Linking Climate Change Awareness, Climate Change Perceptions and Subsequent Adaptation Options among Farmers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I cannot encourage you to rewrite your paper as a quantitative study. The topic you have chosen is an extremely important one, and of broad interest. But your data set, comprised of 125 carefully chosen farmers, is not random, and any use of logit or regression analysis is inappropriate. There simply is no way around that problem. But I strongly encourage you to consider writing a paper detailing what the farmers shared with you. Not as a quantitative study, but as a qualitative one. 

As for the paper as submitted, there are numerous issues beyond just the sample selection bias issue. First and foremost, it lacks a clear and thorough explanation of the concepts of perception versus awareness. How are they similar, how are they different, how are they measured, what happens to them over time? You also need to identify and explain what adaptive strategies you refer to throughout the paper. In addition, there needs to be a better understanding of causality in statistics. 

An important topic, and you have a lot of data. don't abandon tyour research, simply use it in a different way.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Comments to General Guidelines

We improved the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Research design and methodology is improved and clarified all variables sources of those studies where we took those instruments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown the comments of reviewer (1) as attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1.    It is scientific value to study the CCA of Pakistani farmers in this paper, but there are only 250 questionnaires, which are a little insufficient, at least more than 500, as Pakistan being the sixth most populous country of the world and almost 60 percent population lives in Punjab province. It is suggested to increase the number of questionnaires for supplementary tests before paper published.

2.    The methods use of simple regression model and the binary logit model in this paper may be a little simple and imprecise. It is recommended to use multiple logistic regression models.

3.    It is said that there are not many literatures on CCA in the world. In fact, Chinese scholars have done many such researches 20 years ago, such as the papers from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Nanjing University of Information Technology. It is suggested to increase the analysis of more relevant literatures.

4.    The figure in this article is too simple. It seems that it is directly output by Excel. There are still some figures without units. It is recommended to redraw.

5.    English language and style need to be polished, For example, multiple use “for instance” in paper.

6.    Add a map of Punjab province in Introduction and give a brief explain to agricultural production in Punjab province.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We improve the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Research design and methodology is improved and clarified all variables sources of those studies where we took those instruments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown the comments of reviewer (2) as attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, 

after reviewing your paper, I recommend several major and moderate changes to your manuscript. 

Abstract: In line 27 you mention relevant stakeholders to be a  strategy to reshape farming households' perceptions of CCA. Stakeholders per se are no capacity-building method, please clarify this in more detail here. 

Introduction: In line 41 please underline your gap statement with relevant literature. In line 55 please explain the term vagaries shortly. In line 106-107 you write that Pakistan has not devoted much effort in curtailing repercussion of climate change due to limted awareness. Please clarify what type of awareness you want to adress here and who are the unaware actors in decision? 

Conceptual framework: In line 121 you write that that number of adaptation strategies refers to a personal adaptation factor affecting CCA of farmers. Why is this a personal factor, please clarify and what types of strategies or action you mean exactly? Regarding the illustration the link or relationship between farmers' awareness of climate change and adaptation of climate change is displayed by you very directöy and therefore it is simplistic. Please check other models like Grothmann, T. and Patt, A. (2005) Adaptive Capacity and Human Cognition: The Process of Individual Adaptation to Climate Change. Global Environmental Change, 15, 199-213. Please check this and other literature like Valkengoed and Steg, 2019, The Psychology of Climate Change Adaptation. 

Material and Methods: In line 146 the number of overall population of Punjab is missing and please add an explaination why Punjab is a major contributor to agriculture in Pakistan using key performance indicators. The section lacks a description of the conducted face to face interviews. And the survey items are also missing. And, what adaptation strategies were survey by you?

Results and discussion: In line 204 you write that 51 of the respondents were supporting the view that winter precipitation has decreased, but I think that the more adequate word here is not most but many. All figures in the section are missing y-axsis description and miss the % sign. Please explain also Rabi and Kharif crops shortly. In line 360 you used the prhase whole bunch, which is not good standard in scientific wrting, please change wording here. Overall, improve your discussion section by being more critical and reflective to your own coneptual approach, methods and results and compare it to leading literature in your field of study. My impression is that particularly the discussion section must be improved strongly. 

Conclusions: One of your main conclusions deals with agriculture extension services in your country, but this term has not been clearly defined in the introduction or dicsussion sections before. Line 426 to 422 is simplistic and not very well developed, please revise thouroughly. You mention 3 management strategies without describing them in detail and the nature of your conclusions in this section are superficial. 

Based on this review I suggest major revision. 

Author Response

We improve the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Research design and methodology is improved and clarified all variables sources of those studies where we took those instruments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown the comments of reviewer (3) as attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Hello Dear Authors,

The manuscript is well written with good English but needs the following minor changes:

1. Abstract

There should be the inclusion of some numbers or values in the results part of the abstract. Furthermore. Some adaptation options for the area should be part of the abstract. 

Introduction: The introduction is well explained but needs some data (observed & predicted) on the rise in temperature, changes in rainfall, extreme weather events, and heat waves, especially in Central and southern Punjab. Line # 101 to 105 should be shifted on top of the introduction and more data should be reviewed regarding climate change impacts on agriculture. There may addition of more recommendations for policymakers and other stakeholders according to the objectives of the study. 

Materials and Methods: 

A map of the study area and climatic properties can be added to materials and methods and a heading  like "Study Area" can be given to explain the study area.

There should be information on the land holding of randomly selected farmers which significantly affects the awareness levels of farmers. 

A comparison of two study areas (Central and Southren Punjab) would help to understand the difference in awareness levels. 

Results and Discussions: 

Graphs need improvements like font color, format and % sign on the y-axis. In Bars, instead of colors, some designs can be added. Figures captions are not appropriate and self-explanatory. All figures need these modifications. 

There may be comparisons of the two parts of Punjab to understand the awareness levels and implement strategies and policies. 

There may be the addition of adaptations list being adopted by the farmers and need to be introduced in these areas to make awareness about climate change.  

Thanks

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

We improve the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Thank you for agreeing our research design and methods applied. We further improve these in the light of other reviewers’ comments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Hello Dear Authors,

The manuscript is well written with good English but needs the following minor changes:

Hi, thank you for your valuable comments. We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown the comments of reviewer (4) as attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

1. The text is plagues with grammar mistakes, so extensive English editing is required. 

2. The Conceptual framework must be built upon literature review. The authors do say "building on this body of literature, the study presented following conceptual framework (Figure 1)". Yet, this section is not built upon a thorough review of the literature; there is also no explanation why the suggested variables could be important; there is no explanation how climate change awareness is measured in the literature. 

3. The estimated model doesn't make much sense. As the authors indicate, CCA is derived from the following question in the questionnaire: "The respondents were asked to report whether they have ever heard about climate change or not". Hearing about climate change is NOT awareness; one can hear on the news that climate change is happening but they don't see it happening, they personally don't see temperatures getting warmer, frequency of intense events increasing, etc. so they heard about climate change but they personally don't believe it's affected their farming operation. Awareness shouldn't only be about "heard about climate change", it should be about whether farmers perceive it to be a threat to their farm operations or not. 

Because the dependent variable (yes if farmers just heard about climate change and 0 is No) doesn't make much sense to me, I don't see much value in the estimated model. How would education impact the probability of hearing about the climate change? Education level may impact how farmers perceive climate change but not so much the probability of turning on the news and randomly hearing something about climate change. How would access to agricultural credit impact the probability of hearing about climate change? How would the number of adaptation strategies impact the probability of hearing about climate change? Wouldn't the relationship go the opposite way: when farmers perceive (not just hear about climate change) climate change as something that is actually happening and affecting their farm operations, wouldn't that trigger a response from farmers in the form of various adaptation strategies? 

3. How is the number of adaptation measured? Were the respondents just asked to give the number of adaptation strategies or were there questions asked about farm management practices that allowed the researchers to calculate the number of adaptation strategies? Without seeing the questionnaire and the exact questions that were asked, I can't really make much sense of the estimated regression models. 

4. The section that describes the results makes it clear where my confusion is coming from. For example, on page 10, line 304-308, it says "previous literature indicated that farmers residing nearest to the input/output markets were more likely to perceive that climate was changing than farmers residing further away from the markets [47]". From this study the distance to the markets impacts PERCEPTIONS about climate change, which is not the same as just "did you heard about climate change or not".  

As one can see in the studies cited on page 10-11, the focus is on perceptions and anticipated impacts of climate change as a measure of awareness, not just "did you hear about climate change - yes/no?".  

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 5 Comments

We improve the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Research design and methodology is improved and clarified all variables sources of those studies where we took those instruments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown the comments of reviewer (5) as attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 6 Report

Dear Editor and author(s),

 Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript titled "Linking climate change awareness, climate change perceptions and subsequent adaptation options among farmers", submitted to Agronomy with manuscript number agronomy-2155223. I enjoyed reading the work.

The author(s) have provided a reference point for Climate Change Awareness, Perception and Adaptation among farmers in Punjab, Pakistan. Notwithstanding the prospects of this paper, several improvements are required to sharpen its contribution to the field. I have made my kind suggestions on the respective sections below.

 Abstract

Some thoughts presented in the abstract were unclarified in the main text. For example:

1. Lines 12-14: “Several studies have reported the farmers’ perception about climate change but there is inadequate knowledge available on the farm households’ climate change awareness (CCA) in Pakistan.” This claim may be confirmed by providing extensive literature proof in the introduction section of the manuscript, as well as specifying the intended spatial coverage for the claim (i.e., whether it is local – limited to Punjab, national, regional, or global).

 2.Lines 24-25: “…the study finds that some farmers did not perceive climate change as it takes time to be visible but they are aware about climate change.” I was curious to read the conceptual differences of perception and awareness implied by the author in the rest of the text, but I missed this.

 3. Lines 27-28: “Our findings provide evidence to use the local knowledge of farmers regarding CCA in countries and places with no or limited instrumental climate data.” This claim appears bogus and unsupported by any other portion of your work. Can the authors please clarify how their study achieves this significance?

 Introduction

Generally, I suggest the authors shorten the introduction by retaining only important information, which clarifies the rationale, justification, and significance of this study. Systematically describe previous studies’ contributions and what is left (the gap), which your study fills. Authors can further clarify key concepts such as CC awareness, perception and adaptation to improve conceptual clarity for the rest of the text.

Specific suggestions are presented as follows

1.Wild claims unsupported by cited works

Lines 34-35: “Unfortunately, most of developing and under developing countries are still at the denial stage of climate change grief.”

  Line 41: “However, the literature on farmers’ CCA is rather limited and under research.” Again, I ask, “Is this globally, regionally, nationally or locally?” See Fahad et al (2020) [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104669]; Mehmood et al (2022) [http://doi.org/10.1590/0103-8478cr20201109]; Abid et al (2015) [https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-6-225-2015]

Lines 63-64: “Similarly, low education level or illiteracy, lack of experience may decrease CCA.”

2. Revise texts for clarity

Lines 34-37: “Unfortunately, most of developing and under developing countries are still at the denial stage of climate change grief. It means that mostly farmers believe changes to the climate is the result of natural cycle and hence they feel less obliged to take any management strategies” The connection between both sentences seems vague.

Lines 41-43: “Few efforts have made on this area that are primarily based on farmers’ perception about climate change. There is need to study farmers’ CCA as awareness is broader term than perception.” What is the difference between perception and awareness, seeing that both concepts involve knowledge?

Lines 106-107 reads “Till now, Pakistan has not devoted much of its efforts in curtailing negative repercussion of climate change due to limited awareness” whereas the original material you quoted contains a different thought from what you expressed. I think you may have misquoted the source. Please recheck this.

“Till now, Pakistan has not devoted much of its efforts in curtailing the emissions from agriculture due to limited awareness and low confidence in monitoring/estimation of these emissions.” [32, p307]

3. Non-specificity of research objective(s)/question(s)

The authors need to clearly present the objective of this research, its overarching question as well as sub-questions (if any). Otherwise, there are multiple aims detected in the introduction, which are not properly stringed together.

For example, Lines 37-38 reads “Therefore, the study in hands aims to assess the farmers’ climate change awareness (CCA).” Then in Lines 94-96, they indicate that “The current study is an attempt to fill this gap by assessing farmers’ CCA, its associated factors and its impact on adaptation in Punjab, Pakistan.” Furthermore, Lines 107-109 suggests that “On this backdrop, this research was conducted to assess farmers’ view of climate change and the factors affecting it in Punjab, Pakistan.”

4. Redundant texts

There could be other unnecessary texts in this manuscript, which can be removed without impact on its content. For example, since the study focuses on farmers, sentences such as “Lack of involvement in agricultural activities may decrease CCA level [14]” in Line 63 and “Farmers who are directly involved in farming activities may have great deal of climatic awareness” does not provide useful information for the reader.

 Conceptual framework

Lines 114 – 120 unreferenced. Literature support is required for the factors tested in the study as a justification

 Unclear sentences impede readability e.g., Lines 125-126: “Therefore, many of the farmers are likely adopting for additional beyond climate change [34]”

 The concept of perception (if different from awareness) is missing in the framework

Materials and methods

Restructuring of this section is needed for improved clarity. Key information should include population, sample size, sampling techniques and justification; data and data source(s); data collection measures – instruments [design, testing, validity and reliability] and survey processes; data analyses and interpretation guide for results.

 Similarly, information on the design, trial-test, validation and reliability/validity of the questionnaire is missing.

 Moreso, I missed an attachment of the entire questionnaire used for the survey, which makes it difficult to provide comments on the suitability/adequacy of the questionnaire and the collected data for this study. If this was a self-developed instrument/questionnaire(s), then necessary tests are required to prove its reliability and validity for use in this study. If adapted/adopted from previous (standardised) instruments, such information should be indicated.

Ethical issues not clarified within the text. For example

1.       What steps are taken to maintain ethical practices during the survey?

2.       How did the researchers handle or account for recall bias in their survey?

Result and discussion

The characteristics of respondents should be clarified to provide essential insights for readers. For example, the distribution of respondents based on gender, age, educational level, etc., could be interesting to see.

 The study of Simpson et al. (2021) [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01171-x] reports that “analysis of Africa’s largest representative public opinion survey shows climate change literacy ranges from 23 to 66% of the population across 33 countries”. This and other studies could help you revisit the reporting language of your results. In addition, comparing your findings with Ajuang et al. [41] is more of apples vs oranges because your study was not limited to erratic rainfall as a proxy for climate change (based on the content of this paper so far).

 Recheck Figure 2: The sum of the values of winter rainfall exceeds 100%

 Update numbering for the citation (Thornton et al. 2014) Line 244

Conclusion

The authors spent more time restating their findings than clarifying the implications of their findings, significance of the study for the farmers, other stakeholders and/or policymaking implications. Recommendations are missing. What is the call to action, and what is next? Does this study answer all questions on the topic or are there aspects that should be explored further? These and more are important elements lacking in the current version of the conclusion.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 6 Comments

We improved the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Research design and methodology is improved and clarified all variables sources of those studies where we took those instruments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown the comments of reviewer (6) as attached.  

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 7 Report

Issues related to the manuscript have been highlighted in the attached manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 7 Comments

Thank you for agreeing with our introduction and cited material however, we still improved the introduction with latest studies and in the light of all seven reviewers. Research design and methodology is improved and clarified all variables sources of those studies where we took those instruments. Results are explained and revised in the light of new models/variable entered into the study and truly justified from the past study. Moreover, conclusion is derived from the results obtained and we gave policy recommendation based on those.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Issues related to the manuscript have been highlighted in the attached manuscript. We answer all queries and there is no rebuttal. We breakdown and separated the comments of reviewer (7) from attached file as attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised version of the paper shows significant improvement. Many of the issues I raised in regard to the original manuscript were adequately addressed. I suspect that my biggest concern, the inappropriate use of logit analysis and OLS when using selective samples (which are not random) cannot be corrected. Clearly the authors understand my objection, but felt that the questions they raise and the data they gathered are so important that it overshadows the technical issues that I raised. While disappointing, I understand. And in truth I agree that the subject they tackle is critical if we are to change the course that we are on in regard to the climate. I also applaud the effort that was made to address all of my many concerns.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Thank you very much for agreeing with our changes that we incorporated under your valuable comments. We tried to improve research design and conclusion once again. Please see the red highlighted parts of manuscript.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The revised version of the paper shows significant improvement. Many of the issues I raised in regard to the original manuscript were adequately addressed. I suspect that my biggest concern, the inappropriate use of logit analysis and OLS when using selective samples (which are not random) cannot be corrected. Clearly the authors understand my objection, but felt that the questions they raise and the data they gathered are so important that it overshadows the technical issues that I raised. While disappointing, I understand. And in truth I agree that the subject they tackle is critical if we are to change the course that we are on in regard to the climate. I also applaud the effort that was made to address all of my many concerns.

Response: I, as leading author, really enjoyed and learnt a lot from your valuable comments. I am really thankful to you to provide me direction for next paper. The issues you raised are really genuine and needed research because when we talk about knowledge (particularly farmers’ climate change knowledge) always quality of that knowledge needed to be addressed. Most of previous papers compromised quality over quantity. That what we tried, at least partially, by differentiating between perception and awareness. During my visits to farmers, many of the farmers ever listen climate change related terms even I spoke in local dialect. I observed farmers perceived climate change but not have awareness of it and vice versa. This what we derive from our paper that most of farmers did not perceive climate change as it takes time to be visible (or perhaps, they do not consider it an anthropogenic factor) but they aware about climate change. This is our concern (perhaps contribution in the literature) that awareness is something you know through knowledge or perception of a situation or fact. Therefore, we suggested that perceptions of farmers needed to be reshaped (because our results showed that farmers did not perceive climate change against scientific facts). This will raise awareness level of farmers and hence adaptation and even mitigation to climate changes.

As for as Logit and OLS methods are concern, we adopted these (as we adopted our instruments) and can be seen in Table 2.

We tried to incorporate all changes you said and there is no point of rebuttal except change the study from quantitative to qualitative.

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and we appreciate your time and efforts to improve our paper.

Regards

Dr. Ghulam Mustafa

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Your revised version is better than previous one

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Thank you very much for agreeing with our changes that we incorporated under your valuable comments. We also improved research design ad methods used in the study.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Your revised version is better than previous one.

Response: Thank you very much for reviewing our paper. We tried to incorporate all changes from best of our knowledge. We hope paper is improved through your valuable comments.

Regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, congratulations to this revision. 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Thank you very much for agreeing with our changes that we incorporated under your valuable comments.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, congratulations to this revision.

Response: Thank you for saying congratulations regarding our changes. We really acknowledge your appreciation and we hope quality of paper is improved a lot through your valuable comments.

Regards

Dr. Ghulam Mustafa

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

1. The paper is plagued with grammar errors; at times it is almost impossible to understand what the authors mean. For example, what does this mean (page 6, lines 210-212): "For instance, change crop variety is not dependent on change crop variety, and change planting dates"? The paper is full of sentences like this that make no sense. 

2. Climate change awareness and perception of climate change are not used interchangeably in the literature as the authors claim. The existing literature does distinguish between the two, with climate change perceptions being linked to perceived risks for individual farmers. The authors of this paper seem to be confusing climate change awareness with climate change perceptions. It is unclear how the authors construct the dependent variable in their binary regression model, more specifically it is unclear how the information on rainfall/temperature patterns and the length of the growing season as observed by farmers is translated into a binary variable that indicates whether the farmer is aware or not of the climate change. 

3. Page 9, line 306-314: the authors claim that because some farmers reported different trends (perceptions) by what is reported by Abid et al. farmers' perception needs to be reshaped. It is very likely that different agricultural areas in Punjab might have experienced different patterns; while some areas might have been experiencing droughts, some areas might have been experiencing more rain. One cannot use the averaged climatic data for the whole province and claim that these patterns were observed in every single location. To see if farmers' perceptions differed from reality, climate trends in the farm-specific area (data from weather stations in that specific area) would have to be taken to make conclusions about incorrect perceptions that need to be reshaped. 

4. Inclusion of many independent variables in the logit model doesn't make any sense given that the dependent variable is awareness of climate change. E.g. while access to agricultural credit can be hypothesized to be a determinant of adaptation strategies (as some strategies may require substantial investments), why would it play a role in climate change awareness? 

5. As a rule, it is marginal effects that need to be reported for a logit model, not just the estimated coefficients or odds ratio. 

6. I don't see a significant scientific contribution that this article makes to the existing literature. 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 5 Comments

We improved whole manuscript in the light of your valuable comments. We improved introduction, added more studies and justified that how awareness and perceptions should be carefully handle. We built our arguments based on previous studies. Research design and methods again elaborated. Results are once again improved under your comments and added marginal effects as you advised. Conclusion is also revised. We hope that quality of paper has improved.

For further replies to your comments, please see attached documents and highlighted (red) parts of manuscript. Once again, we say there is no rebuttal and we accepted all changes. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 6 Report

I think the authors have made efforts to incorporate my review suggestions in their revised manuscript.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 6 Comments

Thank you very much for agreeing with our changes that we incorporated under your valuable comments.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think the authors have made efforts to incorporate my review suggestions in their revised manuscript.

Response: Thank you very much for reviewing our paper and we really acknowledge your appreciation.

Thank you very much for reviewing our paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 7 Report

The y -axis in the graphs should read 0 to 100. This will adjust the heights of the bars and show clearly what the proportions are graphically to readers that may be figure phobic. 

The axis is independent of the results, the results is plotted on a standard of y and x axes. The results should not determine the labelling of the axis both in figures and descriptors.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 7 Comments

Thank you very much for accepting our changes. We also improved the results based on your second round of comments.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The y -axis in the graphs should read 0 to 100. This will adjust the heights of the bars and show clearly what the proportions are graphically to readers that may be figure phobic. 

The axis is independent of the results, the results is plotted on a standard of y and x axes. The results should not determine the labelling of the axis both in figures and descriptors.

Response: We are very thankful to the reviewers for accepting our changes. We appreciate your time and efforts. We really learnt a lot. We designed figures based on your comments and authors guidelines as given as attached; 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx