Analysis of Spatial Differences and the Influencing Factors in Eco-Efficiency of Urban Agglomerations in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

I have no more comments.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

Thank you for you letter and for the reviewers’ comments our manuscript entitled”Analysis of Spatial Differences in Eco-efficiency of Urban Agglomerations in China and the Influencing Factors”(sustainability-1851647).The comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper.We have studied commens carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.The main corrections in the paper and the reponds to the reviewers’s comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors attempted to analyze the Eco-efficiency in several urban agglomerations. This topic is somewhat important, but I don't think one indicator is enough to show the differences and support suggestions. Furthermore, the "main" findings of this paper is quite common, lack of connection with the results. The poor English also makes the paper difficult to follow. So the current manuscript is far from been considered for publication. Several comments and suggestions are listed below to help improve the paper:

1. Introduction: Lack of citations. Many sentences didn't have a proper citation.

2. The first paragraph doesn't make sense because its not strongly related to your topic.

3. At the end of Introduction, there is no need to show your structure. Instead, your main purpose should be mentioned.

4. It is not a review paper, please insert the literature review into introduction chapter.

5. The review is meaningless without any practical examples.

6. Line 117-120: "As for measuring ..." This is not true. Currently, many machine learning algorithms have been applied to such studies.

7. I didn't see any data description in Chapter 3 "Data and Methodology"

8. You have placed several equations in the work, I am sure you did not derive them rather borrowed from the literature. Hence it is better not to make readers fool, instead just refer to the original texts first time developed these equations. 

9. The quality of all the maps are very low. Better to have a professional geographer to revised all the maps.

10. Results: This chapter is very difficult to follow. The authors just simply listed all the results, without guiding the readers what are the important things. In addition, the figures and tables are not clear to show the main findings.

11. Where is the "Discussion" chapter?

12. Many "conclusions" are quite subjective. The authors should know the conclusions are based on your results, not your suppose.

13. Proofreading is needed.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

Thank you for you letter and for the reviewers’ comments our manuscript entitled”Analysis of Spatial Differences in Eco-efficiency of Urban Agglomerations in China and the Influencing Factors”(sustainability-1851647).The comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper.We have studied commens carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.The main corrections in the paper and the reponds to the reviewers’s comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall comment

This study aims to clarify the spatial differences and driving factors of eco-efficiency among five major urban agglormerations in China from 2006 to 2018. The topic is interesting and the findings seems constructive to the ecological civilization construction in China. Please kindly find below for my comments.

 

Detailed comments:

1.     The language of the paper needs further polishment.

2.     Some citation is not placed in proper location or with proper format, e.g., line 81 (citation [8]; line 143 [31]). Please check through the paper and make sure all citations are placed properly with correct format.

3.     Section 2 Literature Review. The research significance of the study needs to be better presented or highlighted.

4.     Figure 1. The visualization of the figure needs to be improved. The current structure is too compact. Some city names are unclear.

5.     Figure 2, Figure 3. The current figure is too small. The details are hardly seen clearly.

6.     As claimed in the literature review, if one major contribution of this paper is focused with the methodological improvement in quantifying the EE of urban agglormerations, then the following questions should be tested/answered: 1) How much accuracy in terms of the EE measurement results have been improved? 2) Is the method transferable to other cases outside China?

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

Thank you for you letter and for the reviewers’ comments our manuscript entitled”Analysis of Spatial Differences in Eco-efficiency of Urban Agglomerations in China and the Influencing Factors”(sustainability-1851647).The comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper.We have studied commens carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval.The main corrections in the paper and the reponds to the reviewers’s comments 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to thank the authors for the tremendous modifications in this round. However, the current manuscript still has several key problems.

1. The introduction part still lacks of suitable citations. Approximately more than 70% of the sentences don't have a citation. This is not standard.

2. The introduction part is still not very related to your own study. It is telling the developing history of China, which is quite political and not scientific.

3. There is only one reference in the discussion part, which make all the claims vague and weak.

4. The Conclusion part is not like a "Conclusion". Main findings are not clearly shown. We can even see citations in this chapter, which is very strange. Besides, the suggestions in this chapter are vague and subjective. For e.x., the authors stated that "The key to promoting the coordinated development of the five major urban agglomerations lies in reducing the inter-group variation of urban agglomerations." This is correct, but how to reduce? Such suggestions are meaningless because they are not practical. More specific suggestions are needed.

5. The English language still needs plenty of modification. The proofreading is still not enough.

Indeed, most of my suggestions in the 1st round have not been suitably revised. Therefore, I cannot recommend this article for publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

I accept the revisions made by the authors and have no more comments.