Research on Ecosystem Security and Restoration Pattern of Urban Agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
The paper is the re-written version of the article I have revised before.
The authors have extended the ‘Introduction’ section and have re-written the part of the ‘Results’ section.
Some of my previous suggestions, however, have not been addressed.
Abbreviations are not explained when they appear in the text for the first time.
There are a lot of grammar and syntax errors and many phrases are so misstructured that especially ‘Results’ section is hard to understand (especially 291-344).
The aim of the study is still merged into the ‘Introduction’.
In the ‘Results’ section the authors do not provide information on whether the observed differences are significant and if so, with what p value.
Still Figure 4, Figure 6 and 7 are not self-explanatory.
It is still unclear to whom the section ‘Providing restoration measures’ is addressed, because it is neither a project nor general guidelines.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on Ecosystem Security and Restoration Pattern of Urban Agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin” (Manuscript Number: sustainability-1903981).
Thank you very much for your valuable and useful suggestions. According to the comments of the reviewers, on the basis of relevant references, we have revised our manuscript carefully. And the revised parts are marked in red.
Best regards,
Mrs. Huiyuan Wang
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
The manuscript provides a useful and effective model and method for identifying the ecosystem security pattern of the Lanxi urban agglomeration. This paper has an interesting topic. However, the authors need to improve the manuscript before it could be considered for publication. Below are some comments and suggestions:
1. The abstract and conclusion of the paper need to be carefully sorted out and rewritten.
2. The symbols used in the column diagram cannot give an explicit description to distinguish the units they represent, which can be seen in Figures. 4 and 7, and maybe it is better to use more distinguished colors. And the formats of references should be carefully revised.
3. The contents of line100 and 122 are repeated in the paper so that it may be better to combine the contents of the two.
4.The labels in Figure 5 are not so visible that provide clear illustrations, and they must be depicted explicitly.
5. The complete tables must be provided for all abbreviations in order to make the paper more readable. It suggests that the whole content should be amended and revised.
Author Response
尊敬的审稿人：
感谢您对我们题为“黄河流域城市群生态系统安全与恢复模式研究”的稿件提出意见（稿件编号：sustainability-1903981）。
非常感谢您提出宝贵而有用的建议。根据审稿人的意见，在相关参考文献的基础上，我们对稿件进行了仔细的修改。并且修改后的部分用红色标注。
此致，
王慧媛女士
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
I think this is a good job. The topic and research work are very interesting. The paper can be accepted for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers:
Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Research on Ecosystem Security and Restoration Pattern of Urban Agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin” (Manuscript Number: sustainability-1903981).
Best regards,
Mrs. Huiyuan Wang
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
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
Please read my comments in a separated file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript titled “Research on Ecosystem Security and Restoration Pattern of Urban Agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin” by Huiyuan et. al. provides interesting insights regarding ecological corridors, ecological nodes, identifying the ecosystem and security pattern of the urban agglomeration in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. The work is quite interesting and could be of interest to a wide group of readers. However, I see some points that need improvement in the manuscript, before being published. Therefore, I suggest some major revisions be done in addition to some minor comments.
Authors have used "," instead of a full stop (.) in a lot of sentences and at different places which is very confusing as it efects the sentence structure.
Line 4: Is there a missing author name at the end of the authors list on page 1? There is something wrong with the author list.
Authors did not referred “Figure 2 and 11” in the main text. All figures and tables should be first referred to in the text and then appear as close as possible to their first mention, generally after the paragraph where they are cited or on the following page.
Figure 2: Write legend title in English language.
Line 30: Write crisis or write problem. Don't use both words.
Line 79: Rephrase
It is better to write the date range or exact date of data sets used in this study. For example: NDVI data from year 2000 to 2005 was used to conduct this study.
Summarizing the data used in a table would be great.
Line 206: Remove comma and add a full stop.
Line 206-216: Line 206 - to 216 are very confusing. "," is used instead of full stop due to which it is difficult to understand this part.
Line 220: Listed in table 3, in Lanxi.
Line 244: geographical location, overall.
Line 245: remove "," and add full stop.
Line 448: Discussion section is too short, lacks the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible.
Line 462: Conclusion is a mix of several things. Don’t simply repeat things that were in your paper. Instead, show your reader how the points you made and the support and examples you used fit together. Try to rewrite and improve this section.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper presents the meticulous study of one urban agglomeration in the Yellow River basin based on data obtained from international and local Chinese data-bases.
The title is promising, yet the content of the paper needs reconsidering and re-writing.
There are a lot of grammar and syntax errors and many phrases are so misstructured that especially ‘Results’ section is hard to understand.
The paper also lacks the correct structure – there is neither aim of the study nor conclusion.
In the present form it does not yet fulfill the publication criteria for the scientific journal.
I attach below some suggestions which may help to improve the paper.
58-59 EN – does it stands for ecological network? The abbreviations should be explained when they appear in text for the first time.
69 MSPA - The abbreviations should be explained when they appear in text for the firs time.
78-87 – Is this the ‘Aim of the study’? If so, it is not formulated clearly enough.
116-118 Land cover types definitions are missing.
‘Methods’ section
Placing the calculation formulas description within the main text makes it hard to read.
Table 2
DEM - The abbreviations should be explained when they appear in text for the firs time.
Arable land and cultivated land have the same definition?
Figure 2 Part of the figure caption has not been translated from Chinese into English.
200-216 Are these differences statistically significant, with what p – value?
219-225 It is not explained how were these data obtained.
230-232 Patch category definition rather belongs to ‘Method’ section.
237-242 Are these differences statistically significant, with what p – value?
Figure 4 is illegible and not self-explanatory.
254-296 The lack of correct phrase structure makes this fragment difficult to understand.
Figure 6 and 7 are not self-explanatory.
306-307 Figure 6 contains types of land use, not ecological resistance.
308-315 Are these differences statistically significant, with what p – value?
339-343 This fragment belongs rather to ‘Discussion’.
360-361 This fragment belongs rather to ‘Discussion’.
380-390 This fragment belongs rather to ‘Methods’.
401-406 These definitions have not been mentioned in ‘Methods’.
423-447 These are not ‘Results’. This fragment forms rather general guidelines, but I don’t know for whom – landscape architects, engineers, local authorities?
449-461 There is no discussion on the authors’ results against previously published studies, especially international and no results interpretation.
463-489 These are results re-written in the more clear way.
486 ‘after restoration’ - as far as the restoration has not been performed but only planned it should be rather called ‘restoration proposition’.
