Identifying and Zoning Key Areas of Ecological Restoration for Territory in Resource-Based Cities: A Case Study of Huangshi City, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The main merits of the manuscript are to address an important topic, the ecological restoration, and to place it on the scale of a city in China, a country whose high economic growth has resulted in a series of environmental impacts. It may be published in Sustainability, but there are several corrections that need to be made.
The abstract mentions the rapid Chinese urbanization process: “With the rapid development of China’s urbanization process, the scale and intensity of resource utilization are continuous expanding and increasing.” However, it is not clear from the manuscript whether the authors identified key ecological areas in the urban or rural areas of Huangshi.
The first two sentences of the introduction are meaningless: “Rapid socioeconomic development has led to increasing need for land for urban development and construction. However, the limits of land resources result in insufficient land to satisfy people’s needs, with human – land conflict and ecosystem degradation problems occurring. ” The growth of cities is a worldwide phenomenon, but the portion of territory that they occupy is minimal (about 3% of the terrestrial portion of the Biosphere). What percentage does the urban area of Huangshi occupy, in relation to the total area of the municipality? Furthermore, the manuscript suggests, the main source of environmental impacts in Huangshi is not urbanization, but mining.
In relation to mining activities: what are the main social and environmental impacts of mining in Huangshi? I suggest that the authors write a paragraph or two explaining mining in Huangshi. Sustainability is an international journal, both in relation to its articles and those who read them. What is obvious to authors is not for readers from other countries. For example, Huangshi needs to be better characterized. How many inhabitants does the city have? What is the percentage of peasants and urbanites? In what biome or plant formation is the city inserted? Is it a region of high biodiversity?
On page 2 of the manuscript, the authors state that “There are few studies on overall ecological restoration and optimization of resource-based cities and the construction of an optimal eco-logical restoration indicator system for resource-based cities remains elusive.” Based on what do the authors make this claim? In other words, the authors have quantified, in searches on the Web of Science and / or other sources, how many studies of this kind are there?
As the authors do not place the urban area of Huangshi on the maps on pages 9 to 14, it is impossible for readers to interpret the results correctly.
On page 14, the scientific names of the two bird species must be written in italics.
Based on their results, the authors suggest several actions for environmental restoration. For example (page 16): “Governance of collapsed mines, prevention of geological disasters, and ecological restoration of mines should be assigned in the ecological restoration zoning plan in order to achieve green transformation of cities.” This is another merit of the article, but the authors must go a little further, reflect and answer these questions: 1) does the city have the technical capacity to carry out these actions ?; 2) to what extent can actions become an environmental policy for Huangshi? I have participated in several studies for the elaboration of municipal master plans in Brazil, and often the actions we propose are not carried out: sometimes, because governments do not have technicians to carry them out, and in most cases, because they contradict social actors (real estate speculators, for example). These two questions are therefore not trivial.
Finally, as Huangshi is a resource-exhausted city, what economic activities have replaced mining? Do they have less offensive potential for biodiversity?
Author Response
Thank you so much for your review report that you spent valuable time perusing our article, and we appreciate seeing your comments, which can really help improve the quality of the article. In accordance with your comments and requests, we have made extensive revisions to the original manuscript. Here, we mark the modified parts in red font for your approval. The summary is accompanied by a document that answers each of your questions point by point.
Specific comments：
The main merits of the manuscript are to address an important topic, the ecological restoration, and to place it on the scale of a city in China, a country whose high economic growth has resulted in a series of environmental impacts. It may be published in Sustainability, but there are several corrections that need to be made.
Point 1: The abstract mentions the rapid Chinese urbanization process: “With the rapid development of China’s urbanization process, the scale and intensity of resource utilization are continuous expanding and increasing.” However, it is not clear from the manuscript whether the authors identified key ecological areas in the urban or rural areas of Huangshi.
Response 1: Thank you for your comments. We deleted “With the rapid development of China’s urbanization process, the scale and intensity of resource utilization are continuous expanding and increasing.” And we determined that the ecological damage in Huangshi was due to mining. In the manuscript, we identified the key ecological areas of Huangshi. We revised Figure 9, which is mentioned in it.
Point 2: The first two sentences of the introduction are meaningless: “Rapid socioeconomic development has led to increasing need for land for urban development and construction. However, the limits of land resources result in insufficient land to satisfy people’s needs, with human – land conflict and ecosystem degradation problems occurring. ” The growth of cities is a worldwide phenomenon, but the portion of territory that they occupy is minimal (about 3% of the terrestrial portion of the Biosphere). What percentage does the urban area of Huangshi occupy, in relation to the total area of the municipality? Furthermore, the manuscript suggests, the main source of environmental impacts in Huangshi is not urbanization, but mining.
Response 2: We agree with you that the manuscript shows that the main source of environmental impacts in Huangshi is not urbanization but mining. So we delete the first two sentences of the introduction, and introduce the concept of resource-based city in the first paragraph of the introduction, and explain that the excessive mining in Huangshi causes serious damage to the ecological environment.
Point 3: In relation to mining activities: what are the main social and environmental impacts of mining in Huangshi? I suggest that the authors write a paragraph or two explaining mining in Huangshi. Sustainability is an international journal, both in relation to its articles and those who read them. What is obvious to authors is not for readers from other countries. For example, Huangshi needs to be better characterized. How many inhabitants does the city have? What is the percentage of peasants and urbanites? In what biome or plant formation is the city inserted? Is it a region of high biodiversity?
Response 3: Thank you for your advice. We have revised "2.1. Study Area". In the first paragraph, We introduce the location and population of Huangshi and answer the question of the number of residents and the proportion of urban population in the total population of Huangshi. The second paragraph describes the ecological characteristics of Huangshi, that is, the biological and plant species in Huangshi. In the third paragraph, we introduce the main social and environmental impacts of mining in Huangshi, and explain why Huangshi was chosen for this study.
Point 4: On page 2 of the manuscript, the authors state that “There are few studies on overall ecological restoration and optimization of resource-based cities and the construction of an optimal eco-logical restoration indicator system for resource-based cities remains elusive.” Based on what do the authors make this claim? In other words, the authors have quantified, in searches on the Web of Science and / or other sources, how many studies of this kind are there?
Response 4: Thank you for your comments. We delete “and the construction of an optimal eco-logical restoration indicator system for resource-based cities remains elusive”. At the same time, we add two references to explain why there are few studies on overall ecological restoration and optimization of resource-based cities. It is shown that although these methods are applicable to the ecological restoration of territorial space in macro-geographical units, they are rarely used in resource-based cities with typical characteristics. References are as follows:
- Ni, Q.L.; Hou, H.P.; Ding, Z.Y.; Li, Y.B.; Li, J.R. Ecological remediation zoning of territory based on the ecological security pattern recognition: Taking Jiawang district of Xuzhou city as an example. Journal of Natural 2020, 35, 204-216. http://www.jnr.ac.cn/10.31497/zrzyxb.20200117
- Zhu, Z.X.; Wang, X.H.; Rao, S.; Zhang, X.; Li, C.H.; Li, C.H.; Li, D.H.; Mou, X.J. Study of the method on zoning of territorial space ecological protection and rehabilitation and case of Chengde．Environmental Ecology. 2020, 2. http://dx.doi.org/096-6830(2020) 02/03-0001-07
Point 5: As the authors do not place the urban area of Huangshi on the maps on pages 9 to 14, it is impossible for readers to interpret the results correctly.
Response 5: Thank you for your comments. We place the administrative divisions of Huangshi on the maps on pages 9 to 14. However, considering the beauty of the maps, we do not mark the specific counties and cities under Huangshi, because the county-level administrative units of Huangshi City have been introduced in Figure 1.
Point 6: On page 14, the scientific names of the two bird species must be written in italics.
Response 6: Thank you for your advice. We make a revision of this, line number 440-441.
Point 7: Based on their results, the authors suggest several actions for environmental restoration. For example (page 16): “Governance of collapsed mines, prevention of geological disasters, and ecological restoration of mines should be assigned in the ecological restoration zoning plan in order to achieve green transformation of cities.” This is another merit of the article, but the authors must go a little further, reflect and answer these questions: 1) does the city have the technical capacity to carry out these actions ?; 2) to what extent can actions become an environmental policy for Huangshi? I have participated in several studies for the elaboration of municipal master plans in Brazil, and often the actions we propose are not carried out: sometimes, because governments do not have technicians to carry them out, and in most cases, because they contradict social actors (real estate speculators, for example). These two questions are therefore not trivial.
Response 7: We agree with your comments. As for this opinion, we have made a statement in “4.1. Result Discussion and Feasibility”. In the third paragraph, we list the relevant decisions and practical actions made by Huangshi for industrial transformation and environmental restoration in recent years, which is sufficient to prove that the Huangshi municipal government and relevant departments have given significant support to ecological environment restoration, so Huangshi has the technical capacity to carry out these actions and to a large extent these actions can provide decision-making for Huangshi.
Point 8: Finally, as Huangshi is a resource-exhausted city, what economic activities have replaced mining? Do they have less offensive potential for biodiversity?
Response 8: Thank you for your comments. We have made a statement in “4.1. Result Discussion and Feasibility”. We listed the industrial transformation activities of Huangshi, such as: advanced manufacturing, inland transportation, and mining relics tourism. These economic activities have replaced mining, and have less offensive potential for biodiversity.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript presented quantitative analyzes of the general ecosystem to define ecological restoration on a macroscopic scale. The identification of key areas for ecological restoration and the use of the diagnosis of regional ecological problems were suggested. The authors present a result of zonation according to the available resources, indicating areas that should potentially be restored and others that should be conserved. The conclusions of the abstract need to be more direct and with more concrete information about the finding of the results.
The introduction seems very informative about the historical and current situation of regional ecological restoration strategies and priorities. There is a reasonable context and the introduction is structured, it brings essential information about the theme of the manuscript.
Table 1. Indicators of the ecological sensitivity assessment need to be adjusted in the article. In addition, the subtitle is not very informative. The reader does not understand and explanations about this table are lacking. The other tables also need to improve the explanation of the subtitles. Figure 8 needs to be adjusted and its subtitle needs to be clearer. The indications in figure 9 are not clearly visible. You need to improve the map output. The binomial term of organisms, for example, Cygnus columbianus, needs to follow the correct writing standard (in italics or bold). Check all.
The conclusion is very extensive, it explains all the work again. It looks like a preview of the abstract. This part needs to have new wording. To do this, check the methods, following the results. Write a conclusion that really shows the more essential about the theme of the manuscript.
Author Response
Thank you so much for your review report that you spent valuable time perusing our article, and we appreciate seeing your comments, which can really help improve the quality of the article. In accordance with your comments and requests, we have made extensive revisions to the original manuscript. Here, we mark the modified parts in red font for your approval. The summary is accompanied by a document that answers each of your questions point by point.
Specific comments：
This manuscript presented quantitative analyzes of the general ecosystem to define ecological restoration on a macroscopic scale. The identification of key areas for ecological restoration and the use of the diagnosis of regional ecological problems were suggested. The authors present a result of zonation according to the available resources, indicating areas that should potentially be restored and others that should be conserved.
Point 1: The conclusions of the abstract need to be more direct and with more concrete information about the finding of the results.
Response 1: We agree with your comments. We rewrote the conclusions in the abstract to make the results more direct.
The introduction seems very informative about the historical and current situation of regional ecological restoration strategies and priorities. There is a reasonable context and the introduction is structured, it brings essential information about the theme of the manuscript.
Point 2: Table 1. Indicators of the ecological sensitivity assessment need to be adjusted in the article. In addition, the subtitle is not very informative. The reader does not understand and explanations about this table are lacking. The other tables also need to improve the explanation of the subtitles.
Response 2: Thank you for your advice. We have adjusted and improved t e presentation of some indicators in Table 1. In addition, we also have changed the subtitle to make it more informative. We have also improved the subtitles of other tables in the paper.
Point 3: Figure 8 needs to be adjusted and its subtitle needs to be clearer. The indications in figure 9 are not clearly visible. You need to improve the map output. The binomial term of organisms, for example, Cygnus columbianus, needs to follow the correct writing standard (in italics or bold). Check all.
Response 3: Thank you for your advice. We enlarged the legend of Figure 8 and ajusted its subtitle so that it looks clearer. Figure 9 had also been modified. At the same time, Figure 9 (b) was added to Figure 9 to introduce the administrative areas involved in ecological restoration zoning. And we checked the binomial term of organisms in this paper.
Point 4: The conclusion is very extensive, it explains all the work again. It looks like a preview of the abstract. This part needs to have new wording. To do this, check the methods, following the results. Write a conclusion that really shows the more essential about the theme of the manuscript.
Response 4: We agree with your comments. We have modified the wording of the original conclusion in the light of the results and we have concluded some more targeted conclusions from methods and results in this paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an interesting paper however the originality of the study needs to be further clarified.
Introduction: There are few studies on overall ecological restoration and optimization of resource-based cities and the construction of an optimal ecological restoration indicator system for resource-based cities remains elusive. Cite
Methods: please include model validation and data analysis.
Discussion: it is too short. Discuss your findings with previous studies. Include study limitations.
Table 1. improve formatting
Figure 8: please fix the position.
References: please consider Cong et al. (2020) Comparison of the SWAT and InVEST models to determine hydrological ecosystem service spatial patterns, priorities and trade-offs in a complex basin https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106089
Author Response
Thank you so much for your review report that you spent valuable time perusing our article, and we appreciate seeing your comments, which can really help improve the quality of the article. In accordance with your comments and requests, we have made extensive revisions to the original manuscript. Here, we mark the modified parts in red font for your approval. The summary is accompanied by a document that answers each of your questions point by point.
Specific comments：
This is an interesting paper however the originality of the study needs to be further clarified.
Point 1: Introduction: There are few studies on overall ecological restoration and optimization of resource-based cities and the construction of an optimal ecological restoration indicator system for resource-based cities remains elusive. Cite
Response 1: Thank you for your advice. We delete “and the construction of an optimal eco-logical restoration indicator system for resource-based cities remains elusive”. At the same time, we add two references to explain why there are few studies on overall ecological restoration and optimization of resource-based cities. References are as follows:
- Ni, Q.L.; Hou, H.P.; Ding, Z.Y.; Li, Y.B.; Li, J.R. Ecological remediation zoning of territory based on the ecological security pattern recognition: Taking Jiawang district of Xuzhou city as an example. Journal of Natural 2020, 35, 204-216. http://www.jnr.ac.cn/10.31497/zrzyxb.20200117
- Zhu, Z.X.; Wang, X.H.; Rao, S.; Zhang, X.; Li, C.H.; Li, C.H.; Li, D.H.; Mou, X.J. Study of the method on zoning of territorial space ecological protection and rehabilitation and case of Chengde．Environmental Ecology. 2020, 2. http://dx.doi.org/096-6830(2020) 02/03-0001-07
Point 2: Methods: please include model validation and data analysis.
Response 2: Thank you for your comments. However, the habitat quality is only an index between 0 - 1, so we cannot obtain the measured data for verification. However, the spatial distribution of habitat quality in the paper roughly accords with the land cover in the study area, so the result can be considered to be scientific to a certain extent. In "4.2. Limitations and Future Work", we propose how to validate the habitat quality in InVEST model is next working.
Point 3: Discussion: it is too short. Discuss your findings with previous studies. Include study limitations.
回应 3：我们同意您的观点，因此我们在“ 4.讨论”中增加了两个新章节，即“ 4.1。结果讨论和可行性”和“ 4.2。局限性和未来工作”，以与以前的研究讨论我的发现，如下并提出本研究和下一步工作的局限性。
要点4：表1.改进格式
回应 4：感谢您的建议，我们改进了其格式。
要点5：图8：请固定位置。
回应 5：感谢您的建议，我们已将其位置固定在第14页。
第6点：参考资料：请考虑Cong等。（2020）比较SWAT模型和InVEST模型，以确定复杂流域中的水文生态系统服务空间模式，优先级和权衡取舍https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106089
回应 6：我们同意您的观点，因此我们引用Cong等。（2020）中的“ 2.3.2”。生境质量的时空变化分析”。在介绍InVEST模型时，我们提到了Cong等人所做的研究。（2020）在InVEST模型的研究过程中。
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors
The manuscript has been improved, but there are still some changes to be made:
Page 3: in figure 1, "construction land" means the urban area of Huangshi?
Page 4: the authors claim that "According to preliminary investigation statistics, there are more than 3000 kinds of higher plants, many of which are oil plants, medicinal plants, food plants, aromatic plants and timber species." What does "kinds" mean? Plant species? Please use the appropriate taxonomic terminology. Also, please quote in the References the source of this data ("preliminary investigation statistics", what is it? A doctoral thesis? A government report?)
The phrase "There are also 125 rare plants with special products in China" does not make sense. What do the authors want to say at that point in the manuscript?
In the phrase "Huangping Mountain, Dawang Mountain and other areas have preserved leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, wolf, pangolin, goshawk other wild animals; There are cygnus columbianus, syrmaticus reevesii and so on in Zhupo Lake. There are many kinds of creatures in Huangshi. ", please include the popular names and the scientific names of the species. The names of the species cygnus columbianus and syrmaticus reevesii are misspelled: Cygnus columbianus, Syrmaticus reevesii.
Page 17: the word Administrative is misspelled ("Adiministrative"). I recommend a thorough review of the English translation of the manuscript.
Author Response
Thank you so much for your review report that you spent valuable time perusing our article, and we appreciate seeing your comments, which can really help improve the quality of the article. In accordance with your comments and requests, we have made revisions to the manuscript. Here, we have highlighted the revised parts in yellow for your approval. The summary is accompanied by a document that answers each of your questions point by point.
Specific comments：
The manuscript has been improved, but there are still some changes to be made:
Point 1: Page 3: in figure 1, "construction land" means the urban area of Huangshi?
Response 1: Thank you for your comments. In China's land classification system, construction land includes urban and rural residential land, public facility land, industrial and mining land, and transportation land. We deleted “Figure 1” after “municipal district area accounts for 5.17% of the total area” and replaced it with “ The location and land use types of Huangshi in 2018 are shown in figure 1”.
Point 2: Page 4: the authors claim that "According to preliminary investigation statistics, there are more than 3000 kinds of higher plants, many of which are oil plants, medicinal plants, food plants, aromatic plants and timber species." What does "kinds" mean? Plant species? Please use the appropriate taxonomic terminology. Also, please quote in the References the source of this data ("preliminary investigation statistics", what is it? A doctoral thesis? A government report?)
Response 2: Thank you for your comments. We changed “kinds” to “species”, it means plant species. It comes from government documents, so I changed "According to preliminary investigation statistics” to “According to the information provided by the Natural Resources and Planning Bureau of Huangshi”. However, since this document is an undisclosed document provided by the Natural Resources and Planning Bureau of Huangshi, it may not be listed in the References.
Point 3: The phrase "There are also rare plants with special products in China" does not make sense. What do the authors want to say at that point in the manuscript?
Response 3: Thank you for your advice. We made a mistake of writing “in China” instead of “in Huangshi”. We want to tell readers that Huangshi is a region of high biodiversity. But the following examples have explained this point, so we delete “There are also rare plants with special products in China” and “There are many kinds of creatures in Huangshi”.
Point 4: In the phrase "Huangping Mountain, Dawang Mountain and other areas have preserved leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, wolf, pangolin, goshawk other wild animals; There are cygnus columbianus, syrmaticus reevesii and so on in Zhupo Lake. There are many kinds of creatures in Huangshi. ", please include the popular names and the scientific names of the species. The names of the species cygnus columbianus and syrmaticus reevesii are misspelled: Cygnus columbianus, Syrmaticus reevesii.
Response 4: Thank you for your advice. We added the popular names and the scientific names of these species. We changed the sentence to “Huangping Mountain, Dawang Mountain and other areas have preserved leopard(Panthera pardus), clouded leopard(Neofelis nebulosa), wolf(Canis lupus), pangolin(Manis pentadactyla), northern goshawk(Accipiter gentilis) and other wild animals. There are tundra swan(Cygnus columbianus), reevess pheasant(Syrmaticus reevesii) and so on in Zhupo Lake.”
Point 5: Page 17: the word Administrative is misspelled ("Adiministrative"). I recommend a thorough review of the English translation of the manuscript.
Response 5: Thank you for your advice. We have revised it. And we asked a native English speaker to check our manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been improved
Author Response
要点：本文已得到改进。
回复：非常 感谢您的审阅报告，您花了宝贵的时间仔细阅读我们的文章，我们很高兴看到您的评论，这可以真正帮助改善文章的质量。
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
