Can Investment in Forestry Resource Management Reduce Haze Pollution and Carbon Emissions? Evidence from China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript has significant value in forest and environmental science. However, the presentation could be better. Headings need to be reconsidered. Many sections, especially Results, need to be written appropriately.
Line 23-27: rewrite compactly.
Line 130 & 202: Use the main heading 'Methodology' for the first time.
Line 343-394: Rewrite compactly and focus only on your findings. Here, many parts are different from the result.
Table 4--- It would be better to mention the full forms of the utilized abbreviations.
Line 401-422: Rewrite compactly and focus only on the findings.
Line 426-444: Rewrite compactly and focus on the findings.
Line 447-471: Rewrite compactly and focus on the findings.
Line 563-607: Implications--- need to be concise and rewritten compactly.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsSeveral questions and remarks regarding the paper by Deng et al. “Do forestry resources reduce haze pollution and carbon emissions? Evidence from China”.
Why were the years 2008, 2013, and 2019 selected for analysis? Why were more years initially examined (2008, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 in Figure 2)?
“We measure carbon intensity in the following way… Epm is the consumption of the mth energy… Table 1…” (Lines 143-154). Only natural gas, coal, and coke are used to produce energy (or electricity), out of all the fuels shown in table 1. How can carbon dioxide emissions be computed while accounting for the energy from other fossil fuel sources (energy type) that are not used for energy generation?
“PM2.5 concentration raster data comes from the Dalhousie University Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group website… （http://fizz.phys.dal.ca/~atmos/martin/)” (Lines 199-201). This webpage is not accessible to view.
“The main data sources for this study are China Statistical Yearbook, China Forestry Statistical Yearbook, China Energy Statistical Yearbook, China Environment Statistical Yearbook and Forest Resources Inventory Bulletin…” (Lines 195-198). References should be provided for all data sources.
“This study uses the ratio of the output value of the tertiary industry to the secondary industry to characterize the industrial structure…” (Lines 179-180). Which industries in this study were classified as secondary and tertiary? What is the reason for using them as an indicator of "industrial structure"? Power plants, mining, and the iron industry, industries that are main sources of air pollution, and they are classified as primary, secondary, or tertiary industries?
Can the computational models used in this study be expanded to other geographical areas and countries?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsGeneral comments
Although the topic is of interest and important, this manuscript was difficult to follow in part because of how it is organized.
The introduction is hard to follow in part because some of the paragraphs a very long and contain many ideas. Please separate the current paragraphs in to similar ideas. Also terms need to defined better when they are first used. Forest resources seem to initial refer to either the area in forests or the amount of forest resources, but later forest resources seem to refer to amount of investment in forest management. These are not the same thing at all and combining them is confusing.
The methods are unclear and sometimes mixed in with the results. Conversely, the results sometimes have methods. This makes it very difficult to follow.
Discussion appears in the results section. Again this makes it difficult for the reader to understand where they are in the manuscript.
The implications section might be better placed in the discussion. That is a common place to discuss the implications of the findings.
Overall, it is not clear what the implications are in terms of science or management outside of China. In that sense it does not seem particularly international in scope or importance.
Specific comments (line)
16-17 This sentence would be clearer if the first clause regarding the data source was placed at the end of the sentence. It is not clear what panel data are by the way. Were these data on carbon emissions and haze? Or panels as written?
20 lock-in effect is jargon. Please avoid jargon here and elsewhere so that a wider audience can understand the meaning.
21 is it clear what forest resources means specifically? Is this the amount invested into forest management or is it the amount of forest resources or area in forestry? It is a key concept that is ambiguous in meaning.
23 Significance indicates some sort of statistical test. Was one conducted? And since the reader has no way of knowing if forest resources have increased or to the extent of the increase, it is impossible to confirm that this statement is correct.
27 the word stage is not needed.
28 Do the authors mean an industrial-based versus an ecological-based?
28-29 It is not clear how this sentence relates to the one preceding it because the terms differ. They seem to be about two different things, but I sense authors want to link them together.
38 is there a reference to document this concern?
65 can the authors please define forest resources or the aspects of this term the authors are referring to?
120 has spill over effect been defined?
189 This seems to be describing a result and not a method.
246 this is referring to a result not a method, is this the results section? It would help the reader to follow if the traditional sections are used.
277 this seems to be methods
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors responded well to the comments/suggestions. The manuscript is improved than the earlier version. A minor issue is mentioned below:
Line 112: I suggest using the main heading 'Materials and methods'. Then, they need to use individual subheadings.
Line 195: Methods---- delete the heading.
Line 236: I suggest using the main heading 'Results'. Then, they need to use individual subheadings.
Line 320: Regression results---- I suggest deleting this heading. Regression is a type of statistical analysis used to interpret outcomes/results. It is not a primary outcome/result itself.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors answered all the questions and comments. I am satisfied with the answers. The manuscript has been carefully revised.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsGeneral comments:
I still find the manuscript hard to follow. This is largely due to the fact that the authors are still mixing methods into the results and they are still mixing discussion into the results. The methods need to be described in the methods and not added into the results section. One can certainly remind the reader about the methods in the results, but one should not be mentioning a given method in the results for the first time. To do so makes it very difficult to follow and to check when there are questions. Adding in discussion points in the results makes it difficult to separate what was found by the authors from what it means. The latter is covered in the discussion section.
In general the titles of the figures and tables is extremely vague and in many cases the titles do not describe what is in the table. The authors need to make the figures and tables stand on their own.
There is still far too much confusion regarding what forestry resources mean. They seem to be defined and used in various ways that leads to a great deal of confusion. Part of the problem is the authors seem to be describing a hierarchical system, but seem to use one level to describe everything. It would make more sense to address each level specifically and to have specific terms for each level. For example, forest ecosystem resources would be the items in the forest ecosystem including the species, the processes, the stores, etc. Forestry resources might include the forest ecosystem resources, but also the resources devoted to forest management. The forest sector resources might include investments, regulations, etc that operate at a higher level. And finally, the analysis seems to include factors that go beyond the forest sector and includes other sectors. My point is that all this is being compressed into one term and that leads to a good deal of confusion.
Specific comments (line):
2 Forestry resources or investment in forestry resources management?
14 If I understand the authors correctly the term forestry resources is actually the investment in forestry resources management. If that is the case it would make sense to describe it this way in the abstract and for that matter elsewhere.
18 Again was this not the investment in forestry resources management? Not the forest resources per se.
97 The issue seems to be quantity versus quality. That would make a stronger contrast. Specifically, area is correlated with quantity of forest development; whereas other indices are needed that correlate with the quality of the development. This is a key point that needs to be developed more clearly.
102 I believe this could be expressed more clearly and less repetitively:
“Is there a strong spillover effect, that is, do changes in one area influence other areas?” This expresses the idea and is more general. I imagine spillover effects can occur regarding many kinds of variables and not just haze and carbon emissions.
113 Would it not be better to call these dependent variables? That would be the standard terminology
125 all methods and results should be in past tense.
136 again aren’t these independent variables? Why not use standard statistical terms?
162 more accurately this should state the components of the forestry resources evaluation system are defined in the table.
182 the figure title is inadequate and it provides little connection to the text. For example, the text refers to concentration trends and dispersion degree; the figure is described as a correlation matrix. How do these relate to each other? It is not clear.
236 Why is this section not simply titled “Results”? That would be the standard approach.
270 what are spatial locking effects?
Author Response
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