Are There Any Land Use Dynamics in the Upper Bistrița Basin, Eastern Carpathians, Romania, in the Period 1990–2021?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript presented for review concerns the analysis of land use dynamics in the Upper Bistriței Basin, Eastern Carpathians, Romania, in the period 1990-2021. It should be noted that this type of analysis is often performed and published for different parts of the world. The manuscript also does not contain new research results, as it is based on the analysis of publicly available results. In connection with the above, I expect a deeper analysis of these results and an indication of the novelty of the manuscript. In its current form, it is more of a report based on the analysis of satellite images, rather than a scientific article. Authors should emphasize the scientific features of their manuscript more. In addition, other parts of the manuscript also require improvement. Only the methods are presented in the abstract. There are no results or conclusions. There is no map of the location of the research area against the background of Europe and Romania. There is a lack of a clearly defined and scientific (problem) goal of the work. What scientific question did the authors want to answer? As I have already mentioned, the authors should undertake a more in-depth analysis of the results in order to give their work a scientific character. In conclusion, the manuscript is on a good basis, but needs some refinement.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is of standard quality. I recommend a strong work of authors to clarify why they want to publish this material in Diversity and not in another, more generalist, journal at MDPI. They have to clarify:

(i) the specific contribution to diversity

(ii) what spatial scale they want to focus on

(iii) the differences with traditional studies of land-use change

(iv) the role of natural and anthropogenic dynamics in land-use and vegetation change.

Only by clarifying these very important issues it will be possible to have a clear paper publishable on Diversity MDPI. 

Standard, small changes needed!

Author Response

Please see attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a well-written article. The authors did a lot of work. But this article do not interest me. I suggest the authors summarize the innovations of this paper. Innovation is essential for an academic paper. In addition, I have the following suggestions.

1. It is recommended to compare the results of this paper with other publicly available data.

2. It is suggested to verify the accuracy of data on the spot and add some landscape photos.

3. More in-depth analysis of the causes of land use change is suggested.

4. If possible, I suggest submitting to Land or Remote Sensing journals.

Author Response

Please see attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The Authors significantly improved their manuscript. It can be published in its present form.

Author Response

Thank you

Reviewer 2 Report

Good revision overall, thank you.

Not so bad... moderate revisions required.

Author Response

Thank you

Reviewer 3 Report

I checked the authors' revisions. The authors have added some content, which is a good start. But there are still some issues that need to be revised.

1. Each paragraph should express a complete idea, with some expansion and support. I am concerned that some paragraphs have only one sentence, and I suggest that these paragraphs be expanded or merged.

2. The authors suggest that the choice of study area is an innovative contribution. I suggest providing some details of the study area to convince the reader that the study is necessary.

3. The conclusion is too long. I suggest keeping only the key findings.

4. I suggest adding something related to the journal's theme "diversity". Now look at this article more should have been published on Land.

Author Response

Please see attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx