Assessment of Urban Agglomeration Ecological Sustainability and Identification of Influencing Factors: Based on the 3DEF Model and the Random Forest
Yizhong Chen
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Specific Comments:
(1) The authors do not reflect how the two methods are used in combination and how the article studies the logical relationship between sustainability evaluation and identification of influencing factors
(2) In “Abstract”, I think the authors should separate the third point into research findings and divide it into the innovation and research significance of this article.
(3) In “Introduction”, there are two places where the reference source is incorrect in lines 64 and 72 respectively. In addition, there is a place in line 69 where the author Wu does not indicate the citation format.
(4) In “Introduction”, I suggest the author should mention the literature review of recent applications of the OOB algorithm in random forests.
(5) In “Table 1”, the author should adjust the table appropriately in order to read the relationship between account and sub-account more clearly. Currently it is not easy to quickly distinguish which products are included in the biological resource.
(6) In “Table 3”, the authors should note that the table header and table should be on the same page. In addition, the content has the same problems as Table 1
(7) In “2.3 Method”, the authors should note that "Where" should be lower-cased as "where" in the explanation of the variables that follow the formula. In addition, the meaning of variables is separated by semicolons instead of commas.
(8) In “2.3.2. The OOB algorithm in random forest”, there is a formatting error in the literature citation on lines 153.
(9) In “3.1. Ecological footprint size”, the preceding and following expressions for the same word should be consistent, rather than using “towns” and “cities” interchangeably.
(10) The limitations and extensions of the research should be presented in the manuscript.
(11) In “Discussion”, more discussion should be made on the universality of 3D ecological footprint model and random forest OOB algorithm in exploring urban agglomeration environmental problems, rather than just focusing on the research object of this paper.
(12) In “Conclusion”, the conclusion should be combined with data analysis, so that the content of conclusion is more targeted. For example, in conclusion (1), the final classification results should be appropriately illustrated and the distribution characteristics indicated.
(13) In addition, there are also several typographical and grammatical errors that need to be corrected, for example:
(a) In lines 60-63 of “Introduction”, there is error in sentence of “What is more, there is a significant negative correlation between the occupancy of capital flow and the consumption of capital stock, the level of occupancy of natural resource flows constrained by the endowment of renewable resources, while the consumption of natural capital stock is driven by the level of socio-economic development” Please check it.
(b) In “Method”, there is more suitable expression in sentence of “This algorithm can be well used to evaluate the importance of variables, and is widely used in ecology.” Please check it.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The research design of this study is interesting, i.e. by combining the three-dimensional ecological footprint model and random forest to evaluate the ecological sustainability of the study area and its influencing factors. This innovative method can broaden our decision making scope to take into consideration of both the ecological stock and flow and ensure to develop within the natural capacity limit. The reviewer provides the following revision comments:
1. In the current version, the introduction is filled with many detailed description of the results of several version and application of 3DEF model in the extant literature. Maybe it might make the reader easier to read if this in-depth discussion of the literature review and identification of the literature gap can be grouped into an individual section, instead of merging in the 1st paragraph of this paper which supposed to only give a broader overview of this paper background and structure?
2. Why does the author introduce “random forest algorithm”, rather than other variable into this evaluation? Can you elaborate more to justify this introduction of forest algorithm?
3. To help the reader, can you add full name to all the abbreviations used in Figure 1, such as EC, ED, EF?
4. Can you elaborate more on the meaning and implication of 3.3 three-dimensional ecological footprint results from Table 5? Ex. Chengdu presents a downward trend? What can we infer?
5. It is interesting that the authors point out in 4.1 the “nonlinear relationship” between the three indicators of economy, society and environment. Any suggestion to how to tackle this methodological challenge?
6. In 5. Conclusion, (1), is it possible to add a graph to map out the four categories under evaluation to increase the easiness to comprehend?
7. In 5 Conclusion, (2) and (3) are rather generalized findings. Is there any way to make it more specific by providing more linkage back to other existing researches or innovative trend? For instance, does this study recommend any particular policy change which is included in the original design of this study expressed in the introduction.
8. Overall, this paper is rather technical. I recommend the authors to add more descriptions and explanations to the models for readers to better comprehend the model rationality and results.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author has basically made changes according to my opinions, but needs to further explain the innovation of the article in the introduction.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your valuable time and comments. According to your suggestion, we further explained the innovation of the article in the introduction(lines 101-106). That is, (a) the factors affecting ecological sustainability were initially discussed using footprint methods and machine learning; (b) our research methodology in this paper offers a new way to investigate the factors affecting the ecological sustainability of urban agglomeration; and (c) our study may serve as a guide for the analysis of ecological footprint indicators in the case of small samples.
Thank you and best regards.
Yours sincerely, Jie Yang on behalf of the authors.
