Urban Green Space Pattern in Core Cities of the Greater Bay Area Based on Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. I suggest the authors revise the introduction of the study per the comments raised. Authors can also use the following points below as a guideline to help them come out with an interesting introduction that is more scientific.
   • Background & Significance: (What general background does the reader need in order to understand the manuscript and how important is it in the context of scientific research).
   • Problem definition: (What are the research questions to fill in the gaps of the existing knowledge body or methodology).
   • Motivations & Objectives: (Why are you conducting the study and what are the goals to achieve?)

2. Kindly add a Literature review section to this manuscript and further improve this section by enriching the discussion with some sound theoretical explanations for underlying relations between variables.

3. The conclusions of the study should be improved, where it is necessary to suggest real policy recommendations and constructive solutions for the possible problems which were found.
4. Policy implications are not strongly related to the research findings, so it needs to be improved.
5. Include limitations and further research.
6. Revised all manuscripts according to the "author guideline of sustainability journal".
7. English writing needs to be improved, for example, many typos in the manuscript.
8.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Initially, I would like to congratulate the authors for the excellent work submitted to the journal. The importance of discussing the discussed topic is of unique relevance to environmental science as a whole. However, the work is lacking in some aspects, which end up weakening it too much.

·        Item 2.1 lacks bibliographic references. Much information regarding the geography of the study area is official information, and sources need to be cited. If data collections are carried out with fieldwork, it must also be informed.

·        Insert photos that characterize the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Macao before the location map, within Item 2.1 so that the reader can already be conducted in the environment in which the research was carried out.

·        The maps in Figure 03 need to be enlarged so that the reader can see more clearly the classes of land use and occupation and landscape.

·        The discussion item needs to be expanded with more authors. There are only two. The work of Soille, Vogt (2009) certainly generated many other researches around the world, with the application of the methodology proposed by them and used by the authors in this manuscript. It would be interesting to observe and discuss what other authors around the world found when applying this method (MSPA) in locations other than Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Proofreading by a native English speaker should be conducted to improve both language and organization quality. 

Abstract:

The abstract is needed to be revised entirely. In the revised version, please highlight the importance of the work first and then clearly explain the aims, methods, findings and contributions.

Line 9: why you refer to ecological security?

1-       Introduction:

Line 28: did you study impermeable surfaces in this paper?

Line 30: this sentence is unclear

Line 35-36: your statement needs references

Line 37: you mentioned most studies but cited only one paper.

Line 39: this percentage is not applicable for all case studies; please rewrite this sentence.

Line 41: it is better to use the term Ecosystem services, not ecological services. Also, be aware that the fragmented patches also provide services but less than the none fragmented patches, so the fragmentation is not necessarily making it impossible to achieve 42 ecological benefits but hinders or diminishes.

Line 43: Please do not use the statement of one paper as a general and proven claim; some statements in the documents are only correct for that study. So I recommend rewriting all the statements in the introduction carefully.

Line 46: breezeway is usually used for an architectural feature; please use another appropriate term.

The overall comments for the introduction:

It is recommended to revise the introduction entirely and include the literature which are relative to the aim of the study and exclude the general topics.

It would be best if you focused on the works which include this issue and compared your work with them.

The implication and necessity of the study were not presented well. The innovation of the work is unclear.

The author should revise the introduction and make it clearer; otherwise, it's not easy to follow up on the manuscript.

The introduction does not provide details on why it is essential to analyze the spatial pattern of UGS using MSPA?

2-       Materials and Methods

Please cite the references you used to explain your case studies.

Fig 1: Put geographic coordinates (in degrees!) around each map, scale bar for all maps. Also, please provide the source and also accuracy of the maps.

Line 98: surface cover types; do you mean land cover?

Interpreting; please use the correct term

Line 101:why did you select 23 February 2021?

Line 104: stitching; please use the standard RS terms

Section 2.2. this section should be rewritten by providing the details and standard methodology; otherwise, it's not unclear to follow up,

Also, it is better to use "land use and land cover" instead of l" and use".

Table 1: please use the standard classification system to classify your land use types.

Line 116: are you sure about erosion?

Table 2: Please provide the references

 

The overall comments for the Materials and Methods:

The methodology should be rewritten by providing the details and standard methodology; otherwise, it's not unclear to follow-up,

3-       Results

Line 149: land use and land cover (LULC)

According to the land use cover: according to the obtained LULC

Line 150: a hilly and mountainous area: did you recognize it from the extracted map and how?

Please provide the extracted LULC maps for the case studies.

Line 159 to 166: Are these statement results of your work if not, why do you present them in the result section?

The results shod be presented in a way that the readers could follow.

Discussion and conclusion:

 It is recommended to provide the broader relevance of what you did getting blurred (even though I saw paragraphs on this in the discussion). I would prefer to have a much bolder statement of the need for this study, and then - towards the end - a confirmation that, indeed, this provides some input into ongoing debates. Why analyze the morphological spatial pattern in this context? Which metrics is the most relevant and important and why? What is or are the contribution(s)?

I hope my comments help the authors improve the paper's quality.

With the best wishes,

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Accept, Good luck 

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript and the comments, which greatly helped us to improve the manuscript. 

With the best wishes,
Sincerely Yours,
Zixuan Lian
September 18, 2022

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors carried out the requested revisions. The quality of the manuscript is excellent and I recommend its publication. Congratulations to the authors.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript and the comments, which greatly helped us to improve the manuscript. 

With the best wishes,
Sincerely Yours,
Zixuan Lian
September 18, 2022

Reviewer 3 Report

Hi

Thanks a lot for the revision; now, the manuscript looks good.

I only have a few minor comments:

Please use one of the UGSs or UGS in the whole text

Line 11:

 The Greater Bay Area (GBA) in China is one of the four major bay 11 areas in the world.

Add the country

Line 38: again, the ecological services are used in the text. Please replace it with ecosystem services.

 

Fig 1: I think there is no need to present these photos. But maybe it is because of the comment of the other reviewer.

Bests,

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf