Spatial Pattern and Influencing Factors of Rural Settlements in Qinba Mountains, Shaanxi Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I accept corrections.
Author Response
Thank you for your time and effort handling the review process of our revised paper.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript presents a study of the spatial pattern and the factors influencing rural settlements in Qinba Mountains, Shaanxi Province, China.
The following considerations must be taken into account:
- Concerning the different spatial analysis operations established, including fishnet analysis, you should not specify in your text the GIS software used, it is important to note that these operations can be established with many commercial GIS software (as ArcGIS, Mapinfo and others) as with other free software (as QGIS for example).
- The sum of Q values presented in table 2 must be equal to 1, it is not the case!
- It is not clear how authors used the influence of the different factors in the study of spatial distribution.
- The discussion part is really poor, it is more descriptive than analytic.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your kind suggestions and your careful and patient correction.
We have made corresponding replies and modifications based on your suggestions, please check them in the attachment.
Kind regards,
All authors.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I see that the authors have modified and improved the text according to most of my recommendations sent in the first revision. As a reviewer of this article, I end up accepting it in this second version.
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.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
I am glad to review your interesting and valuable investigations. The research is original and topical and might be of interest to a broad audience. Several suggestions from the reviewer’s point of view might be helpful to improve the quality of the article.
- The introductory part of the article might be improved by giving a more systematized summary of the implemented research. Sometimes too many details are explored instead of explaining the meaning of these in a broader context.
- More clarity should be added when describing the research design, questions, and methods. The purpose and interconnection between the multiple used methods are insufficiently explained. Therefore, the loops between the different methods, applied to different intermediate findings of the article, when reaching the overall aim, remain unclear.
- The arguments and discussion of findings are coherent, however, they are insufficiently balanced and sometimes compelling. The authors should necessarily review the given arguments, referencing, citing, and quoting throughout the whole article since there are multiple errors in the text, starting from the abstract and further.
- The results are presented, however, there are too many details described regarding the done calculations and too little focus on the meaning behind the calculations is evident. More structurization and systematization, and more focus on the main aim of the article would add to the value of the article in terms of clarity of the indepth meaning of done calculations.
- The conclusions are presented, however, they are limitedly supported by the results presented in the article. Conclusions are not referenced in secondary literature, since the authors present a discussion part of sufficient depth and references to the literature.
- There are a lot of technical errors in organizing the text and sentences. This should be thoroughly reviewed by the authors.
I hope that my suggestions will help to improve the quality of the article.
Author Response
The authors greatly appreciate the reviewer’s encouragement and suggestions. This memo documents our responses to all review comments. Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript. The appropriate changes have been made to the manuscript. We hope to meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked red in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
comment is attached
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
The authors greatly appreciate the reviewer’s encouragement and suggestions. This memo documents our responses to all review comments. Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript. The appropriate changes have been made to the manuscript. We hope to meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked red in the manuscript
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Please find attached the detailed comments and suggestions.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
The authors greatly appreciate the reviewer’s encouragement and suggestions. This memo documents our responses to all review comments. Those comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript. The appropriate changes have been made to the manuscript. We hope to meet with your approval. Revised portions are marked red in the manuscript
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
I would like to thank you for thoroughly responding my suggestion to improve the manuscript. You did a great job, and the manuscript is currently of sufficient quality. I am sure it will be of interest to a broad audience.
Wishing you all the best in future research!
The reviewer
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you very much for your advice and affirmation.
Best Regards
Chen Sen
Reviewer 3 Report
I appreciate the authors' effort to incorporate the required comments. The quality of the submitted manuscript has increased. Unfortunately, there are still some queries about the methodology, and the content itself would require enrichment in terms of its scientific value. Details have been attached.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer，
We really appericate your kind suggestion and comments. Now we have tried our best to answer your comments. So please check the attached file.
Hopefully you will be satisfy from my answer of comments.
Best Regards
Chen Sen
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
I appreciate your effort to incorporate the required comments and answer my queries. Unfortunately, I have not been convinced that the proper methods have been implemented to identify settlements in Qinba Mountains Shaanxi Province China.
I explain the reasons in the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer，
We really appericate your kind suggestion and comments. Now we have tried our best to answer your comments. So please check the attached file.
Hopefully you will be satisfy from my answer of comments.
Best Regards
Chen Sen
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
