Assessment and Prediction of Grain Production Considering Climate Change and Air Pollution in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
lines 175-176 the agricultural production means price index - means price indices...
table 1, heading labei instead of label.
lines 202-203 - the marginal impact...can be judged. evaluated sounds better
table 3 check the significances. In text, the number of digits shall be reduced
allover: hm, according to standards, hm seems to be hectometer, which measures distances, not areas. for instance, in line 377 you have hm^2, in the next line just hm, despite that both figures refer to production per ...something which shall be area.
the square R both for learning and testing data are abnormally high. I agree that random forest is more reliable, but these results looks like having a completely deterministic process, which is not the case..
Author Response
Point 1:lines 175-176 the agricultural production means price index - means price indices...
Response 1: Thanks for the correction, we have corrected the error in line326-332
Point 2:table 1, heading labei instead of label.
Response 2: Thanks for the correction, we have corrected the error in line363
Point 3:lines 202-203 - the marginal impact...can be judged. evaluated sounds better
Response 3: Thanks for the correction, we have corrected the error in line 369
Point 4:table 3 check the significances. In text, the number of digits shall be reduced
Response 4: Thanks for the correction, we have checked all the tables and reduced the number of digits.
Point 5:allover: hm, according to standards, hm seems to be hectometer, which measures distances, not areas. for instance, in line 377 you have hm^2, in the next line just hm, despite that both figures refer to production per ...something which shall be area.
Response 5 Thanks for the correction, we have fixed these errors
Point 6:the square R both for learning and testing data are abnormally high. I agree that random forest is more reliable, but these results looks like having a completely deterministic process, which is not the case.
Response 6: Thank you for the reminder. We double-checked the data and updated some of them, comparing the linear regression model with the random forest model. The results of the correction are presented in line209-222
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
In the final part of the Introduction, as in the Abstract, it would be worthwhile to clearly state the purpose of the research / study. I suggest you write: "The purpose of the study / research was ...". In this part of the article, it would also be worth writing what was the cognitive (scientific) goal and what was the utilitarian (useful) goal. If the scientific and useful goal is clearly stated, it is easier to refer to it in the Conclusions section and confirm the achievement of the goal with possible limitations.
Before stating the purpose of the research study, it would be worth formulating the research problem. I think that the presentation of the research problem could include two questions that were formulated at the end of the Introduction. It can be written that the research problem comes down to looking for answers to two questions ... The research problem can be associated with the indication of a gap in the current state of knowledge, which then translates into the formulation of the purpose of the research study.
I would like to know how the topic of the article presented is related to sustainability. This article was submitted to the scientific journal Sustainability, therefore it would be worth expanding in one or more paragraphs, as the content of the article, the research problem posed and the research objective fit into the contemporary problems covered by the concept of sustainability.
The authors wrote in the last paragraph of the article that they did not include soil / plant fertilization in the analysis, although it is an important factor determining the yields, which, in connection with the analyzed weather conditions, affects the results of yield analyzes. There are more such factors influencing the yielding of plants, including production technologies and mechanization of work in field plant production, which determine the accuracy and timeliness of tasks, which translates into the amount of harvested grains. The authors wrote about the technologies for the production of grains and their technical equipment in the final part of the Discussion. However, it is worth expanding this fragment with information on how in practice the mechanization of agriculture affects the yield of plants, including grains.
In the title of the article, the authors take into account the problem of air pollution in the context of the assessment and forecasting of grains production. I would like to know what specific types of air pollutants were included in the analysis? I admit that while reading the article I did not understand whether the Authors - writing about air pollution - mean the impact of air pollution on plant growth or air pollution by plants, and specifically the tasks in the technology of grains production, including chemical plant protection. It would be worth explaining this precisely in the article, and maybe even in the title of the article.
I would like to ask what is "Labei" in the header of Table 1. Does this word need to be corrected?
Has the study taken into account, apart from the amount of precipitation per year, the distribution of precipitation during the growing season, which has an impact on the yield of plants (grains)?
In the article it would be worth explaining the interpretation of some concepts, e.g. Effective irrigation ratio (%). If the value of this indicator is 0.85, what does it mean? It is worth for every reader to know what a given number means, in this case 0.85.
In the Discussion chapter, I expected the Authors to confront the results of their research with the results of other research studies, because this is the idea behind the discussion. Meanwhile, Chapter 4 discusses only the results of the author's own research.
In the title of Table 1, it would be worth adding for which time period the mean and standard deviation were determined.
I think some of the data in Table 1 could be presented more precisely. For example, I do not understand the notation "Total power of agricultural machinery (10,000 kW)" while meanwhile the mean and standard deviation are 2815 and 2722. How do you compare 10,000 kW to the figures quoted representing the mean and standard deviation. Do these quantities need to be multiplied to obtain value for the entire machine park of farms? I think a more valuable indicator for discussion would be to give the power of agricultural equipment in kW / ha in this case. In addition, it would be worthwhile to interpret the concept of "Total power of agricultural machinery" carefully. Tractors and self-propelled agricultural machines (equipped with an internal combustion engine) have power (of the engine). The other machines, on the other hand, require power to drive, which is not the same as the power of agricultural machines.
In Figure 1, it would be useful to specify the name of the variable under consideration on the axis of ordinates (Y). This name (the area where cereals were sown) was given in the caption to the Figure, but in my opinion it is not sufficient. I have a similar remark to Figure 2. In this case, in the caption of Figure 2, the Authors mentioned climatic productivity potential of grain crops, but nowhere did they write in what units this indicator / parameter is expressed. In my opinion, this needs to be completed.
Perhaps in the case of Table 4, it would be worth specifying what the symbols (1) and (2) in the header mean. Certainly, those who know a given topic will know what it is about, but not all readers need to know it.
If the authors included 31 provinces in their research, it might be worth mentioning the names of these provinces, for example in the Materials and Methods chapter.
In Chapter 5 (Conclusions), the authors begin the first paragraph with a sentence with the acronym PSEM (line: 569). This acronym doesn't appear anywhere else (before) in the article so I don't know what the acronym PSEM stands for at all.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments. We have made modifications point-by-point .Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
all recommnedations and suggestions have been considered.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
