How Does the Water Conservation Function of Hulunbuir Forest–Steppe Ecotone Respond to Climate Change and Land Use Change?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Main comments:
1. in part 2.1, It is suggested to supplement the contents of vegetation, soil, hydrology and land use in the study area.
2. The statement for impact of land use change on water conservation in line 436-442 of page 15 deserves careful consideration. In general, land use change has a great impact on water conservation, especially forest or grassland reclamation, which can greatly reduce the capacity of water conservation. It is suggested to analyze the impact of land use change on water conservation in combination with the specific characteristics of land use change in the study area.
3. The text description of the parameters are inconsistent with formula (6) in page 15. There is no parameter "yield" in the formula, please check the correctness of the formula (6). In addition, please explain the concept of topographic index and the method of data acquisition.
Author Response
We thank your comments on the science of the manuscript for publication. The relevant parts of the manuscript have been modified.
- in part 2.1, It is suggested to supplement the contents of vegetation, soil, hydrology and land use in the study area.
[A]: I appreciate your comment and we have added a description of the vegetation, soils, hydrology, and land use of the study area in part 2.1 (Line 140-152).
- The statement for impact of land use change on water conservation in line 436-442 of page 15 deserves careful consideration. In general, land use change has a great impact on water conservation, especially forest or grassland reclamation, which can greatly reduce the capacity of water conservation. It is suggested to analyze the impact of land use change on water conservation in combination with the specific characteristics of land use change in the study area.
[A]: I accept your advice and we have discussed the impact of land use change on water conservation in line 449-461 of page 15.
- The text description of the parameters are inconsistent with formula (6) in page 15. There is no parameter "yield" in the formula, please check the correctness of the formula (6). In addition, please explain the concept of topographic index and the method of data acquisition.
[A]: We checked formula (6) in line 190 and modified the error. Meanwhile, we added a table of data acquisition methods (Table 1) to the manuscript and mentioned the topographic index in the table.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I have reviewed your manuscript “How does the water conservation function of Hulunbuir forest steppe ecotone respond to climate change and land use change?”
MS falls within the journal’s scope and the subject matter is quite interesting. However, the Abstract is too lengthy and needs to rewrite precisely, the Introduction also needs improvement, and the Methodology should be revised too. In addition, the quality of the Figures is poor, so high-resolution/quality figures should be added and the Tables should be formatted accordingly. The strong recommendation is to replace the too-old references with recent and more relevant ones. Moreover, moderate editing of the English language, grammar and style is required, and there are several drawbacks to address. Briefly, the article can't accept in its present form.
The comments and suggestions about MS
Abstract
Line 10-29: According to journal (Forests) policy, the abstract should not be more than 200 words and your abstract is more than 300. So please rewrite the precise and short Abstract to meet the journal’s requirements and for easy understanding of readers.
Line 30-31: Please avoid repeating the same words (like Hulunbuir forest-steppe ecotone; water conservation; land use change; climate change) that you have already used in the title to enhance the visibility of your article.
Introduction
The authors are encouraged to cite recent literature in the introduction.
https://doi.org/10.3390/f13010100, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108288
Materials and Methods
Please write in detail the Statistical analyses.
Results
The quality of Figures should be improved and Tables need to be formatted according to the journal style.
Discussion
Discussion is fine.
Conclusions
Conclusions need to revise as per factual findings.
References
The strong recommendation is to replace the too-old references with recent and more relevant ones and to format the references as per journal style.
In light of the above, I think the MS deserves to be published but should only be accepted after a Major Revision.
Good luck!
Author Response
We thank your comments on the science of the manuscript for publication. The relevant parts of the manuscript have been modified.
The comments and suggestions about MS
Abstract
Line 10-29: According to journal (Forests) policy, the abstract should not be more than 200 words and your abstract is more than 300. So please rewrite the precise and short Abstract to meet the journal’s requirements and for easy understanding of readers.
Line 30-31: Please avoid repeating the same words (like Hulunbuir forest-steppe ecotone; water conservation; land use change; climate change) that you have already used in the title to enhance the visibility of your article.
[A]: I accept your comments. I have modified the abstract and removed the repetitive words you mentioned to improve the accuracy of the abstract (Line 11-30).
Introduction
The authors are encouraged to cite recent literature in the introduction.
https://doi.org/10.3390/f13010100, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108288
[A]: I agree with your comment. We have refreshed some literature in the manuscript.
Materials and Methods
Please write in detail the Statistical analyses.
[A]: We have modified the description of the statistical analysis to account for some details in line 251-265 of page 8.
Results
The quality of Figures should be improved and Tables need to be formatted according to the journal style.
[A]: Following the journal's requirements, we have replaced Figures with high quality and formatted the tables according to the journal style.
Conclusions
Conclusions need to revise as per factual findings.
[A]: I agree with the comments and we have removed the unreasonable part of the conclusion (line 510-524).
References
The strong recommendation is to replace the too-old references with recent and more relevant ones and to format the references as per journal style.
[A]: We have refreshed some literature in the manuscript. In addition, the format of the references was modified using Zotero according to the requirements of the journal.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Thanks to the authors for critically addressing my concerns and I am satisfied with the current version.
