Ecological Assessment Based on Remote Sensing Ecological Index: A Case Study of the “Three-Lake” Basin in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I think the ideal of developing the ecological assessment based on remote sensing ecological index in the “three-lake” basin of Yuxi City is interesting and necessary. However, the authors need to do much more to improve the paper and make a good scientific story. Kindly, see below for detailed comments:
1 In the abstract, the meaning of RSEI should be further described. The results show that the RSEI in the study area increased first and then decreased during the 20 years. Please further described; The ecological quality score of the study area is mainly distributed between 0.2–0.8. What does 0.2-0.8 represent?
2 Keywords, ‘principal component analysis and ‘Yuxi City’ are not inappropriate here.
3 Introduction, in 2015, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China put forward a clear set of indicator selection and calculation methods in the Technical Specification for the Evaluation of Ecological Environment Status, but those indicators are difficult to obtain, the weights assigned to the indicators are subjective, and the rationality is subject to discussion.
I think this assertion is incorrect. As far as I know, this system is a relatively complete ecological quality assessment index system, which can be reasonably adjusted according to the ecological characteristics of various places.
4 Introduction, the last paragraph is proposed to be placed in the overview of the study area. Here, the author should introduce the urbanization process, urbanization hazards, and ecological changes of Yuxi City, and most importantly, what are the problems faced by ecological management.
5 Materials and Methods, the remote sensing ecological index at a 30-m resolution was calculated for each year, which RSEI?
6 Figure 2, no scale bar, no description, and what year is the land used here.
7 2.3.2, Construction of the remote sensing ecological index, humidity, greenness, dryness, and heat, which the positive and negative effects of ecological quality are different. Please describe how to handle it by PCA. Most importantly, do your indicators reflect the ecological characteristics of the “three-lake” basin?
8 Figure 3, which the years?
9 3.2. Temporal and spatial changes of ecological quality, the first paragraph can be placed on research methods.
10 where 0≤RSEI<0.2 means poor ecological quality (â… ), 0.2≤RSEI<0.4 means fair ecological quality (â…¡), 0.4≤RSEI<0.6 means medium ecological quality (â…¢), 0.6≤RSEI<0.8 means good ecological quality (â…£), and 0.8≤RSEI≤1 means excellent ecological quality (â…¤).
What is your basis? The classification standard should be determined according to the actual ecological space.
11 Figure 5, Delete (a). Figure 7, Add a description.
12 I strongly suggest the author consider having a round of language checking and try to avoid long, complicated sentences to make this manuscript more readable.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your letter and suggestions. We have revised the article based on the reviewers' comments, and the revisions are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript.Please see the attachment.
With best wishes.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
1. Recommendation:
Accept after Minor Revision
2. Overview and general recommendation:
The manuscript by Sun et al. presents a case study of the Ecological assessment based on remote sensing ecological index around the “three-lake” basin in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, China. The current topic is of interest, especially presenting a scientific monitoring and evaluation of ecological quality for achieving social and economic sustainability. In general, the document is carefully organized, the introduction, materials and applied methodology are well presented, the manuscript is well written with good English language and style, and the references are appropriated. The results and their management are convincing, and the figures support the results and discussion properly. The decision of this review is that this manuscript can be accepted for publication after revising some wording of a few sentences. The minor comments were listed as follows, please address these following minor comments.
3. Minor comments:
(1) Page 1 Abstract: Decimal places for percentages should be rounded to 1 decimal place (for example: 87.9631% should be 88.0%). Similarly, the decimal places of the numerical value in the whole text should be reasonably kept to a limited number of digits (for example: R2 0.994 should be 0.99).
(2) Page 1 Abstract: “R2” should be “R2”.
(3) Page 3: “3.1 Study Area” should be “2.1 Study Area”.
(4) Page5: “B(TS)” should be “B(TS)”
(5) Page 5: “Ld is the atmospheric upward radiation, Lu is the atmospheric downward radiation” is confuse, should it be “Ld is the atmospheric downward radiation, Lup is the atmospheric upward radiation”? Also, “Lu” should be “Lup”.
(6) Page 5: “RSEI0” should be “RSEI0”.
(7) Page 6: “Sen+MK trend analysis.Linear regression is a classical method” is not a complete sentence, please revise into “Sen+MK trend analysis: Linear regression is a classical method”. The following paragraphs are also need to be modified in a same way.
(8) Page 6 section 3.1: Please pay attention to the decimal places of the numerical value and revise them.
(9) Page 6 section 3.1:” the area seeing a slight decrease of NDVI” is better to be revised as “the area with slightly decreasing NDVI”.
(10) Pay attention to the superscript in the unit and the superscript in the special symbol in the whole text, and revise them.
(11) Page 7-8: It’s better to place the name of Table4 in the same page of its table.
(12) Page 10: “and half of the regions with poor ecological quality are transferred to regions with poor ecological quality” should be “and half of the regions with poor ecological quality are transferred to regions with better ecological quality”?
(13) Page 13: “In the present work” should be “In this study”.
(14) Figure 9: the legend of the red dot should be “sample” rather than “RSEI”.
(15) The format of the first reference needs to be revise, “;” need to be used instead of “,” according to all other references in this article.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your letter and suggestions. We have revised the article based on the reviewers' comments, and the revisions are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript.Please see the attachment.
With best wishes.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I have gone through the article entitled “Ecological assessment based on remote sensing ecological index: a case study of the “three-lake” basin in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, China”---- Minor Revision.
General Comments for the Authors
*Please proofread the manuscript before submitting to avoid any unexpected typos or grammatical errors
*Please be consistent with using the sub/super scripts in the manuscript
*Abbreviations in the manuscript should be expanded at first mention, use them consistently thereafter.
*Please check the references list and include any missing information such as edition numbers and editors on books.
Specific comments
- Revise the abstract and introduction part, these parts lacking in maintaining scientific flow, also include recent references which is similar to your work. Also, write the knowledge gap and significance of your work.
- The objectives of the research are not clear. Overall, your abstract and introduction section may be more meaningful if you incorporate these changes.
- Conclusion part should be revised and highlight the major finding with significant recommendations.
Thank you for the suggesting me as a Reviewer.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your letter and suggestions. We have revised the article based on the reviewers' comments, and the revisions are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript.Please see the attachment.
With best wishes.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author answered many of my questions in the revised manuscript, and the revised manuscript has been improved compared to the previous version. The manuscript meets the standard for publication in Sustainability.
