The Status of Coral Reefs and Its Importance for Coastal Protection: A Case Study of Northeastern Hainan Island, South China Sea
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
First of all the manuscript needs a thorough revision of the English language.
There are some crucial points that the authors need to answer:
1) Better explanation of methodology applied in evaluating the state of corals community;
2) Lacks of replicates at the different stations
3) Lack of information on number of surveys carried out
4) It is not clear the statistical methods applied
5) Presentation of results is very coarse. I suggest to add graphs and tables (explained in the enclosed file).
I did all my comments in detail throughout the enclosed pdf file
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper by Zhao et al. presents an interesting multi-disciplinary approach in a study on the role of coral reefs in natural coastal protection. My main point of critique are
1. That the authors should explain a bit more on the importance of coral species diversity in coastal protection. Perhaps more species offer more potential for coastal protection? Or is there another reason, like showing that many coral species are massive and offer stability?
2. A second point is that the coastline of Hainan Island is heavily urbanised and that this can have a negative impact on the maintenance of reefs.
3. The introduction should give more background information on the reefs of Hainan and their species diversity in relation to other areas in the South China Sea. How much is the need for reef protection in a regional context? Are hainan reefs more threatened than those in other SCS regions?
4. The species names of corals are not up-to-date and the classification is also not corect at some places. I have added corrections.
The English is not always clear and therefore I have given some suggestions for correction.
L. 16: at fringing reefs -> on fringing reefs
L. 18: 39 -> Thirt-nine. Do not start sentence with numbers written in digits
L. 41-42. In the case of Hainan, a substantial source of threats is urbanisation, such as in other regions around the South China Sea. I suggest that you refer to the review by Heery et al. 2018. Urban coral reefs: Degradation and resilience of hard coral assemblages in coastal cities of East and Southeast Asia. Marine Pollution Bulletin.135: 654–681.
L. 20-21: Meaning of “their nearby coastline stable condition” is not clear
L. 21-21: Rephrase: The coral community at Hainan Bay had a higher diversity and greater cover, which corresponded with a relatively stable coastline.
L. 23: evindences -> evidence. There is no plural
Key words: Do not repeat words from the title; delete: coral reef, South China Sea
L. 25-28: delete these two sentences since they do not refer to the research topic.
L. 24: to maintain coastline stability -> to maintain a stable coastline
L. 28: enginerring -> engineering
L. 29: Wave-controlled
L. 38: delete “other” because coral reef is not artificial
L. 40: are fragile -> are a fragile
L. 63: the introduction should give more background information about the condition of coral reefs of Hainan Island and the relative species richness of corals / coral conservation needs of its reefs (see e.g. Huang et al. 2016. Conservation of reef corals in the South China Sea based on species and evolutionary diversity. Biodivers Conserv .25: 331–344)
L. 89: Tidal range -> The tidal range
L. 93: coast -> coast lines
L. 94: typhoon -> typhoons
L. 98-99: as a coastal defence for the safety of coastal zones -> for coastal protection
L. 135. add sentence: The classification and nomenclature of the corals was updated according to the World List of Scleractinia. http://www.marinespecies.org/scleractinia/aphia.php?p=taxedit&pid=766556
L. 152. Write numerals lower than 11 in words.
L. 152. The five Favia species are actually four Dipsastraea species and one Goniastrea species
Table 1:the names of the families and genera are not in line (same rows) with the species
Table 1: Many species names are not taxonomically up-to-date (see World List of Scleractinia: http://www.marinespecies.org/scleractinia/aphia.php?p=taxedit&pid=766556 )
Favia -> Dipsastraea
Favia speciosa -> Dipsastraea speciosa
Favia rotumana -> Dipsastraea rotumana
Favia favus -> Dipsastraea favus
Favia matthai -> Dipsastraea matthai
Favia stelligera -> Goniastrea stelligera
Goniastrea aspera -> Coelastrea aspera
Platygyra carnosus -> Platygyra carnosa
Pectinidae -> Pectiniidae
Mussidae -> Lobophylliidae
Several names are not written in italic script
Alveopora belongs to Acroporidae
Dendrophyllidae -> Dendrophylliidae
L. 166: in the NE Hainan Island -> at NE Hainan Island
L. 188: layer -> layers
L. 191: of the NE Hainan -> at NE Hainan
L. 230-231: Explain in English what is that Scomberomorus and Pseudosciaena
L. 231: What is the purpose of reef rock digging? Where the rocks used as building material? Or where they exported as “live rock” for the aquarium trade?
L. 292: to the strong erosion coast -> to the strong coastal erosion
L. 315: Are there any artificial sea walls and do they maintain a coral community? See Heery et al. 2018.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been substantially improved, just enough to be published in Sustainability. I am not thoroughly satisfied with the Authors' explanation of applied methodology and statistical methods. However, I do appreciate their effort to improve the manuscript.
I only just suggest to quote in the introduction alternative approaches to be applied in coral reef monitoring such as the use of ecological indices (e.g. Ferrigno, F., C.N. Bianchi, R. Lasagna, C. Morri, G.F. Russo, R. Sandulli,
Corals in high diversity reefs resist human impact,
Ecological Indicators,
Volume 70, 2016, 106-113
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X16302989?via%3Dihub)
Author Response
The paper has been substantially improved, just enough to be published in Sustainability. I am not thoroughly satisfied with the Authors' explanation of applied methodology and statistical methods. However, I do appreciate their effort to improve the manuscript.
I only just suggest to quote in the introduction alternative approaches to be applied in coral reef monitoring such as the use of ecological indices (e.g. Ferrigno, F., C.N. Bianchi, R. Lasagna, C. Morri, G.F. Russo, R. Sandulli,
Corals in high diversity reefs resist human impact,
Ecological Indicators,
Volume 70, 2016, 106-113
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X16302989?via%3Dihub)
Response:
Thanks for your good evaluation on our revised manuscript. We do our best to improve it in this revision.
We have downloaded this conference and quoted in the introduction alternative approaches to be applied in coral reef monitoring such as the use of ecological indices.
