Study on the Coupling Relationship between Relocation for Poverty Alleviation and Spatiotemporal Evolution of Rocky Desertification in Karst Areas of Southwest China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript used coupling coordination degree model and cellular automata (CA) Markov model to examine the response relationship between the spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification and the poverty alleviation and relocation projects in karst areas of Southwest China. The paper is interesting and potentially useful, as it utilized coupling coordination degree model to analyze the spatiotemporal changes in rocky desertification in Panzhou City, Guizhou Province, and made an attempt to use the CA Markov model to simulate future scenarios of rocky desertification. I think that the combined use of coupling coordination degree model and CA Markov model on five-phase remote sensing images, relocated population data, dynamic change rate and transition matrix is an interesting advantage of this paper in relation to others that deal with similar topics. There are some justifications the authors need to include, which will enrich the content of the research while clarifying the selection and implementation of the approaches used. The specific comments are:
Abstract
- (1) Page 1 Line 14 (and others throughout the manuscript). “ex situ” to “ex-situ”.
- (2) Page 1 Line 24. “the CA Markov model” to “the cellular automata (CA) Markov model”.
- (3) Page 1 Line 24. “future scenario” to “future scenarios”.
- (4) Page 1 Line 29. “the PRD, LRD, MRD, SRD and ESRD showed a trend of transition to the NRD” to “the potential rocky desertification (PRD), light rocky desertification (LRD), medium rocky desertification (MRD), severe rocky desertification (SRD) and extreme severe rocky desertification (ESRD) showed a trend of transition to the no rocky desertification (NRD)”.
Introduction
- (5) Page 2 Line 49. “rocky desertification” to “and areas with rocky desertification”.
- (6) Page 2 Line 57. “the driver of” to “a major driver of”.
- (7) Page 2 Lines 71-88 (and others throughout the manuscript). Please make the citation format (i.e., how you cite authors’ names) consistent throughout the manuscript.
- (8) Page 2 Line 94. “From the existing research, the research on” to “From the existing studies, the research on”.
- (9) Page 3 Line 101. “scenario” to “scenarios”.
- (10) Page 3 Line 104. “Panzhou city” to “Panzhou City”.
- (11) Page 3 Line 119. “ecological restoration” to “ecological restoration projects”.
- (12) Page 3 Lines 122-124. “Analysis of the response relationship between the spatiotemporal evolution of local rocky desertification and the easy support policy driven by the ex situ poverty alleviation and relocation project.” The subject part of this sentence is missing.
- (13) Page 3 Lines 124-126. “Put forward scientific and effective decision support and policy recommendations for the follow-up assistance measures and effective use of funds for the ex situ poverty alleviation and relocation project.” The predicate/object part of this sentence is missing.
- (14) Page 3 Line 127. “the CA-Markov” to “the cellular automata (CA) Markov”. You may want to specify the full terms for abbreviations the first time they appear in the text, because people who are not in this field may not be familiar with them.
- (15) Some additional information such as brief background on the spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in karst areas of Southwest China would be helpful in the Introduction section to set the stage. I would also suggest emphasizing somewhere in the Introduction section the significance of the combined use of coupling coordination degree model and CA Markov model on five-phase remote sensing images, relocated population data, dynamic change rate and transition matrix, because these approaches might help people from broader field find your work useful rather than people just working on the particular area being interested in it.
Materials and Methods
- (16) Page 4 Lines 162-163. “Preprocessing remote sensing data through radiometric calibration, atmospheric correction, masking, etc.” Please check the grammar for this sentence. The predicate/object part of this sentence is missing.
- (17) Page 4 Lines 167-168. “Match the surface real region of interest generated by the field survey results with the final classification results.” Please check the grammar for this sentence. The subject part of this sentence is missing.
- (18) Page 4 Lines 169-170. I would suggest briefly specifying the definitions of “classification accuracy” and “kappa coefficient”, because people who are not in this field may not be familiar with them.
- (19) Page 4 Lines 169-170. There is little explanation as to why “classification accuracy” or “kappa coefficient” was chosen in this study. There have been some other modeling performance metrics that were used in earth science when it comes to analyzing model performance. However, there is little justification as to why the authors only chose these methods. I would suggest adding a brief explanation to justify why these metrics and not other also commonly used ones were chosen. Given the potential of performance metrics to influence the assessment of modeling performance, it would be better to critically assess why some approaches are chosen and their potential and weaknesses for the available data and specific environment considered.
- (20) Page 4 Lines 160-173. I would suggest adding a brief description of how did you match the resolution for the remote sensing data from different sources in this study.
- (21) When you used different modeling approaches (e.g., support vector machine (SVM), coupling coordination degree model, and CA Markov model) to analyze the remote sensing data in this study, did you use raw or transformed values from the data source to apply the modeling approaches on? It would be better to specify a little more even though data transformation may not be necessary for some situations, because it is an important step to make sure the variables meet the underlying assumptions of the algorithms before conducting any statistical analyses. Statistical approaches with different mechanisms may have different underlying assumptions of normality, linearity or multicollinearity, and some variables may need to be transformed to meet specific assumptions.
Results
- (22) Page 12 Line 402. “Panzhou city” to “Panzhou City”.
- (23) Page 13 Lines 434 and 440. “Panzhou city” to “Panzhou City”.
- (24) Page 16 Line 490. “Panzhou city” to “Panzhou City”.
Discussion
- (25) Page 18 Line 538. Why is future tense “will reach” used for the past time of 2015-2020?
- (26) Page 18 Line 548. “ecology, such as” to “ecological environment, such as”.
- (27) Page 18 Line 557. “between man and land” to “between human and land”.
- (28) Page 18 Line 561. “natural ecosystem” to “natural ecosystems”.
- (29) Page 19 Line 576. “Baolu [50], Li Peilin and others[51]”. Please make the citation format (i.e., how you cite authors’ names) consistent throughout the manuscript.
- (30) Page 19 Lines 581-583. “In 2009-2013, under the background of weak south branch trough, less water vapor transport in Bay of Bengal and weak polar vortex.” Please check the grammar for this sentence. The predicate/object part of this sentence is missing.
- (31) Page 19 Line 582. “in Bay of Bengal” to “in the Bay of Bengal”.
- (32) Page 19 Line 583. Please specify what does “AO” stand for.
- (33) Besides human population relocation, the spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification may also be affected by factors such as local species interactions in the karst areas. I would suggest briefly acknowledging in the Discussion section these additional factors based on literature and their potential influence on the spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in the study area.
Conclusions
- (34) Page 19 Lines 612-613. “of PRD relocation intensity is the worst” to “between PRD and relocation intensity is the lowest”.
Tables and Figures
- (35) Figure 9 is missing.
- (36) Tables 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10. I would suggest adding in the table and figure caption or as a footnote a brief description for the abbreviations of PRD, LRD, MRD, SRD and ESRD, as audience who are not in this field may not be quite familiar with the abbreviations. A good table or figure caption should make the table or figure understandable without reference to the main text.
- (37) Page 7 Table 2. Please add in the table caption or as a footnote a brief explanation for “Coupling coordination degree C” and “Coupling coordination degree D”.
- (38) Page 9 Figure 2 Line 300. “Distribution of vegetation coverage and rock exposure rate” to “Distribution of fractional vegetation cover (FVC) and rock exposure (RE) rate”.
- (39) Page 9 Figure 2 Line 302. “Fractional vegetation cover and rocky exposedness changes in each period” to “Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) and rock exposure (RE) changes in each period”.
- (40) Page 9 Figures 2 and 3. I would suggest adding in the figure caption or as a footnote a brief description for what the values of 1 to 6 and -5 to 5 in the color bar stand for.
- (41) Page 11 Table 3 Line 351. Please remove “This is a table. ”.
- (42) Page 11 Table 3 Line 351. What is “Pan county”? It has not been mentioned or described in the manuscript at all.
- (43) Page 11 Table 3. I would suggest adding in the table caption or as a footnote a brief explanation for what the “Ratio” stands for.
- (44) Page 12 Tables 4 and 5. Please add in the table caption or as a footnote a brief explanation for what “ΔS” and “ΔV” stand for.
- (45) Page 17 Table 6. “Ration” to “Ratio”.
- (46) Page 17 Table 6. Please add in the table caption or as a footnote a brief explanation for what the “Ratio” stands for.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Study on the coupling relationship between relocation for poverty alleviation and spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in karst areas of Southwest China” (ID: 1763249). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments very carefully and made our best efforts to enhance our paper. Our point-by- point response to the comments made by Reviewer is given below. We have also marked changes in the manuscript with red. We hope the revised manuscript will be accepted by the Reviewer. If still there are concerns, we will be happy to take care of once.
Please see the attachment for details.
Yours sincerely,
Xiaopiao Wu
E-Mail:[email protected]
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In the figure 6 change "Readuced" to "Reduced".
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Study on the coupling relationship between relocation for poverty alleviation and spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in karst areas of Southwest China” (ID: 1763249). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments very carefully and made our best efforts to enhance our paper. Our point-by- point response to the comments made by Reviewer is given below. We have also marked changes in the manuscript with red. We hope the revised manuscript will be accepted by the Reviewer. If still there are concerns, we will be happy to take care of once.
Please see the attachment for details.
Yours sincerely,
Xiaopiao Wu
E-Mail:[email protected]
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors present a paper investigating the relationship between relocation for poverty alleviation and spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in karst areas of Southwest China.
In general, the paper is well written with a good degree of discussed work and findings. The methods and results are appropriate and well presented. Some areas require English language editing, however, this can be achieved via careful proof reading. I do, however, feel that the introduction may be slightly too long and would benefit from being made more concise. I would usually advised an introduction to be be between 500 and 800 words.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Study on the coupling relationship between relocation for poverty alleviation and spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in karst areas of Southwest China” (ID: 1763249). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments very carefully and made our best efforts to enhance our paper. Our point-by- point response to the comments made by Reviewer is given below. We have also marked changes in the manuscript with red. We hope the revised manuscript will be accepted by the Reviewer. If still there are concerns, we will be happy to take care of once.
Please see the attachment for details.
Yours sincerely,
Xiaopiao Wu
E-Mail:[email protected]
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have addressed most of the comments. I just have a few minor suggestions below, which I hope could help further improve the clarity of the paper.
For the revised version:
- (1) Page 2 Lines 55-56. “such as deep mountains and rocky mountains, and areas with rocky desertification,and a lack of basic development conditions” to “such as deep mountains, rocky mountains, and areas with rocky desertification and a lack of basic development conditions”.
- (2) Page 4 Lines 138-139. For Response 18, I would suggest briefly adding several sentences to the main text specifying the definitions of “classification accuracy” and “kappa coefficient”, as audience who are not in this field may not be quite familiar with them.
- (3) Page 4 Lines 138-139. For Response 19, I would suggest adding the brief explanation you provided in the response and some supporting references to the main text, justifying why the two metrics and not other also commonly used ones were chosen in this study.
- (4) Page 4 Lines 131-142. For Response 20, I would suggest adding the information you provided in the response to the main text.
- (5) For Response 21, I would suggest briefly adding the explanation for support vector machine (SVM) you provided in the response to Page 4 Lines 135-136, briefly adding the explanation for coupling coordination degree model you provided in the response to Page 6 Section 2.5.4, and briefly adding the explanation for cellular automata (CA) Markov model you provided in the response to Page 7 Section 2.5.5.
- (6) Page 7 Table 2. In the table, the first column, “Coupling coordinn-ation degree D” to “Coupling coordination degree D”.
- (7) Page 7 Line 218. “Coupling coordinn-ation degree D” to “Coupling coordination degree D”.
- (8) Page 8 Line 272. “The larger the value” to “The higher the value”.
- (9) Pages 8-9 Figures 2 and 3. In each of the two figures, I would suggest adding the labels of “Fractional vegetation cover (FVC)” and “Rock exposure (RE)” beside the two color bars.
- (10) Page 10 Table 3. “PanZhou City” to “Panzhou City”.
- (11) Page 12 Line 369. “Note:Notes: "ΔS" inNote:"ΔS" in Table 4 and 5” to “Note: "ΔS" in Table 4 and 5”.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We would like to express our great appreciation to you and other reviewers and editors again for comments on our manuscript entitled “Study on the coupling relationship between relocation for poverty alleviation and spatiotemporal evolution of rocky desertification in karst areas of Southwest China” (ID: 1763249). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied the comments very carefully and made our best efforts to enhance our paper. Our point-by-point response to the comments made by Reviewer is given below. We have also marked changes in the manuscript with red. We hope the revised manuscript will be accepted by the Reviewer. If still there are concerns, we will be happy to take care of once.
Please see the attachment for details of modification.
Thank you and best regards.
Yours sincerely,
Xiaopiao Wu
E-Mail:[email protected]
Corresponding author : Zhongfa Zhou
E-Mail:[email protected]
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
