Evolution and Effects of the Social–Ecological System over 600 Years in Guizhou Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The regime shifts of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) is significant for reginal sustainable development. This paper study the changes in the relationships between the SES components，identify the regime shifts of SES, and analyze its effects over 600 years in Guizhou Province, which has certain scientific value and practical significance. In order to improve the article, it needs minor revision.
1. It is suggested to give more introduction about the local situation in the article to facilitate readers’ understanding.
2. Water, roads and other geographical elements should be added in figure 2.
3. I personally suggest more explanation about the rationality of the division of policy stages in figure 6.
4. Language needs to be further improved, and the article should be proofread by native speaker.
Author Response
Please see attached
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article under review is an interesting historical look at the relationship between man and nature at the local level over a 600-year period. The article is of interest as an interdisciplinary study based on numerous historical data.
The article is rather a literature review than an experimental study from the point of view of classical biological or ecological researchers. I recommend not using the traditional article layout (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion), as it imposes clear restrictions on the content of article sections (for example, a ban on literary references and explanations of facts for the Results section forces a significant reduction in the size of the article), which will make the study less understandable and informative.
The authors of the article quite freely operate on facts, which is unacceptable for serious researchers. Every fact, every data point must be documented. It is necessary to make a clear distinction between “my” results (then you need to indicate how, when, where they were obtained, detail the methods) and “foreign” data (however, the authors put them in their article, so they must indicate how, on what sample they are based, how reliable data). Let this increase the length of the article, but data for past centuries should be based on verifiable facts.
Among the shortcomings, one should also point out the low quality of the figures, in which many details are difficult to see. If the figure is not based on the authors' own data (and it is impossible for a person to measure, for example, the temperature of 600 years), then the source of the data must be indicated in its title (despite the fact that this is already indicated in the Materials and Methods). Do not use bold fonts in pictures. It is better if all the numbers and letters in the figure are proportionate to each other. All text on figures must be legible. No need to use abbreviations.
The design of the bibliography is unsatisfactory: incorrect abbreviations of journal titles (lines 557, 561 and others), incorrect punctuation in most sources, all words in the titles of articles are capitalized (lines 547, 561, 563 and others), pages are missing (lines 540, 544 , 557 and many others). It is often not clear what kind of source is mentioned (line 575, 582, 584 and others), there are no initials (lines 587, 597, 601 and others).
Technical shortcomings in article indicate the inattention of the authors, their careless attitude towards the article and readers. The manuscript needs a thorough revision, but I believe that the authors should be given a chance to resubmit the manuscript to the journal.
Author Response
Dear Review
Hello !
First of all, we are very grateful to the reviewers and editors for their valuable comments, which are helpful to improve the quality of papers. We have made serious revisions to the paper, and the revisions are described as follows :
Point 1: The article under review is an interesting historical look at the relationship between man and nature at the local level over a 600-year period. The article is of interest as an interdisciplinary study based on numerous historical data. The article is rather a literature review than an experimental study from the point of view of classical biological or ecological researchers. I recommend not using the traditional article layout (Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion), as it imposes clear restrictions on the content of article sections (for example, a ban on literary references and explanations of facts for the Results section forces a significant reduction in the size of the article), which will make the study less understandable and informative.
Response 1: Thanks for your useful suggestions. You are right. The paper is a literature review. We have collected data, using MATLAB software programming, the initial idea is to use the layout(Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion) of the paper to study. In this review, your recommendations clashed with those of the other two experts, but your recommendations are as helpful to us. We refer to your and other two experts ' suggestions to modify the preface. Please check the added content in the new manuscript.
Point 2: The authors of the article quite freely operate on facts, which is unacceptable for serious researchers. Every fact, every data point must be documented. It is necessary to make a clear distinction between “my” results (then you need to indicate how, when, where they were obtained, detail the methods) and “foreign” data (however, the authors put them in their article, so they must indicate how, on what sample they are based, how reliable data). Let this increase the length of the article, but data for past centuries should be based on verifiable facts.
Response 2: Thanks very much for the detailed and insightful comments. First of all, I ' d like to say sorry to you. You ' re working hard. In such a busy time, you take time to examine my article and ask questions. Most of the data in history come from ancient books, so my team and I have been doing statistics in Guizhou Provincial Library and university libraries since January 2019. The authenticity of the 600 year data is easily questioned, so we ' ve introduced a lot of data sources. Due to the omission and concealment of data, there may be errors and uncertainties in the historical archives Although there are some uncertainties, the trend of the index is basically credible. We 'll increase the description of the data sources.We have amended our manuscript according to your suggestions.
Point 3: Among the shortcomings, one should also point out the low quality of the figures, in which many details are difficult to see. If the figure is not based on the authors' own data (and it is impossible for a person to measure, for example, the temperature of 600 years), then the source of the data must be indicated in its title (despite the fact that this is already indicated in the Materials and Methods). Do not use bold fonts in pictures. It is better if all the numbers and letters in the figure are proportionate to each other. All text on figures must be legible. No need to use abbreviations.
Response 3: Thanks very much for the detailed and insightful comments. We have amended our manuscript according to your suggestions.
Point 4: The design of the bibliography is unsatisfactory: incorrect abbreviations of journal titles (lines 557, 561 and others), incorrect punctuation in most sources, all words in the titles of articles are capitalized (lines 547, 561, 563 and others), pages are missing (lines 540, 544 , 557 and many others). It is often not clear what kind of source is mentioned (line 575, 582, 584 and others), there are no initials (lines 587, 597, 601 and others).
Response 4: Thanks very much for the detailed and insightful comments. We have amended our manuscript according to your suggestions.
We hope these revisions and explanations can meet your requirements. Finally, we are grateful for your comments and suggestions. The comments are all valuable and have helped us to revise and improve our manuscript, as well as providing important guidance for our research. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments.
Thank you again.
Reviewer 3 Report
The focus of the paper is the evolution of a social-ecological system over time. The authors construct a research framework for identifying the evolutionary phases of the social-ecological system according to the changes in the interactions between the system’s components. The authors also investigate the driving factors and local effects.
The topic is significant. Submitted manuscript is written in high quality English language. Research questions are clearly formulated, so it is easy to understand the aim of this research. Methodology used in this research is appropriate. The manuscript is full of valuable Figures and Tables which clearly demonstrate the strength of the paper.
However, I strongly suggest Discussion and Conclusion to be separate sections. I also suggest slightly more explanation of the results in the DIscussion section. A framework for understanding the evolution of the SES in Guizhou Province inside the Figure 1 is not readable. I suggest much bigger description inside the colored area of Figure 1. Evolutionary phases of the SES in Guizhou Province inside the Figure 5 again are not readable, suggest bigger description. Also slightly bigger description inside the Figures 7 and 8 is necessary.
There are also lot of punctuation errors with missing space. Also the fomulas and especially the subscripts must be rewritten. More precisely:
line 29 challenges[1,2]. A social-ecological system(SES) must be challenges [1,2]. A social-ecological system (SES)
line 31 system[3,4]. must be system [3,4].
line 33 disciplines[5,6]. must be disciplines [5,6].
line 34 resilience[7,8], must be resilience [7,8], as it is written vulnerability [4],
line 35 services[9,10]. must be services [9,10].
line 36 phase[11] must be phase [11]
line 37 abroad[12,13]. must be abroad [12,13].
line 39 applicability[14]. must be applicability [14].
line 42 have been proposed[15], must be have been proposed [15],
line 55 missing comme land have must be land, have
line 62 this study is better to be deleted here and put in end the sentence on line 64
line 64 were analyzed in this study.
line 77 (Figure 1) was constructed must be was constructed in Figure 1
line 78 is conducive to identifying must be is conducive for identifying
line 102 The study area was Guizhou Province (Figure 2) better to be The study area of Guizhou Province is shown in Figure 2.
line 125 Based on previous studies - add reference here
line 147 long time must be long-time
line 169 data[33], must be data [33],
line 170 trend[34]. must be trend [34].
line 196 a1 and a2 must be with subscript
line 197 b1 and b2 must be subscripts
line 197 T1 the same
line 198 T1 1 to be subscript
line 200 T1 1 to be subscript
line 230 ninth to be 9-th
line 246 linear regression (Figure 4) better to be linear regression and it is shown in Figure 4
line 247 six periods. 1) better to be six periods: 1)
line 249 increased. 2) to be increased; 2)
line 251 population. 3) to be population; 3)
line 253 two periods. 4) to be two periods; 4)
line 254 1959 and 1980 and 5) to be 1959 and 1980; 5)
line 255 population. 6) to be population; 6)
line 258 periods. 1) to be periods: 1)
line 260 population. 2) to be population; 2)
line 260 phase. 3) to be phase; 3)
line 262 population. 4) to be population; 4)
line 289 suggest ; instead of ,
line 290 the same
line 340 Figure 6 lists to be Figure 6 shows
line 363 (1726)[37]. to be (1726) [37].
line 379 Guizhou[40] to be Guizhou [40]
line 431 better to rewrite the sentence: In Figure 7 it is shown how the influences...
line 500 better to use other symbol for the cycle
When you talk about ecosystem services on line 35, the contradiction between human and environment on line 49 and especially for social-ecological system analysis framework has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars in abroad on line 37
I strongly recommend to cite the following papers where the topic is discussed in details and very important ecological system analysis is described:
Todorov, V., Dimov, I., Ostromsky, T. et al. Advanced stochastic approaches for Sobol’ sensitivity indices evaluation. Neural Comput & Applic 33, 1999–2014 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-020-05074-4
Ivan Dimov et al. "A study of highly efficient stochastic sequences for multidimensional sensitivity analysis" Monte Carlo Methods and Applications, vol. 28, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1515/mcma-2022-2101
Todorov V., Dimov I., Ostromsky T., Zlatev Z., Georgieva R., Poryazov S. (2022) Optimized Quasi-Monte Carlo Methods Based on Van der Corput Sequence for Sensitivity Analysis in Air Pollution Modelling. In: Fidanova S. (eds) Recent Advances in Computational Optimization. WCO 2020. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 986. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82397-9_20
Dimov, I. Maire S. et al. (2022). An unbiased Monte Carlo method to solve linear Volterra equations of the second kind. Neural Computing and Applications, 34(2), 1527-1540.
The main strength part of the paper is the Results section and the valuable Figures and their explanation.
I again strongly suggest to reorganizing Discussion and Conslusion to be separate sections, and aslo there are some observations in Discussion section which will be better for the COnslusion.
The Conclusion can be improved stressing on the novelties of the originality of the observed results mentioned already in the Discussion section. A few words about future work and to whom the survey will be important will be valuable.
I suggest fixing all punctuation errors, improve the Figures, update the References and Conclusion and accepting after minor revision.
Author Response
Please see attachmentAuthor Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I see that this article has been improved enough by the authors. I recommend it for publication.
