Detailed Land Use Classification in a Rare Earth Mining Area Using Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Data for Sustainable Agricultural Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review on the manuscript with title: Fine-grained land-use classification of ion-adsorbing rare-earth mining areas with preferred OHS image features. I suggested a major revision with the following comments: 

1. In introduction and abstract, the description of the research background used the same language, and it is suggested to simplify the relevant content and improve the innovation.

2. In page 2 lines 71-82, the authors cited some examples related to OHS hyperspectral images, in which the characteristic variables adopted in the research conducted by Zhou Guoli et al. were consistent with those in this manuscript. What is the difference between the author’s study and previous studies?

3. In page 2 lines 87-92, this paragraph appears too abrupt to play the role of continuity, and it is suggested to rearrange the relationship between OHS-hyperspectral images and Random Forest algorithm.

4. In page 9 lines 261-265, the annotation of the formula is not clearly expressed, and the words may be missing. Moreover, formula (4) also has similar problems, and it is recommended to check the full text.

5. In figure 3, it is suggested that the authors ensure the unity of the graph format.

6. In page 13 line 354, the image selection time was December in this study. Why do you choose the winter period to collect the images, and will this not cause errors in the collection of image data?

7. In discussion, the authors compared this research with some related studies. It is suggested that the authors summarize the advantages of this manuscript compared with previous studies and include it in conclusion and abstract.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The problems with the paper are as follows:

1.The abstract language is cumbersome, it is recommended to simplify the language used to summarize the research background and results.

2.What are the physical meanings of the horizontal and vertical coordinates in Figure 2? Suggest explaining in the main text.

3.In line208，mi and mj are inconsistent with Formula （1）, and the variables in the formula should be consistent with the main text. There are many similar issues throughout the text, and we will not provide examples one by one. It is recommended that the author revise it.

4.In Table 5, it is recommended to use full names for each category, and the abbreviations are not standardized, making it difficult to match with the categories, resulting in reading barriers and difficulties in understanding.

5. In Line 261, “where is the weight of the lth feature f in the ith sample; and is the jth sample 261 among the k nearest neighboring samples of the same kind as Ri”  This sentence lost some information.

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The current manuscript aims to analyze the effectiveness of different hyperspectral remote sensing data arrangements for land use identification. The writing is generally OK, and the reviewer has the following comments:

1) The title claims “ion-adsorbing rare-earth mining areas” as the targeted land use to be identified, but the abstract did not mention the ion-adsorbing feature.

2) Line 14: In which continent or country does “the south” refer?

3) Line 42: Please use “ion-adsorbing.”

4) The reviewer believes that “absorb” is a better term. Adsorption refers to the adherence of the material of interest on a matrix material's surface, while absorption refers to the dissolution of such material into the matrix.

5) Line 53: “mining area”? Please have the manuscript proofread by a native speaker.

6) Other methodologies in identifying mining areas should be introduced before introducing hyperspectral remote sensing. Besides, the introduction doesn’t explain why identifying different types of land use near the mining sites is important in sustainable development.

7) The introduction should identify the void in our current understanding of the topic. The current introduction does include some past studies but does not identify the drawbacks that the current study can solve.

8) A few sentences still read strange. For example, “ranks the importance of the feature variables except spectral features” (lines 108-109) is confusing. Again, please have the manuscript proofread.

9) Figure 1: Please provide a large-scale map that identifies the mining area in China.

10) Line 119: Please use superscripts for area units.

11) Lines 124-125: Please provide citations for the work plan.

12) Lines 133-145: Please provide proper citations for the details of this satellite.

13) Line 147: Please provide basic information and citations for Bigmap.

14) Missing the period for “et al.” in multiple incidences (lines 173, 177)

15) Please provide more compelling reasons (preferably with citations) why and how the six schemes (Table 3) are created.

16) Line 195: It should be the “curse of dimensionality.”

17) Lines 208-209: Please use subscripts for parameters. There are more similar incidents in the manuscript.

18) Line 247: Please provide a brief description of the mechanism of the Relief-F algorithm.

19) Figure 2: What are “Present” and “Bath”?

20) Figure 3: Please try to combine colors and line types to present all the different features.

21) Lines 333-336: Parameters should follow the convention in Table 2.

22) Figure 5: What do the rainbow colors mean?

23) Section 3.3: Please limit and unify the significance of numbers at two digits.

24) After the complex computation, the Kappa is only around 0.85, which is good but not great. Please compare the results from the proposed methodology to those from several classic classification methods (e.g., SVM, K-mean, maximum likelihood, etc.)

Some sentences read strangely, and a few professional terms appear to be translated directly from Chinese without using their proper English counterparts.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors,

Your manuscript “Fine-grained land-use classification of ion-adsorbing rare-earth mining areas with preferred OHS image features” is interesting and relevant. I have the following comments:

I would suggest to strengthen the justification paragraph of your paper (last paragraph of the introduction) further highlighting the novelty and scientific contribution of your study. Indicating the hypothesis and research questions would be important to reinforce the relevance of your research.

The abstract should emphasize the novelty and scientific contribution of the research, indicating how some of the relevant results provide this scientific contribution.

Both the abstract and introduction mention the southern region. This is ambiguous. The country and region that it is being referred should be also included here. Adding a world map and a regional map, highlighting the area of study, would be helpful for global readers.

The introduction needs significant improvement both in content and narrative. Indicating the current state of science and technology to highlight the need to perform this research is very important. Mentioning recent research that has found limitations that your research is able to cover highlight the relevance of the research.

The two main paragraphs of the introduction appear to be disconnected in its narrative and content. Additional more recent references should be included. Current state of science and technology should be expanded and further discussed.

The data and methodology section appear disorganized and lacks narrative. I would suggest including a flow chart diagram and then develop a narrative in this section using the flow chart as an outline for the diverse topics and methods being discussed.

Results and discussion section should improve the narrative and connect with the novelty and scientific contribution of the research. Indicating how the results prove (or disprove) each hypothesis, and how they answer the research questions would be very important.

I would suggest to completely rewrite the conclusion, referencing the state of science and technology, the scientific contribution of this research and use relevant results to justify how this contribution was achieved. Indicating the limitations and future research for this study would be important.

I would suggest for the manuscript to be edited for English language and grammar. The narrative and structure of the manuscript should be significantly improved. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

The paper shows a particular technological application but the links to sustainability need to be dramatically improved.

In addition, the paper as it is currently written is not in the scope of the special issue. This is an application for mining not agriculture.

minor editing required

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have answered my questions and responded to my comments, and the manuscript has been improved. I recommend the publication of the manuscript in its present form.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

Accept in present form.

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for providing a revised manuscript and corresponding responses. Most issues are solved. The reviewer just prefers to see a more intuitive Figure 3 (the PCA graph). It is not necessary to use terms like "bath" or "present" in the graph.

No issues.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

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

I suggest additional discussion connecting the results with the scientific contribution. 

I still suggest further improvement in structure and narrative of the manuscript. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 5 Report

As a general paper it is acceptable - although even then stronger connection to sustainability issues with respect to land and resource use would be helpful

ok, minor only

Author Response

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