Landscape Ecological Risk Assessment of Saihanba under the Change in Forest Landscape Pattern

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

The paper is an interesting work to detect Landscape Ecological Risk Assessment of Saihanba under the Change of Forest Landscape Pattern. The paper is well structured in chapters with proper and clear contents to facilitate the reader and with adequate literature review.

Datasets used are clearly defined and analysis methods are sufficiently explained and justified. Results are straightforward and conclusions are properly discussed. The content and theme of the article is consistent with the lines of the journal and the topic is of interest to the readers.

The paper contain all main obligatory chapters (Introduction; Materials and Methods; Results; Discussion). However, the paper has some inconsistent compering to the instructors for the authors, which should be corrected. The main missing parts of this study; the absence of any land use or land use change maps, although it is related to land use change topic;

TITLE

The title of the manuscript are concise, specific and relevant. This is Ok.

ABSTRACT

The Abstract contain more the 200 words. Please write an abstract in accordance with the journal rules. Should be shortened. The Abstract contain all main obligatory elements (according to the instruction to the authors): Background of the research, Methods; Results; Conclusion. This is Ok.

List of a Keywords is appropriate.

INTRODUCTION

Introduction chapter do not contain all mandatory elements. Define purpose of the work, defining specific hypotheses which have being tested should be added. By the way, land use change key publication and the most cited studies (Wos) can be discussed.

Correctly constructed, I have reservations only about focusing on mainly Chinese authors of the cited studies. The subject matter described in the research is universal and you can reach for more interesting research from other parts of the world. By the way, İt is good to discuss land use and landscape pattern change studies in the introduction.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Study area: Other geographical features (human and socio-economic) for the Saihanba can also be added.

Location map should be some corrected and revised. It is suggested to show China and study area. In addition, the elements of the map (scale, legend, etc.) should be prepared more carefully. This makes the map more readable.

In figure 2 the year starts from 1987

Methodology: Described in great detail, I have no objections to this chapter.

RESULT

The landscape change that took place in the 10-year period from 1987 to 1997 is very high. Is this change a real change or an error caused by classification?

The Result chapter provide concise and precise description of the experiment results. The Results are also at a good level.

The landscape change that took place in the 10-year period from 1987 to 1997 is very high. Is this change a real change or an error caused by classification?

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This chapter is integrated with Result chapter and present results of the research. This is Ok.

REFERENCES

The references are numbered in order of appearance in the text in the text in square bracket. This is Ok.

All equations are numbered in brackets and placed on the right margin of the text. This is Ok.

Text font in tables and figures should be according to the instructions for the authors.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer: 

    Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Landscape ecological risk assessment of Saihanba under the change of forest landscape pattern” (forests-2954019).  Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.

Thank you very much for your comments and here is my response:

1. However, the paper has some inconsistent compering to the instructors for the authors, which should be corrected.

Response to comment: Thank you very much for your careful review. I am sorry for the misunderstanding caused by missing the tutor's name, and I have revised it below the title of the article.

2. The main missing parts of this study; the absence of any land use or land use change maps, although it is related to land use change topic;

Response to comment: I apologize for placing the land use change map in section 2.2, the quality of the figure in my manuscript was blur and has been replaced with a clearer figure.

3. The Abstract contain more the 200 words. Please write an abstract in accordance with the journal rules. Should be shortened.

Response to comment: I have abbreviated the Abstract section as you requested, thank you for your professional suggestion!

4. Correctly constructed, I have reservations only about focusing on mainly Chinese authors of the cited studies.The subject matter described in the research is universal and you can reach for more interesting research from other parts of the world.

Response to comment: Thanks for your suggestion！As you said，this research needs a broader perspective really. I have read the recent papers related to landscape risk and found that many scholars have conducted research from many angles such as strong wind and flood, which are very interesting. I have added the introduction and highlighted it in red font.

5. Study area: Other geographical features (human and socio-economic) for the Saihanba can also be added.

Response to comment: Thank you very much! Since my research area is a forest farm, which has a special political and ecological status, I have supplemented the historical situation and current development of the area. Additional content has been marked in red.Thanks for your advice！

6. In figure 2 the year starts from 1987.

Response to comment: Thank you for your careful reading, I have corrected it in the article

7. The landscape change that took place in the 10-year period from 1987 to 1997 is very high. Is this change a real change or an error caused by classification?

Response to comment: The changes over the decade were very significant indeed, as the forest was established in 1962, and after a series of explorations, afforestation began around the 1980s, and in 1987, the trees were less crown density, and so there may have been some trees identified as grass, whereas by 1997, the trees had grown up, and the crown density of the trees had increased, and so the forested landscape had increased dramatically.

8. Text font in tables and figures should be according to the instructions for the authors.

Response to comment: Thanks for your guidance, I have made overall changes to the format of the article.

Thank you again for your positive comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of our manuscript.

Yours respectfully!

Jiemin Kang

08 April.,2024

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Please consider the below comments, which are in moderate importance:

1.      Line 8, “landsat” should be “Landsat”

2.      In the abstract, please provide important quantitative results.

3.      The citation style of the paper is numeric. Please revise the whole paper.

4.      Line 126, “Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm” is not clear on the map. Does the whole area given by the DEM color represent Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm ? Please show its place on the map in a clear way. Although you mention it in the first sentence of the Study Area Section, the places, you gave as reference, are also not given on the map.

5.      Line 154-155, the band numbers are same for Landsat 5 and 7, but different for Landsat 8. Please revise this section.

6.      Line 155, Is “Transfer matrix method” another section? Or otherwise, what is its relationship with NDVI? There is an irrilevancy.

All the best.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Landscape ecological risk assessment of Saihanba under the change of forest landscape pattern” (forests-2954019).  Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.

Thank you very much for your comments and here is my response:

1. Line 8, “landsat” should be “Landsat”

Response to comment: Thanks for your careful reading,I have revised it to "Landsat".

2. In the abstract, please provide important quantitative results.

Response to comment: Quantitative data is very important in research, I have added some research data in the summary, thank you for your valuable comments!

3. The citation style of the paper is numeric. Please revise the whole paper.

Response to comment: Thank you for the reminder, I have changed the references to a numerical format.

4. Line 126, “Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm” is not clear on the map. Does the whole area given by the DEM color represent Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm ? Please show its place on the map in a clear way. Although you mention it in the first sentence of the Study Area Section, the places, you gave as reference, are also not given on the map.

Response to comment: Thank you for your comments, the DEM colors represent the Sehamba Mechanical Forest.For the unclear positioning, I have redone the study area overview map, please refer to it.

5. Line 154-155, the band numbers are same for Landsat 5 and 7, but different for Landsat 8. Please revise this section.

Response to comment: Thank you for your comments,Compared with the ETM+ sensor of Landsat-7 satellite, OLI adds a blue band (0.433-0.453μm) and a short-wave infrared band (band9-0.136-1.390μm), the blue band is mainly used for coastal zone observation, and the short-wave infrared band includes strong water vapor absorption characteristics, which can be used for cloud detection. So the corresponding number of bands is different.

6. Line 155, Is “Transfer matrix method” another section? Or otherwise, what is its relationship with NDVI? There is an irrilevancy.

Response to comment: I apologize for the confusion caused by my unclear description,I apologize for the confusion caused by my unclear description,I combined NDVI with the transfer matrix method to obtain the overall vegetation cover level exchange capacity from 1987 to 2020.

I describe it again in lines 156-159 of the article.Add content:The SVM classification method revealed significant landscape types changes in 1987-2020. Therefore,the transfer matrix method was used to explore the amount of exchanges of each landscape type over the entire period of 1987-2020, and the NDVI was calculated to see if there was a trend of decreasing vegetation cover classes.

Thank you again for your positive comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of our manuscript.

Yours respectfully!

Jiemin Kang

08 April.,2024

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

SUMMARY

The Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm, 300 km north of Beijing, China, is a human-made forest covering 200 km² established to reduce sandstorms and reverse the ecological decline of the region. Using Landsat images from 1987 to 2020 examines land use change and in particular, changes in ecological risk over the region. It finds substantial improvement in the risk factors and identifies the key factors causing risk.

ASSESSMENT

An excellent paper, very clear and precise in its method and findings. The paper sets out the issues and describes its method of analysis which is scientifically sound. It uses the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to analyse the changes in vegetation cover. The lack of vegetative diversity is considered to be a risk factor which needs to be addressed. The paper does not identify any deficiencies in the study which need to be rectified in future. The discussion and conclusions bring together the study’s findings very clearly.

The maps in the Figures are small and somewhat difficult to interpret. The tables are clear. The references are mainly from the past 5 – 10 years and self-citation is not apparent. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

The Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm originated in 1962 and Landsat 1 was launched in 1972 yet the first Landsat images used are from 1978. Line 129 states “Landsat remote sensing images from 1978, 1987, 1997, 2001, 2013, and 2020” were used but Figure 2 omits 1978, as does the Abstract. The 1978 data is not referred to in the paper.

SPECIFIC COMMENT

Line 115 “concentrated in the months of June to…” words missing

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Landscape ecological risk assessment of Saihanba under the change of forest landscape pattern” (forests-2954019).  Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.

Thank you very much for your comments and here is my response:

1. The maps in the Figures are small and somewhat difficult to interpret.

Response to comment: We apologize for any confusion due to the quality of the images.the quality of the figure in my manuscript was blur and has been replaced with a clearer figure.Thank you very much!

2. The Saihanba Mechanical Forest Farm originated in 1962 and Landsat 1 was launched in 1972 yet the first Landsat images used are from 1978.  Line 129 states “Landsat remote sensing images from 1978, 1987, 1997, 2001, 2013, and 2020” were used but Figure 2 omits 1978, as does the Abstract.  The 1978 data is not referred to in the paper.

Response to comment: First of all, I apologize to you, it is true that there is no 1978 data in the study,  the first Landsat images used are from 1978, but the accuracy is too low and difficult to decipher, so it is not used.I have changed the incorrect 1978 in the paper to 1987.Thanks again for your patience in reviewing!

3. Line 115 “concentrated in the months of June to…” words missing.

Response to comment: I am very apologize for this problem, and I have re-read the manuscript to correct it!I apologize for my carelessness.

Thank you again for your positive comments and valuable suggestions to improve the quality of our manuscript.

Yours respectfully!

Jiemin Kang

08 April.,2024

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Please see the attached. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Moderate editing of English language required. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Landscape ecological risk assessment of Saihanba under the change of forest landscape pattern” (forests-2954019).  Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.

Thank you very much for your comments and here is my response:

1.Firstly, it is needed to explain why to select the variables.  For example, to calculate the Landscape Disturbance Index, three indices were selected: Landscape Fragmentation Index;  Landscape Separation Index;  and Landscape Dominance Index.  But there is no concrete reason how these three indices can provide the best solution.  So all the methods in this study should be explained in detail.

Response to comment: Thank you for your comments, I have added the reasons for choosing the variables in the paper.

2.Secondly, most of the figures in this manuscript are not readable due to the size of figures,wrong font, and so on. Please revise them properly.  

Response to comment: The quality of the figure in my manuscript was blur and has been replaced with a clearer figure.

3.Thirdly, English through the whole text should be revised by a native speaker, and the grammar and typo should be carefully reviewed.

Response to comment: I have carefully checked the typos in the paper and will seek native speakers to correct them.Thank you very much for your comments!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf