Regional Social Relationships Evaluation Using the AHP and Entropy Weight Method: A Case Study of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I think that it is a very good paper. The topic addresses is relevant. It is well written.

I have some minors observations:

• Why the author combines a qualitative and a qualitative tool?. I suggest including a short discussion about it.
• Regarding the use of AHP, I would like to know:

What were the questions made to fill in the comparison matrices? It should be of the type: how much more important is factor x than factor y in relation to factor z?

Who were the experts that were interviewed for completing the comparison matrices?

I assume that more than one expert was interviewed.  How the responses were aggregated?. By consensus?. Using the geometric means of individual responses?. Please, explain the process and justify it.

• In equations (5) to (7) the index i (i=1,…, n) refers to a sample. What is the meaning of a sample in this case? A city?. Please, clarify.
• The objective weights and the subjective weights are quite different, in some cases (see Table 3). Could you please make a comment on this?. Why are they combined by using just the simple average?.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Despite the quantitative contribution, this paper needs significant improvements:

There are few references from literature. Add a section for literature review and make a better connection between Sustainability and the topic of your paper. 

Highlight advantages and limitations of the methodology. 

Could you Indicate alternative methods? Could make robustness analysis?

Add more comments to results. 

Compare your results with previous studies from literature. 

Highlight better your contribution in this field. What is the gap from literature that is better covered?

Indicate limitations of your study.

Present future directions of research. 

What are the implications of your research in terms of economic and social policies or other types of policies?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Although the methodological section could be considered, in general, correct, there are several doubts that should be addressed. There is talk of social relationships, but the proposed index is basically a measure of material well-being. This generates an important doubt about the paper and must be corrected appropriately.

The introduction is very short and the bibliography consulted is not very abundant. This part of the paper should be expanded in order to better argue that what is being measured is regional social relationships and not the material well-being of local societies.

It would also be good to argue why this region of China is analyzed and not another, or the entire national territory, especially considering that the data sources would cover all of China.

Finally, the conclusions are brief and are only a summary of the main results. It is necessary to expose in more detail the implications of the results, the proposals for future studies and the limitations of this paper.

Without addressing these points, I consider that the document is incoherent and does not provide what it should.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Accept in this form

Reviewer 3 Report

The requested changes and clarifications have been made.