Ecosystem Services Value Realization and Ecological Industry Design in Scenic Areas of Karst in South China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Round 2

Title: Ecosystem Services Value Realization and Ecological Industry Design in Scenic Areas of Karst in South China

Manuscript number: forests-2875650

 

I would like to thank the authors for addressing most of my previous comments. Now the manuscript is improved, though some issues still need attention.

1. Title: The word Karst should appear before South China.
2. On the keywords, see the last keyword, where it is less common to include ..of, on, in..." (planning spatial pattern)
3. In the introduction part, lines number 77-85, the concept needs citation.
4. Line number 113, “This paper selects South China Karst Scenic Area as the research object...", check the language as it is wordy. Suggestions .. This paper selects the South China Karst Scenic Area as the research site.
5. This is one sentence and one paragraph, which is unattractive for readers. Please break into many sentences like I have drafted above. “This paper selects South China Karst Scenic Area as the research object, uses the theory of spatial heterogeneity [22] and landscape pattern [23], combines remote sensing and geographic information system technology, constructs the spatial pattern of eco-industry landscape, and explores the stability of the ecosystem of karst scenic areas, the development direction of eco-industry, and the overall development planning and other internal characteristics”.
6. Line number 119-135, The objective of the study, which still needs re-edition, You can move the description to the background section and, in short, write the three specific objectives.
7. Line number 148: resources; The historical and cultural heritage is pro…Please use a small letter.
8. The same is true in Line number 150, of this scenic area; The eco-industry…
9. In addition, the newly included paragraph should move to the background section.
10. Why, Karst, is Karst spelled in small letter? It is a place name, and thus, the first letter, k, should be in capital letter.
11. Still, the classification of ecosystem services is undefined, whether it is a millennium ecosystem assessment or another, as listed in Table 4 and Figure 4.
12. 4.1 "staggered development" strategy… Please begin with the capital letter, S, and why do you put it in quotation marks?
13. Specify the exact date of field investigation data and socio-economic data; the land use type and area data of the study area were obtained.
14. The introduction part is completely changed (which may be as per the comment of another reviewer who suggested reframing into four parts); however, this section is now weak. It does not give a background concept on microgrids, cost, carbon emissions, and reduction. There is no information on the contribution of the work.
15. A minor editorial comment on the phrase “explained in the nomenclature in the first page”. This makes it less attractive for the readers to move back and forth to read what each symbol or letter of the equation refers to. Please include it next to the equation.
16. For instance, (C is the symbol of Cost in $/kw it s explained in nomenclature in the first page) can be stated as (C) cost in $/kw. Similarly, the rest can be edited accordingly.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Will be fine if NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER edited/revised the manuscript as there are some wordy phrases, unclear ideas, and long statements.

Author Response

We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. According to your nice suggestions,we have made corrections to our previous draft, the detailed corrections are listed below. Revision notes, point-to-point, are given as follows:

1. Title: "Scene Areas of South China Karst" → "Scene Areas of Karst South China", and reviewed the entire text, making modifications and improvements to similar issues;
2. Keywords: The keyword "Planning of spatial pattern" has been modified;
3. Page 2, Lines 77 to 85, relevant references have been added and cited;
4. Page 3, Lines 113. Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have referred to them and made modifications and improvements;
5. Page 3 to 4, Lines 122 to 141, modified the overall research objectives based on the selection of the research area, and adjusted them to the background section with reference to the teacher's suggestions;
6. Page 4, Lines 152, has been revised and improved based on the teacher's suggestions, "The historical and cultural heritage is pro..." → "The historical and cultural heritage is pro...";
7. Page 4, Lines 154, has been revised and improved based on the teacher's suggestions, from "The eco industry has..." to "The eco industry has...";
8. "Karst" → "Karst", when referring to karst scenic areas, "Karst" is used, and when describing karst landscapes or landforms, "Karst" is used; Reviewed the entire text and made revisions and improvements to similar issues;
9. Thank you very much for your suggestion. The ecosystem classification in this article adopts the unit area ecosystem service value equivalent proposed by Xie Gaodi and others. The specific source is https://doi.org/10.11849/zrzyxb.2015.08.001
10. Page 15, Lines 500. For the "Staggered development" strategy with "" added, it has been changed to "Staggered development" strategy, and the entire text has been reviewed;
11. Page 5 to 6: Based on the suggestions provided by the teacher, information such as data acquisition time and location has been added to Table 2;
12. Regarding the 14th to 16th points raised by the teacher, we have reviewed the entire text and did not find any related vocabulary such as "microgrids".

We polished the language by the editing service to improve readability of the manuscript. Finally, thank you again for your valuable revision suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the conclusion section lines 539-549 all sentences are incomplete.

Also within the conclusion -some comments on the generalizability of the methods used is needed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing needed.

Author Response

We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. According to your nice suggestions,we have made corrections to our previous draft, the detailed corrections are listed below. Revision notes, point-to-point, are given as follows:

1. Regarding the conclusion section proposed by the examiner, on page 17, lines 539-549, we have revised and improved it through reflection.
2. In the conclusion, a simple and universal description of the research method used in this article is provided.

We polished the language by the editing service to improve readability of the manuscript. Finally, thank you again for your valuable revision suggestions.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

• Manuscript ID: forests-2848770-peer-review

 

Title: Ecosystem Services Value Realization and Ecological Industry Design in Scenic Areas of South China Karst

Comments

Dear authors’ Thank you for your efforts to produce this research work. However, I would like to bring the following basic points to your attention to improve the manuscript:.

1. Abstract

• It seems good, but the method part is incomplete: no data source; methods of data collection and analysis.

2. Introduction

• The study objectives lack clarity to understand each specific objective.
• There are too many long sentences that should be revised.

3. Methods

• On the equivalent factor method, why do you focus on the year 1997 as the authors revised the ecosystem values in 2014 that give value to urban land, not zero like in 1997? Also, it will be good if you clearly show the final per-hectare values in the table you used in this study.
• The method part lacks clarity on: the ecosystem service framework followed (millennium, CICES, IPBES, or TEEB); how was the listed ES selected? The land use land cover classification is not clear about the primary and secondary classifications.
• The method part is dubious and hard to replicate by someone.

4. Results

• This section is not well stated based on the data collected. It is merged with methods.
• There is also a citation; either you should merge the discussion with results in hybrid form or describe only your findings.

5. Discussion

• This part is not a discussion as per the research work, but rather a remark.
• The manuscript has low errors and addresses all those during your revision time.

6. Conclusion

• This part also lacks focus on the results; there are method parts. As an advice, you can move some of them to the discussion part.
• You can find some comments in the pdf of the manuscript.

 

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Forests-2284870 Ecosystem Services Value Realization and Ecological Industry Design in Scenic Areas of South China District.

 

This is an interesting study of valuation of tourism related ecosystem service valuation streams. But there are major conceptual problems with this study. It seems that the study is attempting to value two to three major value streams 1) provisioning ecosystems services which are agricultural and forestry products which have only limited relationship to tourism 2) regulatory ecosystem services which address environmental quality which may or may not be perceived by tourists, and 3) cultural ecosystem services which are the main value stream related to tourism “consumption”. The research design and objectives should be realigned. Detailed comments follow.

 

Introduction

There are other karst landscapes in the world that rely heavily on tourism. They at least should be mentioned. Such as Turkey. Florida, and southern Mexico.

 

Lines 38-40 if there is a conceptual difference between ecosystem services and ecological products – how can they be considered the same? Maybe EPV services are proxies for ecosystem services?

 

Line 46- This reviewer finds the use of “ecological industry” and “eco-industry” as conflicting and counter intuitive. This is really not an industry that we are talking about but a service providing entity that is mainly providing rich experiential experiences to tourists who also may happen to spend money for such services and experiences.

 

There is no substantial literature review of other studies addressing ecosystem service valuation related to tourism. Particularly there is no review of cultural ecosystem services related to landscape experience. See for instance Smardon R. 2021. Ecosystem Services for Scenic Quality Landscape Management: A Review. Land 10:1123 https://doi.org/10.3390/land1011123

 

Lines 108 and 120 the research objectives are not clear and there is no justification of how they are driven by need and/or research gaps.

 

Materials and Methods

Lines 144-173 So the study area is really three designated scenic areas within the South Karst Region. It is still not clear why they were chosen, e.g., because they are designated scenic areas or have unrealized scenic area ecosystem service valuation, or are not managed to fully realize these values?

 

Lines 175-189 Authors need to restate the purpose of doing the spatial analysis and tie back to the research objectives.

 

Lines 193- there needs to a solid justification for using Constanza et al (1998) and Xie et al (2003) as a basis for the ecosystem service value classification.

This relates to Table 2 where “supply services” should be “provisioning services” and “reconciliation services” should be regulating services.

 

Results

Lines 236-239 It is not clear why scenic areas are not providing services development. Why have support services been removed from value accounting?

 

Lines 233-236 Table 2- use of other ecosystem service terms as stated above makes the results confusing and not comparable to other studies.

 

Lines 324 on - should address the results of such factors as abundant vegetation and other landscape features to ecosystem service value compared to other studies.

 

Line 341- how was the value of cultural ecosystem services calculated? This seems low but should also relate to other studies which have tried to calculate landscape based cultural ecosystem services (See Smardon 2021).

 

Lines 441 on- Improvement of Absorption belongs in discussion -not results. These are recommendations.

 

Discussion

There is no comparison to any other studies which attempted to assess tourism ecosystem services. This section is all tourism management development recommendations.

 

Conclusion- needs to be entirely rewritten. What is the unique contribution of this study? I would suggest it is the combination of methods used and the utility of the results for enhanced tourism development. What is the generalizability of the research approach for other tourism-based ecosystem service valuation projects. What are the limitations of this study, and what future research is needed?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The use of English is Ok but there are some awkard usage.