studies. Are the outcomes similar to other studies or do they differ? What is a possible reason for that difference? What other approaches are being used to analyze land use/land cover change and what are the benefits or obstacles of using them? I suggest to refer to other approaches in analyzing land transformation (see for instance: A framework for path-dependent industrial land transition analysis using vector data. European Planning Studies, 2019, 27(7), 1391-1412.; Urbanization, land use transformation and spatio-environmental impacts: Analyses of trends and implications in major metropolitan regions of Ghana. Land Use Policy, 2020, 96, 104707; or other papers in that domain).

5.       The paper is missing limitations of the research.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your constructive suggestions and comments for improving our manuscript. After careful reading of your comments, we have made the corrections point by point as described below. The changes based on the comments of Reviewer #3 are marked in blue in the revised version. All revision lines are in the “simple markup" state of Word.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The article "Characterizing Production-Living-Ecological Space Evolution and its Driving Factors: A Case Study of the Chaohu Lake Basin in China from 2000 to 2020" by Ruyi Zhang , Songnian Li , Baojing Wei , Xu Zhou in an interesting one and the  results can be used by stakeholders from the region.

Generally, the article is well structured and the methodology tries to resolve all the problems, yet we consider that some changes are necessary in order to publish this work.

When you start your explanation, you mention a lot of factors taken into consideration, but you do not explain how do you integrate them. At the beginning you have factors from land use land forms an GDP, you cam with the Landscape pattern index, and after that, you move to land-use change and APC. Something is missing. If you talk of GDP, you have to explain how did you split this indicator on raster vale and how you have integrated this with the slope, I don't see attribution of the favorability mark. Also when you speak about Shannon index, you have to explain how did you transfer this into your analyses. I think that in reality you had a good analysis of land use/landcover change and you preferred to complicate the explanation. Please be more specific in that part, and so, your graphs and your conclusions will be coherent. Thank you

particularly  - Fig.9 You should unite all those graphs in one. If you use the real surface of each category in every year, you can express all the info in one graph. You can also choose the option 100% stacked column. Many things will become visible.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your constructive suggestions and comments for improving our manuscript. After careful reading of your comments, we have made the corrections point by point as described below. The changes based on the comments of Reviewer #4 are marked in green in the revised version. All revision lines are in the “simple markup" state of Word.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, I have revised manuscript "Characterizing Production-Living-Ecological Space Evolution and its Driving Factors: A Case Study of the Chaohu Lake Basin in China from 2000 to 2020" for the second time. Thank you for the work done, all comments have been considered. This is a better version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has been corrected according to my previous comments and in my opinion it can be published in the current form.