Scenic Beauty Evaluation of Forests with Autumn-Colored Leaves from Aerial and Ground Perspectives: A Case Study in Qixia Mountain in Nanjing, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article addresses the problem of landscape scenic beauty evaluation, but also from the ‘cloud tourism’ perspective – the alternative to sightseeing in pandemic reality.
The authors named 3 aims of their study:
‘(1) to explore a selection method of the best viewing points of the color-leaved forest from the tourists' preference;
(2) to analyze the influencing factors of SBE of the color-leaved forest from two different perspectives;
(3) to provide suggestions on improving the SBE of cloud tourism oriented color-leaved forest under the situation of epidemic of COVID-19’
yet only the second has been fully answered in the paper.
Considering the aim no. 1- there is no information on how the tourists’ preferences have been evaluated – in the Methods section there is only this vague sentence:
‘The best viewpoints for SBE of color-leaved forest in the park were generated using a combination of tourists' preferred viewing routes obtained through Ctrip big data and field surveys, with reference to the public landscape preference method (Karjalainen & Tyrvainen 2002, Bell 2019, Li,et al. 2017), public aesthetic psychology (Tyrväinen, et al. 2017, Panagopoulos 2009), and the safety management code for tourist attractions (DB51/T 2312-2017).’
It needs clarifying: how were ‘the big data’ obtained? what kind of ‘field surveys’ have been carried on?
The aim no. 3 has been partially addressed in the Discussion section (lines 326-342) but the suggestions are too general and its hard to tell to whom they may be useful. Also it would be better to put this section into the Conclusions.
The article needs also structure correction.
The lines 152-167 belong rather to Introduction, while lines 216-227 to Methods and lines 255-300 to Conclusions.
The abbreviation ‘DBH’ has not been explained neither in the text nor in tables.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer，
My reply comments are in the document, the changes are in the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In the paper, the authors developed models to evaluate the Scenic Beauty Estimation (SBE) of autumn color-leaved forests from two different perspectives of aerial and ground satellite observations in Qixia Mountain in Nanjing, China. The study is very relevant and interesting and utilizes the applications of diverse data portals like web data, surveys, socio-economic reports, and the inclusion of participants of different ages for a spatially distributed analysis connecting leaf-based factors and socio-environmental attributes. The study exhibits a good quality of scientific writing and presentation. Also, the intent and methodology of the study look interesting. However, the sections such as ‘Results and Analysis’ and ‘Discussion’ should be improved as per the below-mentioned comments.
As a reviewer, I pointed out some of the areas of the work where some revision needs to be introduced for improving the manuscript.
- Section ‘1. Introduction’ may be enriched with more References between lines 67 and 84.
- The major outcome or emphasis of Section ‘3.2’ is unclear. Please include what the results of this section infer.
- Please include the location details of the 4 ground taken pictures in Figure.3 and the 4 aerial taken pictures in Figure.4.
- A section ‘Limitations of the Study’ should be included.
- Section 2.2.3. “2) SBE model building” describes the categorization of independent and dependent variables of the SBE model. Is any other statistical analysis conducted before eliminating the weakly correlated variables from the SBE model? It is recommended to conduct at least three modes of exploratory data analysis before making crucial data placement decisions in modeling. You could perform Principal Component Analysis or ANOVA test to reaffirm if the independent variables in consideration are right. If not done, please include these points in the section ‘Limitations of the Study’.
- It is recommended to have figures that show the interconnections between leaf-based factors and socio-environmental attributes (SBE vs. Main color of leaves, CFR vs. Trunk shape).
- It is recommended to have a figure that shows the positive impact of SBE on terrain changes, forest coverage, landscape composition, landscape contrast, the condition of the human landscape, and the recreation frequency from an aerial perspective and the factors such as average diameter at breast height, the main color of the leaves, the ratio of color-leaved tree species, the canopy width and the fallen leaf coverage om ground perspective such that the main intent of the study is well demonstrated.
- Section ‘Discussion’ is well-written and can potentially contribute to vital future research.
- Section ‘Conclusion’ is too brief. Please expand this section by incorporating the main goal of the study, the main methods used, the main findings from the study with shreds of evidence, and the major contribution of the study.
As a reviewer, I recommend considering the manuscript in the journal, Forests after the revisions are incorporated.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
My reply comments are in the document, the changes are in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The article structure has been partially improved.
Yet there are still some issues, that need clarifying.
The authors claim that ‘Field survey was obtained by designing questionnaires in the form of online and offline distribution of completed forms to obtain information about tourists' preferential orientation to the landscape. Such as tourists' preferred route, preferred shooting angle, preferred height, etc.’ - these actions, however, can not be called ‘field survey’.
In the ‘Results’ section the new description of the data from figure 5 and 6 has appeared (lines 296-303 and lines 317-327, respectively). This part, however, is written in a bit chaotic way, e.g.
‘The relationship between the rank of landscape elements and SBE value from different ground observation perspective was that the average DBH rank wasâ… , and the degree of beauty was the lowest at 4. ‘
Are those Roman numerals (I, II, III) in the text and figures 5 and 6 corresponding to the Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3) from the table 2 and 3? If so, what is the meaning of number 4?
‘The main color of leaves becomes smaller as the rank increases.’ - colour may be prettier but no smaller.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
On behalf of our co-authors, I would like to extend our gratitude and appreciation to you and the reviewers. Thank you very much for your thorough evaluation of our manuscript and for your insightful and constructive comments and suggestions, which enabled us to improve the quality of our manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
As a reviewer, I recommend publication of the manuscript in the journal ‘Forests’.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
On behalf of our co-authors, I would like to extend our gratitude and appreciation to you and the reviewers. Thank you very much for your thorough evaluation of our manuscript and for your insightful and constructive comments and suggestions, which enabled us to improve the quality of our manuscript.
