Impacts of Intensified Human Activity on Vegetation Dynamics in the Qinba Mountains, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe topic of research “Impacts of Intensified Human Activities on Vegetation Changes in the Qinba Mountains, China” is interesting for the readers
Following comments should be taken care of for more critical appreciation of the paper
(a) What is novelty of this research needs to be clearly highlighted in the abstract part and the abstract should be quantitative
(b) Connect the study with sustainable development goals so that readers can identify the importance of the study
(c) The spatial resolution of vegetation data and climate data is different, how is this factor taken care of ?
(d) A cross profile can be added on how vegetation is changing with altitude
(e) Produce hotspot maps to represent correlation between vegetation, climatic factors and human activity factors
(f) Represent the hot spots in the map
(g) Following papers can be referred for the study
1. Monitoring vegetation degradation using remote sensing and machine learning over India–a multi-sensor, multi-temporal and multi-scale approach
2. Evaluating the vegetation restoration sustainability of ecological projects: A case study of Wuqi County in China
3. Enhancing sustainability of vegetation ecosystems through ecological engineering: Acase study in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. The list of keywords is illogical and, in addition, there are obvious gaps in them, considering the content of the reviewed article. Keywords should be arranged according to the principle: WHAT (research problem), HOW (research methods) and finally WHERE (research area).
2. The description of the study area is too superficial and does not contain much basic information that would be necessary to interpret the obtained results. For example, with elevation differences exceeding 5,000 m within the study area, there must be a climatic and vegetation zone with a significant area of ​​subalpine and alpine zones with non-forest vegetation (shrubs and meadows). There is not a word on this topic in the description of the area. Within the forest zone, there is certainly also a clear height differentiation, which, given such a vast area, is different in its different parts. Without at least a simplified map of land cover and use, I cannot imagine a sensible interpretation of the obtained results. Such a map and tabulation are, for example, included in the publication: Wang, B., Xu, G., Li, P., Li, Z., Zhang, Y., Cheng, Y., … Zhang, J. (2020). Vegetation dynamics and their relationships with climatic factors in the Qinling Mountains of China. Ecological Indicators, 108, 105719. doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105719. I also have serious doubts about the reported values ​​of climate indicators. I suspect that they come from meteorological stations located at the foot of mountains or in mountain valleys. I find it hard to imagine that at an altitude of 5,000 m above sea level (or even 3,000), even in the subtropical zone, the average annual temperature was 12°C. It is also quite likely that spatially diverse responses to climate change and human activity may be the result of diverse geological structure and the associated soil cover. There is also no information on this subject. Are there any commercial forests in the study area where systematic logging and new plantings are carried out? Could the observed changes in NDVI be influenced by the time-varying inflow of atmospheric pollutants (nutrients)?
3. The authors use the terms vegetation period and non-vegetation period. Maybe I'm not paying attention, but I haven't noticed anywhere that these terms are clearly defined. What was this division based on?
4. The article very briefly addresses the problem of determining the statistical significance of both the time trends of NDVI and the regression of NDVI on temperature and precipitation. The only thing used is an arbitrary classification of the slope of the trend, the relationship of which to its statistical significance may be negligible. In many places in the text, the authors use the term "significant" to refer to an increase or decrease in NDVI, which may mislead the reader, because it has nothing to do with statistical significance. In each of these cases, the term "obvious" should be used.
5. The description of the results obtained is very verbose, and therefore tedious and not related to their interpretation. And the lack of a deeper interpretation is closely related to the problem indicated in the second point of this review.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe reviewed article deals with the impact of intensified human activities on vegetation changes in the Qinba Mountains. The study was partly conducted using long-term vegetation data to investigate the effects of climate change and human activities on vegetation dynamics. Changes covered 1982-2022 using GIMMS NDVI and temperature and precipitation data to identify various causal factors.
1. This work lacks a significant research component. What vegetation types did the authors study? Please provide the name of the forest or non-forest ecosystem studied. The name deciduous forest tells the reader nothing. List the main forest-forming species and the type of soil they developed (in the study area). This is crucial in such studies.
2. What main anthropogenic factors drive vegetation changes, and at what scale?
3. When talking about vegetation changes in ecology, they mean changes from one community to another or the destruction of the forest. In this case, it is best to write about NDVI changes during the year, and then it is correct.
4. As we see work concern (Figure 8). Spatial distribution of factors affecting vegetation and not vegetation changes. Therefore, the changes in the use of vegetation are not correct. Think about it.
You investigated the changes of factors and not vegetation.
5. I did not find any changes in the vegetation cover. Where is this shown?
6. The title of the work does not correspond to its content. The paper is not about vegetation changes but about changes in environmental factors (see conclusions) during the vegetation period and beyond. The title needs to be changed as it does not match the results.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe submitted manuscript entitled: Impacts of Intensified Human Activities on Vegetation Changes in the Qinba Mountains, China. It analyzes the possible impacts of human activities on vegetation in a region of China. The manuscript seems well structured and well written, however there are some basic unresolved questions:
1- What do the authors really contribute novel to science? In this manuscript, several databases and models worldwide are used, processed in a computer and several trends are established. This type of articles do not really contribute anything, no real new information is provided on the typology of vegetation, its structure in the different bioclimatic contexts that exist. The area of interest does not seem to have been chosen with a defined criterion, or this criterion is not fully clarified in the manuscript.
2- Is the manuscript relevant? Following the same methodology, hundreds of thousands of scientific articles could be written, or a single one that covers the entire surface of the planet, therefore, no new data are provided, only a "rehash" of the use of different databases. This type of scientific articles, if we stop to analyze them, we can realize the little impact they generate, and the few citations they have, despite being well-written works with an apparent scientific and methodological soundness.
3- Are the statistical tools used really well understood? It is common to use for our data the same tools that other authors have used, because "apparently they work". But it is becoming more and more common to skip descriptive data analysis, and to analyze the different assumptions that our data must meet. Nowadays, there are software and various scripts that make the analysis work much easier, however, the fundamental operation of the different tools is not understood in order to choose the most appropriate one in each case. There is a lot of literature about the drawbacks of the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test for non-independent time series. In the present manuscript, the authors have not taken this fact into account, and in future revisions, it is not enough to say "The Durbin-Watson test has been used to test the autocorrelation of the data..." but it must be explained adequately, and the results of these tests must be provided.
4- Plagiarism: A text fragment practically copied from https://daac.ornl.gov/VEGETATION/guides/Global_Veg_Greenness_GIMMS_3G.html has been detected.
Because of these unclear assumptions, the results have not been reviewed, as the statistical toolkit does not seem to be fully clarified.
Other minor comments appear in the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
I am satisfied. The authors answered all my questions.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your approval of our revised manuscript and responses.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsCongratulations to the authors, now the manuscript is better understood and allows a possible replication in a clear and concise manner.
The only reply from this reviewer is about the response to comment 7: “[...] It is important to note that this research leans more towards the field of geography, and therefore utilizes the Köppen climate classification method, which is more suitable for geographical studies. The Rivas- Martínez World Bioclimatic Classification System, which you mentioned, focuses more on the study of ecology and biogeography, with a particular emphasis on the changes in ecosystems and biomes. As our research centers on the changes in NDVI and does not involve the evolution of ecosystems and communities, we did not employ this climate classification system.”
This reviewer cannot agree, although the study focuses on the evolution of vegetation indices in function and their relationship to human activity, it is a work of plant ecology, plant dynamics and climate change, as reflected by the authors in their keywords, not so much a physical geography manuscript. The use of the Köppen-Geiger climate system, although it is widely used due to its simplicity, is already quite obsolete and does not correlate well the vegetation types, structure and dynamics with the climate present in a geographical area, and its use often leads to unrealistic conclusions about the state and dynamics of the vegetation. Such as the conclusions of the manuscript that directly relate human activity as a modeler of vegetation in the study area.
On the other hand, the Köppen classification is not mentioned in the revised version of the manuscript. The authors should at least mention in which climate model the manuscript is “moving” to better contextualize the results, discussion and conclusions. For future scientific articles involving climate-vegetation relationships, I strongly recommend the use of accurate bioclimatic models such as the one mentioned above, a model that currently correlates vegetation-climate most accurately worldwide.
As a final note, the conclusions are correct according to the results obtained and the discussion carried out, but it would be interesting if the authors could summarize this section slightly to make it easier to read.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
