Evaluation and Dynamic Evolution of Eco-Efficiency of Resource-Based Cities—A Case Study of Typical Resource-Based Cities in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has a general good structure but needs an additional effort in review. Some sentences are missing in a further critical read. I would advice to send it to a colleague to read it and tell you what sentences are not clear or when words are missing. It is a good paper, I would suggest you to focus on the aim of the paper also in the title, adding China as a study case in the title.
Line 44-58 It is not clear the focus. It is introduced the role of a "government" (maybe chinese) but after several other countries are mentioned. Maybe it should be written the period in a clearer way.
Line 258-259 the presentation of the study is out of context, it should be better explained into the chapter
Line 269 "SO2" is it well written? Shouldn't be explained for a better clarity?
Table line 307 It is not clear the table, some names are missing
Line 340-340 the sentence is not clear (some words are missing in the numerical explanation)
Author Response
Dear reviewer, please kindly check the author responses in the attachment. Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to read this paper. I have the following concerns:
- Why modeling pollution as a (bad) input ? Also, you do not distinguish bad and good outputs/inputs. More discussion is needed and connection to the literature is important here (see e.g. Cherchye et al., 2015, EJOR, Multi-output efficiency with good and bad outputs).
- Super-efficiency is not so popular in DEA empirical papers; most of the time radial efficiency or direction distance functions are used; please explain why this model is the best in your case.
- Why assuming a radial input efficiency ? why the cities cannot try to increase the output ? and why all inputs should be reduced in the same proportion ? more discussion is needed; more tailored models exist in this context (see e.g. Walheer, 2018, Energy Economics, Economic growth and greenhouse gases in Europe: A non-radial multi-sector nonparametric production-frontier analysis)
- Why defining the Malmquist index (MI) with distance functions while you give us the programming to compute an efficiency score ?
- The MI is not circular; so what is the meaning of taking an overall average as in Table 6 ? why not giving the MI when comparing 2012 to 2017 ?
- Figure 1 is redundant with Table 6; or add MI TC EC SE in that Figure.
- Please use statistical test for your Figures 2-6 to verify whether there are move to the right (e.g. kolmogorov smirnov test).
Author Response
Dear reviewer, please kindly check the author's response in the attachment, thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper deals with an important issue of ecological efficiency in resource-based cities and presents interesting empirical comparisons for selected Chinese cities. Nevertheless, some conceptual and methodological aspects of the study require explanation.
- The introduction should clearly state an aim of the study and set a research hypothesis.
- The literature review should be directed at some problems with ecological efficiency of resource-based cities. At this moment it is limited only to enumeration of studies that deal with “industrial ecological efficiency” or “regional ecological efficiency”. Some real world problems that require to be resolved are not derived from the literature review. Apart from methodology used in the literature cited, are there any general conclusions (solutions to ecological problems) which can be derived from the literature review? This question needs to be answered in this part of the study.
- The concept of resource-based city should be developed and discussed in more details. The Authors in introduction (lines 30-32) start with a definition of the resource-based city, however, this is the only place where it is clarified (in a very general way). It is advised to discuss definitions of the resource-based city, to specify discriminating criteria used to distinguish the resource-based city from the other kind of cities, and to review the literature about specific problems of the resource-based city.
- It is not clear from the study how “growing, mature, declining and regenerative” cities are distinguished. If Authors based on classification of some statistical units it should be clearly stated and described. Any controversies with the classification should be discussed as well. If the classification was done by the Authors, it should be clearly stated.
Concerning the classification in lines 275-278 readers may found information about some “different calculation index system” and clustering procedure, however, it is missing in the study. The study refers to “resource guarantee ability” and “sustainable development ability”, but there is a lack of discussion of such concepts and indices for them and the whole procedure. It is unclear how the procedure allows to distinguish different kinds of resource-based cities.
- Moreover, the ecological efficiency concept should be defined and the term must be used precisely. Authors interchangeably use also terms “ecological environment governance efficiency” (e.g. line 315) or “ecological environment management” (e.g. line 332) or “ecological environment governance” (e.g. line 343) or “eco-environmental governance efficiency” (e.g. line 519, 522, 524), which is misleading.
Moreover, only in final paragraph (line 711 and 716) we found abbreviation “EGE”, which were not used (and explained) before.
Some terms used in the “Literature review”: “industrial ecological efficiency” or “regional ecological efficiency” are not clarified as well.
- The Authors write that they construct evaluation index system of the ecological efficiency of resource-based cities (lines 66-68) and present some set of indices (table 2 an the text above tab. 2), however, the proposal is not discussed. The choice of indices is not explained as well as their division into “resource consumption” and “environment pollution”. It is thus of a very subjective character and needs to be justified.
- In lines 311-318 Authors write about another classification of the cities – into 4 levels by “natural fracture method”. The intervals of “ecological environment governance efficiency” (below 0.6, 0.6-0.9, 0.9-1, above 1) are not clear and seems not “natural”. Why the classification is presented? What is the aim of it?
- Concluding part of the study is of a very general character, especially “Management implications”. Some advice such as “improving the strength of urban innovation, accelerating the flow of innovative elements, strengthening the carrying capacity of the ecological environment, or speeding up the upgrading of resource industries and advocating national participation” are not directly derived from the analysis. They shouldn’t be presented as the main conclusion in abstract (lines 22-25). Instead the Authors should rather point which kind of resource-based city should be supported in prior to others (and why?) and/or discuss whether the efforts should be aimed rather at limiting resource consumption or environmental pollution (concerning the 2 dimensions of the input index).
- There are some technical inaccuracies in the text, e.g.:
The formulas are and symbols needs to be formatted.
The dots and semicolons are used in a strange way (e.g. lines 597, 601, 606).
A word “comprehensive” is overused in the study.
Sentence “Value…” line 76 is unclear.
In lines 104-105 and 121-122 the same study is repeated; however, it is cited as two separate positions [14] and [25].
Explanation of symbols Q3 and Q1 are repeated – lines 222-223 and 225-226.
Author Response
Dear reviewer, please kindly check the author's responses in the attachment, thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
ok, the author made the changes requested.
Author Response
Article：Evaluation and Dynamic Evolution of Eco-efficiency of Resource-based Cities--A Case Study of Typical Resource-based Cities in China
Dear Editor,
We have studied the valuable comments from you and reviewers carefully, and tried our best to revise the manuscript. The point to point responds to the reviewer’s comments are listed as following:
Responds to the reviewer’s comments:
Reviewer 1
Thank reviewer 1 for approval of Review Report (Round 1). In view of language polishing, we have our manuscript checked by a native English-speaking colleague, so as to ensure scientificity and preciseness of language, words, grammar and sentence structure in this study.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have answered most of my concerns. However, I think better references are missing when discussing these issues in the paper, while the number of not so useful or not really related references is too high (see my previous report for some more useful references).
I recommend a minor revision to double check the references.
Author Response
Article：Evaluation and Dynamic Evolution of Eco-efficiency of Resource-based Cities--A Case Study of Typical Resource-based Cities in China
Dear Editor,
We have studied the valuable comments from you and reviewers carefully, and tried our best to revise the manuscript. The point to point responds to the reviewer’s comments are listed as following:
Responds to the reviewer’s comments:
Reviewer 2
Comment 1: The authors have answered most of my concerns. However, I think better references are missing when discussing these issues in the paper, while the number of not so useful or not really related references is too high (see my previous report for some more useful references).
I recommend a minor revision to double check the references.
Response: Thank reviewer 1 for approval of Review Report (Round 1). According to the reviewer’s comment, we double check the references and refer to previous report of the reviewer. We decide to increase the references recommended by the reviewer, and delete the references that are not useful, so as to optimize the references of this study.
Additional references:
[1]Wang Dong,Ji Xiang,Li Cheng,Gong Yaxi. Spatiotemporal Variations of Landscape Ecological Risks in a Resource-Based City under Transformation. Sustainability. 2021,13(9):5297-6020.
[2]Laurens, C.; Bram, D.R.; Barnabé W. Multi-output efficiency with good and bad outputs. Eur J Oper Res. 2015,240(3),872-881.
[3]Barnabé, W. Economic growth and greenhouse gases in Europe: A non-radial multi-sector nonparametric production-frontier analysis. Energ Econ. 2018,74,51-62.
[4]Yin Qing,Wang Yadong,Wan Kaidi,Wang Delu. Evaluation of Green Transformation Efficiency in Chinese Mineral Resource-Based Cities Based on a Three-Stage DEA Method. Sustainability. 2020,12(22):9455-9484
[5]Menglin Xing,Fuzhou Luo. Comparative Study on the Optimization Path of Industrial Value Chain in China’s Resource-Based Cities. Sustainability. 2018,10(5):1338-1358.
Deleted references:
[1]Lan, G.H.; Xun, S.K. Research on the Development and Transformation of Resource-based cities in China under the supply-side Reform. Jiang-huai Tribune. 2017,6,44-48.
[2]Wang, G.X.; Liu, T. Dynamic Coupling relationship between urbanization and Ecological Environment of Resource-based cities in Central China. China Popul Resour Environ. 2017,27(7),80-88.
[3]Chen, Y.; Mei, L. Fluctuation characteristics and influencing factors of Economic Transformation and Development of Resource-based cities in Northeast China--an Analysis based on Panel data Model. Sci Geogr Sin. 2017,37(7),1080-1086.
[4]Di, Q.B.; Liang, Q.Y. The Spatio-temporal differentiation of Marine Ecological efficiency in China and the Identification of the response relationship between Marine Ecological efficiency and Marine Industrial structure. Sci Geogr Sin. 2018,38(10),1606-1615.
