Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper deals with a challenging topic. The general structure of the paper is easy to follow, the different chapters are well balanced in contents and length. This being said, I have however some minor remarks regarding the paper in its present form.

1. Introduction

You do not describe how the paper is structured. I suggest adding a paragraph at the end of the section.

2.2. Conceptual framework

Why do you decide to analyse these five ecosystem services? I suggest adding a short paragraph where you explain your choices.

6 Conclusion

What are limitations and advantages of the methodological approach you use? Is this methodological approach exportable in other contexts?

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand Measurement of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China” (ID: 2319408).Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope to meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Comment 1: Introduction - You do not describe how the paper is structured. I suggest adding a paragraph at the end of the section.

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for the manuscript. Actually, we have described the manuscript’s structure at the end of the 3^rd paragraph. Now we accepted the suggestion and make it more clearly. The modification is listed below:

   The Kaidu-Kongque River Basin is a complex ecosystem with a diverse range of physical features, including mountains, grasslands, rivers, oases, lakes, wetlands, and deserts. In recent decades, the transformation of land cover changes, such as the conver-sion of deserts into oases, has have driven the socio-economic development in the dryland basin. However, these changes have also led to ecological problems, such as grassland degradation and soil erosion. To address these issues, various ecological conservation policies have been implemented, such as mountain closure to grazing and the return of grazing to grass[25]. Nevertheless, reconciling the promotion of ecological conservation with the maintenance of the balance between ecosystem service supply and demand re-mains a significant challenge.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the supply and demand of ecosystem services in the Kaidu-Kongque river basin. Five ecological services, namely food supply, water yield, carbon sequestration, habitat quality, and windbreak and sand fixation, were chosen to illustrate the spatial matching relationships, so as to provide a scientific basis and theoretical support for the payment for ecosystem services (PES) and ecological compensation. The specific objectives of this study are three-fold: (1) to assess the spatial distribution of ecosystem service supply and demand, (2) to evaluate the relationship between ecosystem service supply and demand matching, and (3) to provide the corresponding measures for the maintenance of the ecosystem services.

Comment 2: Why do you decide to analyse these five ecosystem services? I suggest adding a short paragraph where you explain your choices.

Response: Thanks much for the suggestions. The selected five ecosystem services have been used widely used in the supply and demand matching of ecosystem services in arid regions. As the ecosystem services in the study area include water yield, food supply, and habitat quality for the increasing population and economy. We have modified the introduction study area in Section 2.1, and add a paragraph in Section 2.2 to explain the choice, as shown below,

2.1. Study area

The Kaidu-Kongque river basin is a primary tributary of the Tarim river basin, which situates between 82°57'E–90°39'E and 40°25'N–43°21'N. The basin spans an area of 9.37×104km2 and is characterized by a diverse arid ecosystem comprising glaciers, forests, grasslands, rivers, wetlands, lakes, farmlands, and deserts. The altitude in the basin varies from 643 to 4817m and the terrain descends from northwest to southeast. The upstream mountainous region is the primary source of water, with significant water consumption in the oasis of the middle stream. In contrast, the downstream region is surrounded by deserts in a delicate ecological environment with limited water resources. The upstream mountainous region is the primary water yield area, and the midstream oasis is the main water consumption area, while the downstream riparian desert usually faces with water shortage. The basin study area experiences has a temperate continental climate, with significant vertical zonality of precipitation. The rainy season is from May to September, and the average annual precipitation is 155.6 m, and the annual potential evaporation is 2038.7mm, and the drought index ranges from 2.5 to 41.8 [26].

2.2. Conceptual framework

The Kaidu-Kongque river basin had experienced server ecological degradation in re-cent years[26]. The problems of water scarcity, uneven water distribution and excessive utilization lead to the supply-demand contradiction of water resource, and the increasing agricultural yields and urbanization did not match with the low habitat quality and aggravating desertification. In arid regions, water resource is essential for almost all ecosystems, and Therefore, five essential ecosystem services, including food supply, water yield, carbon sequestration, habitat quality, windbreak and sand fixation, were selected to analyze their supply and demand, as well as their spatial relationships and trade-offs. The spatial and temporal interplay between the supply and demand of ecosystem services is expressed through quantitative and spatial relations [27]. Specifically, surplus, balance, and deficit represent the quantitative relations, while matching, aggregation, and spatial coupling coordination represent the spatial relations, as shown in Figure 2. Moreover, spider diagrams and spatial autocorrelation models were also employed to explore the spatial correlations between the supply and demand services, and the supply-demand mismatch in different geographical regions was also analyzed to reveal the inequality between the provision of ecosystem services and their social demands.

Comment 3: What are limitations and advantages of the methodological approach you use? Is this methodological approach exportable in other contexts?

Response: Thank you very much for your comments. We have add a paragraph at section 5.3 and a paragraph at the end of conclusion, which can be found as follows:

5.3 limitations and future directions,

In this paper, the ES supply and demand changes and their correlations were effec-tively incorporated into the ecological conservation and policymaking. However, this study has the following limitations. Firstly, some indicators for ES calculations, such as the GDP, population and nighttime light data were similar when representing human ac-tivities, while the ES calculation is influenced by multiple factors, such as eco-environmental and socio-economic factors, and they are good to accurately character-ize ES supply and demands. Secondly, the supply and demand of ecosystem services are dynamic processes that may change over time, while the study only calculated the ES supply and demand changes in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 due to data deficiency, and more detailed data with shorter time spans to accurately capture these changes. Thirdly, the ES supply and demand are different in regions with different social-ecological back-grounds, therefore, the impact factors and the relations between ES supply and demand changes will be also focused to analyze its mechanism in future study.

6. Conclusion

As one of …………..

………………………

In this study, the ES supply and demand changes and their correlations were effectively incorporated into the ecological conservation and policymaking. In order to gain a more thorough understanding, more social and ecological factors will be used for accurate ES calculations, and more detailed changes on temporal scales should be extended in the future.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article presents a case study on the demand and supply of ecosystem services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin. While the study has potential, there are several areas where revisions and clarifications are needed before reconsider the paper for publication:

1. The figures in the paper need improvement in terms of quality.

2. The language in the article is sometimes convoluted and could be revised to make it clearer and more direct.

3. When discussing research trends, it's important to refer to literature reviews or global studies, rather than case studies, as is done in the second paragraph.

4. The introduction should provide a better contextualization of what the supply and demand of ecosystem services represent for a locality and human well-being. It should also explain the methods of analysis used to study this topic.

5. The study's knowledge gaps need to be more thoroughly explored, emphasising the importance of analysing the supply and demand of ecosystem services for the study area. It's also important to identify what already exists locally or regionally in terms of ecosystem services.

6. The justification for studying only five ecosystem services needs to be clearer in the introduction.

7. What does "facilitated" mean in the first paragraph of the Data Collection section?

8. The spatial resolution of all data should be presented, and the use of resampling to 1km x 1km should be justified.

9. All elements of the formulas in Table 2 should be explained in the text. Additionally, it's important to explain how the formulas were validated for the study area.

10. The methodology for obtaining each value of ecosystem service supply and demand should be described step-by-step. A processing flowchart could aid understanding.

11. When using the LISA method, it's essential to reference Anselin's works, such as doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1995.tb00338.x.

12. The usage of the InVEST model is only mentioned in the Results section. It needs to be detailed in the Methodology section.

 

13. While the abstract suggests policy recommendations, little of this is seen in the discussion of the paper. The discussion section should include further definitions of policies that can be implemented based on the data on ecosystem service supply and demand. Additionally, it should mention other case studies that have succeeded following the same method used in this study.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand Measure-ment of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China” (ID: 2319408).Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Comment 1: The figures in the paper need improvement in terms of quality.

Response: Thanks for the suggestions and we have modified almost all the figures in the manuscript, so as to make them more clearly and easier to understand. And the modifications can be check in the modified manuscript.

Comment 2: The language in the article is sometimes convoluted and could be revised to make it clearer and more direct.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We have checked the manuscript carefully and invited professional professors revising the grammar errors and inspecting the manuscript quality, so as to make it more professional. And the revisions can be checked in the modified manuscript.

Comment 3: When discussing research trends, it's important to refer to literature reviews or global studies, rather than case studies, as is done in the second paragraph.

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for our manuscript.We have modified the literature reviews according to the suggestions, as can be found as follows:

Research on the supply and demand of ESs originated in the 1990s, focusing on the eco-logical carrying capacity and the monetary value of ESs[7-8]. Early studies aimed to define the concept of supply and demand and refine the research framework by examining the structure and function of ESs[9]. In Since 2000, scholars have focused on defining the concept of supply and demand for ecosystem services, expanding their research to quantify supply and de-mand[10-11], match them across different spatial and temporal spans[12-13], study trade-off and synergy relationships[14], and optimize patterns[15]. To analyze and evaluate the spa-tial and temporal characteristics and matching status of ecosystem services, many researchers have employed spatialized methods such as land use estimation, ecological process simulation, data spatial overlay analysis, expert empirical discrimination, InVEST model, and ARIES model, based on land cover and, statistical and monitoring in-situ data[16-17]. Numerous studies have focused on the supply and demand of ecosystem services by using various a variety of research methodologies and different perspectives, and these methods includes quantitative analysis of ES indicators, such as food supply[18], land cover information[19], the Ecosystem Services Pro-vision Index (ESPI) and Land Development Index (LDI) [20], non-commodity ES [21]. In order to identify the trade-offs and synergies between ES supply-demand changes, the urbanization impact [22] and land ecological consolidation [23] on the ES supply-demand budget were analyzed and evaluated. However, due to the data availability and method limitations, relatively few studies have explored supply and demand matching[24], particularly in underdeveloped areas with fragile ecosystems. Moreover, current studies often overlook the impacts of variability and diversity across different spatial scales on the balance between supply and demand of ecosystem services.

Comment 4: The introduction should provide a better contextualization of what the supply and demand of ecosystem services represent for a locality and human well-being. It should also explain the methods of analysis used to study this topic.

Response: Thank you very much for your comments. We have added in the introduction part that human well-being has always been closely related to ecosystem services [4], and exploring the relationship between supply and demand of ecosystem services. And the modification can be found in the first paragraph in Section 1.

Ecosystem services (ESs) are critical components of human survival, providing envi-ronmental conditions and utilities that sustain socio-economic systems [1-2]. The supply and demand of ecosystem services represent a delicate balance between natural ecosys-tems and human societies [3-4]. This dynamic process involves the flow of goods and ser-vices from ecosystems to socio-economic systems, and the spatial patterns of supply and demand have become a critical area of research in recent years [5-6]. Human well-being has always been closely related to ecosystem services[4], and it is of great significance to assess the interactions between the supply and demand of ESs for improving ecosystems and human well-beings. However, …

Comment 5: The study's knowledge gaps need to be more thoroughly explored, emphasising the importance of analysing the supply and demand of ecosystem services for the study area. It's also important to identify what already exists locally or regionally in terms of ecosystem services.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have emphasized the supply and demand of ES and identified the problems of local ES, and the modifications can be found in the last paragraph in Section 1.

The Kaidu-Kongque River Basin is a complex ecosystem with a diverse range of physical features, including mountains, grasslands, rivers, oases, lakes, wetlands, and deserts. In recent decades, the transformation of land cover changes, such as the conver-sion of deserts into oases, has have driven the socio-economic development in the dryland basin. However, these changes have also led to ecological problems, such as grassland degradation and soil erosion. To address these issues, various ecological conservation policies have been implemented, such as mountain closure to grazing and the return of grazing to grass [25]. Nevertheless, reconciling the promotion of ecological conservation with the maintenance of the balance between ecosystem service supply and demand re-mains a significant challenge.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the supply and de-mand of ecosystem services in the Kaidu-Kongque river basin. Five ecological services, namely food supply, water yield, carbon sequestration, habitat quality, and windbreak and sand fixation, were chosen to illustrate the spatial matching relationships,   so as to provide a scientific basis and theoretical support for the payment for ecosystem services (PES) and ecological compensation. The specific objectives of this study are threefold: (1) to assess the spatial distribution of ecosystem service supply and demand, (2) to evaluate the relationship between ecosystem service supply and demand matching, and (3) to provide the corresponding measures for the maintenance of the ecosystem services.

6. Comment 6: The justification for studying only five ecosystem services needs to be clearer in the introduction.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We have added the corresponding text in the first paragraph of Section 2.2, as can be found as follows:

The Kaidu-Kongque river basin had experienced server ecological degradation in recent years[26]. The problems of water scarcity, uneven water distribution and excessive utilization lead to the supply-demand contradiction of water resource, and the increasing agricultural yields and urbanization did not match with the low habitat quality and aggravating desertification. In arid regions, water resource is essential for almost all ecosystems, and Therefore, five essential ecosystem services, including food supply, water yield, carbon sequestration, habitat quality, windbreak and sand fixation, were selected to analyze their supply and demand, as well as their spatial relationships and trade-offs.

7. Comment 7: What does "facilitated" mean in the first paragraph of the Data Collection section?

Response: Thanks for the question. The "facilitated" in Section 2.3 was used by mistake. We have changed it with " combined".

8. Comment 8: The spatial resolution of all data should be presented, and the use of resampling to 1km x 1km should be justified.

Response: Many thanks to the reviewers for their constructive suggestions on our manuscript. The method in the manuscript is not an original innovation, and the InVEST model in this study is an existing mature method for ES calculations. The spatial resolution of 1 km × 1 km was chosen for the following reasons: first, the area of the study area is 9.73 × 104 km², which is relatively large, and the calculation would be very large if higher resolution data were used, and also by referring to other literature research, the current resolution chosen in this manuscript is to meet the accuracy requirements; secondly, it is limited by the resolution size of the data source, for example, the NDVI data in 2000, the original data collected in this manuscript has a resolution of 1km×1km, there are also evapotranspiration data, temperature data, soil type data, snow cover data, etc. Therefore, this manuscript unifies the raster data to 1km×1km.

9. Comment 9. All elements of the formulas in Table 2 should be explained in the text. Additionally, it's important to explain how the formulas were validated for the study area.

Response: According the reviewer’s suggestion, We have added the corresponding equations to explain in Table 2. Quantitative model of ES supply and demand.

Types of ES	Calculation method			reference
	Supply	Demand	The meaning of each parameter
Food	（1）	（2）	Where  is the yield of grain, meat, fruit and aquatic products allocated by i grid;  is the total grain output, meat, fruit and aquatic products output in the study area.  is the normalized vegetation index of grid i;  is the sum of NDVI values in the study area..  is the food requirement; is the per capita food demand; is the population size	[2,29]
Water yield	（3）	（4）	Where:  denotes the annual water supply service on the raster cell;  denotes the average annual evapotranspiration on the raster cell;  denotes the average annual precipitation on the raster cell.  is the total water demand;  is the amount of water used for agricultural irrigation;  is the industrial water consumption;  is water consumption for residential use;  is the ecological water consumption;  is water consumption for livestock.	[31-33]
Carbon sequestration	（5）	（6）	where  is total carbon stock (t·hm-2),  is aboveground biogenic carbon (t·hm-2),  is belowground biogenic carbon (t·hm-2),  is soil organic carbon (t·hm-2) and  is dead organic matter (t·hm-2). The carbon density data in the carbon pool table required for the model were mainly referred to relevant literature; E is energy consumption; GDP is gross domestic product; P is population size.	[33-34]
Habitat quality	（7/8）	（9）	Where  is the degree of habitat degradation, ranging from 0 to 1, with higher values representing higher degrees of habitat degradation;  is the threat factor;  is the number of grids corresponding to the threat factor r;  is the weight of the threat factor;  is the stress value of the threat factor; is the level of habitat protection;  is the sensitivity of habitat j to the threat factor r; is the influence of the threat factor r in grids y on grids x;  is the average degree of demand for habitat quality services;  is the degree of demand for biodiversity based on species POI data;  is the degree of environmental demand for human habitat based on population density;  is the degree of environmental demand for socio-economic development classified by the density of GDP distribution	[35-39]
Windbreak and sand fixation	（10）	（11）	where  is sand fixation (t·hm-2);  is the maximum sand transport capacity of potential wind (kg/m),  is the potential critical plot length (m), z denotes the calculated downwind distance (m), 50m was taken for this calculation; is the maximum sand transport capacity of the actual wind (kg/m), sr is the actual critical plot length (m).	[40-42]

10. Comment 10: The methodology for obtaining each value of ecosystem service supply and demand should be described step-by-step. A processing flowchart could aid understanding.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. As the methodology is not newly developed in this manuscript, and we just used the existing one, so we don’t want to emphasize the method description through long space. In order to save the space, we used table 2 to describe the basic information for ES types and their calculation methods, as can be found in Table 2.

11. Comment 11: When using the LISA method, it's essential to reference Anselin's works, such as doi.org/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1995.tb00338.x.

Response: According the reviewer’s suggestion, We have added the corresponding reference, which can be shown in references:

Anselin L. Local indicators of spatial association—LISA Geographical analysis, 1995, 27(2): 93-115.

12. Comment 12: The usage of the InVEST model is only mentioned in the Results section. It needs to be detailed in the Methodology section.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We have added relevant content in the 3.1. Quantitative simulation of the supply and demand of ecosystem services section of the manuscript

The Invest model（Integrate Valuation of Ecosystem Service and Trade-offs Tool）is a spatially visualized method and tool for assessing ecosystem services in a fine-grained and quantitative way, which integrates geo-information technology into ecosystem services research to optimize complex problems, focus on them, and solve them successfully. The model has been more widely used in ecosystem service assessment at home and abroad as a global general model

13. Comment 13: While the abstract suggests policy recommendations, little of this is seen in the discussion of the paper. The discussion section should include further definitions of policies that can be implemented based on the data on ecosystem service supply and demand. Additionally, it should mention other case studies that have succeeded following the same method used in this study.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, the policy recommendations can be found in section 5, but it is not easily readable. Therefore, we have separated Section 5 into 3 parts..  

5.2 Future outlook and policy recommendations.

In order to address the spatial mismatches of ES supplies and demands, many measures have been taken to improve the balance of supplies and demands. Specifically, water-saving irrigation technologies in arid areas should be promoted, and ecological water transfer projects can be utilized to alleviate water shortages. To address food mismatches, road networks are improved for the mobility of agricultural products in the middle and upper reaches. Furthermore, in order to improve the sand fixation balance between supply and demand, ecological conversation policies, such as afforestation, and Grain for Green, is necessary. These efforts will help to mitigate the mismatch between supply and demand and promote the sustainable management of ecosystem services.

The recent implementation of the "three zones and three lines" policy by the Chinese government is expected to address the spatial mismatches to some extent. In terms of windbreak and sand fixation services, our findings suggest that the demand for these services is concentrated in areas that coincide with supply areas, but the supply is still inadequate. Despite the fact that the northwest region is primarily covered with grassland, we observed a surge in demand for these services. This can be attributed to the rapid expansion of animal husbandry leading to grassland degradation and desertification, and the amplified impact of wind erosion due to locally strong winds [47]. As a result, the gap between supply and demand for this service is projected to widen between 1990 and 2020, as vegetation coverage in the northwestern part of the study area decreases and wind speeds generally increase throughout the region [41].

 

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have”

 

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The topic is interesting, but the current version needs to be optimized. I have some considerable concerns that would be worth addressing. I would like to give some suggestions as below.

1.      The water purification is also a key ecosystem service for watersheds? And it is closely linked to the food supply.

2.      Data collection: The time to assess the data site needs to be marked.

3.      Section 2 and 3 can be combined into “materials and methods”.

4.      The discussion should be divided into several points, which is easy for understanding.

5.      The limitations and future directions should be discussed in the discussion section.

6.      Please link all of your figures or tables to your discussion section.

7.      It is suggested to draw a space map in the discussion section and put forward suggestions on sustainable management.

8.      The evaluation results of ecosystem services were not verified.

9.      At present, it is relatively simple to only study the matching state of supply and demand of ecosystem services, and it is very valuable to explore ecological compensation or ecosystem service flow.

10.  The format of the references should be uniform, such as the journal name should be abbreviated or not abbreviated.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand Measure-ment of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China” (ID: 2319408).Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Comment 1: The water purification is also a key ecosystem service for watersheds? And it is closely linked to the food supply.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. Water purification is indeed a key ecosystem service for watersheds, and it is also linked to food supply. However, the water resource in this study is originated from the upstream alpine regions with no water pollutions, and precipitation and glacier melting water are the main water sources. So the water purification is not so important in the study and it was not included as an indicator.

Comment 2: Data collection: The time to assess the data site needs to be marked.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. Thanks to the reviewers' comments, all data in the manuscript study excluding altitude data are historical information for 1990/2000/2010/2020, which we have marked in the manuscript (Table 1. Data source and usage).for better understanding by readers.

3. Comment 3: Section 2 and 3 can be combined into “materials and methods”.

Response: Thank the reviewers for their comments, and we have carefully considered your comments. However, since Sections 2 and 3 take up a relatively large amount of space, 4 pages in total, we recommend that Sections 2 and 3 of the manuscript be presented separately in order to express the content of each section more clearly.

4. Comment 4: The discussion should be divided into several points, which is easy for understanding.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. For ease of understanding, we have divided the discussion section of the manuscript into two parts, 5.1 Assessment of ES supply and demand, 5.2 policy recommendations.

Comment 5: The limitations and future directions should be discussed in the discussion section.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We will include a section in the discussion section of section 5 of the manuscript: 5.3 limitations and future directions, which reads as follows:

In this paper, the ES supply and demand changes and their correlations were effectively incorporated into the ecological conservation and policymaking. However, this study has the following limitations. Firstly, some indicators for ES calculations, such as the GDP, population and nighttime light data were similar when representing human activities, while the ES calculation is influenced by multiple factors, such as eco-environmental and socio-economic factors, and they are good to accurately characterize ES supply and demands. Secondly, the supply and demand of ecosystem services are dynamic processes that may change over time, while the study only calculated the ES supply and demand changes in 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2020 due to data deficiency, and more detailed data with shorter time spans to accurately capture these changes. Thirdly, the ES supply and demand are different in regions with different social-ecological backgrounds, therefore, the impact factors and the relations between ES supply and demand changes will be also focused to analyze its mechanism in future study. 

Comment 6: Please link all of your figures or tables to your discussion section

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We have followed your suggestion to link the content of the conclusions covered in the discussion, especially the figures and tables, to make the presentation more accurate.

Comment 7: It is suggested to draw a space map in the discussion section and put forward suggestions on sustainable management.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. Through our careful discussion, if we want to draw a spatial map to express the proposals for future sustainable development, we need higher resolution and more intensive period data for analysis and implementation to specific locations, which is beyond the original intent of this manuscript, so we will accommodate your suggestions for a more detailed study in this area in our later research.7.  

8. Comment 8: The evaluation results of ecosystem services were not verified

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. The data collected in this manuscript are all publicly released, the assessment methods are relatively mature, and the accuracy of the calculated assessment results are all reliable, for example: the assessment results of water production are similar to the data published in the Xinjiang Water Resources Bulletin (Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) and the calculation results of this manuscript; the assessment results of wind and sand control are similar to the results of Zhu P et al.'s study on key ecological function areas in northern China (Zhu P, Liu X, Zheng Y H, et al. Tradeoffs and synergies of ecosystem services in key ecological function zones in northern China. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 2020, 40(23): 8694-8706．)

9. Comment 9: At present, it is relatively simple to only study the matching state of supply and demand of ecosystem services, and it is very valuable to explore ecological compensation or ecosystem service flow.

Response: Your proposal is very useful for this paper, and this aspect is also a shortcoming of this manuscript, and we will include later studies on ecological compensation and ecosystem service flows in the discussion.

10. Comment 10: The format of the references should be uniform, such as the journal name should be abbreviated or not abbreviated.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We perform a thorough check of the references in this manuscript to avoid such lot errors.

 

 

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have”

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Review comments on manuscript submission ID: Sustainability-2319408

This manuscript briefly presents about "Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand Measurement of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China. The topic is important as the gap between ecosystem service supply and demand is the main challenge to sustainable ecosystem service in various parts of the world. In my view, the title of the manuscript is precise and clear, abstract well explained and results clearly presented and discussed. However, this manuscript needs minor improvement to be published in the journal of Sustainability.

 

General comments

Ø  Though I am not a native speaker to comment English, it is advised to check for minor grammar and editorial errors throughout the text.

Example: As comments indicated on Pages 2, 12, and 13 of the main document.

Ø  Each abbreviation should be written with full text followed by abbreviation in bracket for its first mention and this should be consistent throughout the whole document.

Ø  Make sure that each Table and Figure is cited at least once somewhere in text.

Ø  Make sure that each citation in text is in reference list and each item in reference list is cited at least once in text and check for consistence of citation style in text.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 4 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand Measure-ment of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China” (ID: 2319408).Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

1. Comment 1: Though I am not a native speaker to comment English, it is advised to check for minor grammar and editorial errors throughout the text. Example: As comments indicated on Pages 2, 12, and 13 of the main document.

Response: Thanks much for your encouragement and good suggestion. We checked the grammar and editing of the full manuscript, and we paid particular attention to the locations you marked in the manuscript.

2. Comment 2: Each abbreviation should be written with full text followed by abbreviation in bracket for its first mention and this should be consistent throughout the whole document.

Response: Thank you very much for your comments. We have revised the abbreviations in the full manuscript in accordance with the comments of the reviewers and have kept them consistent.

3. Comment 3: Make sure that each Table and Figure is cited at least once somewhere in text.

Response: Many thanks to the reviewers for their constructive suggestions on our manuscript. We will follow the reviewers' comments and include citations to the figures and tables in the text in the corresponding arguments Use.

4. Comment 4: Make sure that each citation in text is in reference list and each item in reference list is cited at least once in text and check for consistence of citation style in text.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We combed through the application section of the manuscript with references to ensure that each item was cited in the text and that the citation style was standardized.

 

 

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have”

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

General comments:

The study assesses five ecosystem services provided by a large watershed in a spatially explicit manner. The ecosystem services include food supply, water yield, carbon sequestration, habitat quality, and windbreak and sand fixation. The authors focus on both the supply and demand sides of those ecosystem services. The studied period is between the years 1990 and 2020. The manuscript, in general, seems appropriate and the text have been well-written in English. The authors may benefit from the following comments and suggestions to improve their manuscript further.    

Title, Abstract, and Keywords

The abstract and keywords seem okay, though, the word “measurement” may be removed from the title.

Introduction

Intro have been well-designed, the quality of text is almost perfect. The references used are somewhat relevant, but they are not up-to-date and this section seems a bit short as a whole.

The errorless English (e.g., free of typos) and relatively dated reference sources may make readers think about this manuscript had been submitted many other journals before. Therefore, I suggest using some recently published works in introduction. There are a bunch of interesting publications in the ecosystem services literature. They don’t have to be focused solely on supply-demand sides of ecosystem services. Here, I provide a few relevant ones which the authors can benefit from:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108704

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157068

https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e12837

Study area and the data

A poor map compared to other aspects of the manuscript.

Fig.2. If the authors took this schematic framework from another study (reference no. 27?) and adapted it to their own study, it must be stated both in the text and the caption of this figure.

This section may be united with “Methods” and be named “Material and Methods”.

Methods

This is not a remote sensing journal. Therefore, the authors should provide background information on NDVI. Please also cite the work that introduced this index to scientific community for the first time in 1979 (https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-4257(79)90013-0).

While equation 11 is well understood, I cannot say the same for equation 12. Please, provide more and clearer information about LISA.

I also could not see how you calculated the demand side of these ecosystem services. Although the authors provided some equations in Table 2, they were unclear. The terms, denotations, and units must also showed as a footnote of this table. In sum, the quantification of demand sides of 5 ecosystem services should be emphasized more.

Small comments:

Subsection 3.1. “grid grids”. The first typo I noticed. Remove one, please.

Subsection 3.1. I would change the title of this subsection. This is not a simulation study. Please look at the meaning of simulation and its use in the related works.

Results

Subsection 4.1. “Temporal-spatial dynamics”. Replace with “spatio-temporal dynamics” please.

“…Using the invest model and arcgis…”. These should be take place in the methodology section, not in the Results.

Figure 6. A good chart to interpret. Please add some other comments to the text regarding these findings. The authors can also compare their findings in relation with the findings from other ES using similar charts. Here are two examples for the Discussion:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10212-7 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09912-x

Specific comments:

What is the meaning of “ecological ecosystem”. A weird term.

Discussion

I do not agree with the authors’ first statement in this section. There are also some matches between demand and supply sides for specific ecosystem services. Each ecosystem service should be evaluated separately. Moreover, how do you know local climatic and hydrothermal conditions are responsible for this imbalance. You did not examine them in this study. So, it is an assumption.

On the other hand, supply and demand sides do not necessarily have to be matched exactly (i.e., 1:1) since you quantified them very precisely. Namely, if one ecosystem service’s supply and demand match as 0.9:1.1, it should be evaluated in balance. You studied natural ecosystems, not controlled lab conditions…

This section needs more references to compare and discuss similar works. 

Conclusion

Seems appropriate, in general. However, the authors should mention the limitation of their study as well as the uncertainty embedded in their findings since they mostly rely on models.

 

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 5 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China” (ID: 2319408).Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope to meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

Comment 1: Title, Abstract, and Keywords - The abstract and keywords seem okay, though, the word “measurement” may be removed from the title.

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for the manuscript. We have removed the word " measurement " from the title

Comment 2: Introduction - I suggest using some recently published works in introduction. There are a bunch of interesting publications in the ecosystem services literature. They don’t have to be focused solely on supply-demand sides of ecosystem services. Here, I provide a few relevant ones which the authors can benefit from:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108704

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157068

https://doi.org/10.3897/ab.e12837

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for the manuscript. References and works recommended by reviewers were very helpful to the manuscript and will be cited in the manuscript

Tiemann A, Ring I. Towards ecosystem service assessment: Developing biophysical indicators for forest ecosystem services. Ecol Indic, 2022, 137: 108704.

Başak E, Cetin N I, Vatandaşlar C, et al. Ecosystem services studies in Turkey: A national-scale review. Sci Total Environ, 2022, 844: 157068.

Burkhard B, Maes J. Mapping ecosystem services. Advanced books, 2017, 1: e12837.

Comment 3: Study area and the data - A poor map compared to other aspects of the manuscript. Fig.2. If the authors took this schematic framework from another study (reference no. 27?) and adapted it to their own study, it must be stated both in the text and the caption of this figure. This section may be united with “Methods” and be named “Material and Methods”.

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for the manuscript. The study scale in the schematic framework in Figure 2 is a reference to another study, and most of the rest are drawn by the authors themselves and have been labeled in the text and in the title. In addition since Sections 2 and 3 take up a relatively large amount of space, 4 pages in total, we recommend that Sections 2 and 3 of the manuscript be presented separately in order to express the content of each section more clearly.

Comment 4: Methods - This is not a remote sensing journal. Therefore, the authors should provide background information on NDVI. Please also cite the work that introduced this index to scientific community for the first time in 1979 (https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-4257(79)90013-0). While equation 11 is well understood, I cannot say the same for equation 12. Please, provide more and clearer information about LISA. I also could not see how you calculated the demand side of these ecosystem services. Although the authors provided some equations in Table 2, they were unclear. The terms, denotations, and units must also showed as a footnote of this table. In sum, the quantification of demand sides of 5 ecosystem services should be emphasized more.

Small comments: Subsection 3.1. “grid grids”. The first typo I noticed. Remove one, please.

Subsection 3.1. I would change the title of this subsection. This is not a simulation study. Please look at the meaning of simulation and its use in the related works.

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for the manuscript. As suggested by the reviewers, we added the corresponding literature reference (Tucker C J, 1979) for explaining the background information of NDVI. Also, for the interpretation of LISA, we have added the corresponding literature reference (Anselin L, 1995) for the interpretation of the use of LISA. For the analysis of the demand for ecosystem services, we have added explanations of the variables and parameters of the equations to give the reader a clearer understanding of how the supply and demand for ecosystem services are calculated.

In Subsection 3.1, we have corrected a typographical error in the text by replacing the word "simulation" with "assessment" in the title

Tucker C J. Red and photographic infrared linear combinations for monitoring vegetation[J]. Remote sens Environ, 1979, 8: 127-150.

Anselin L. Local indicators of spatial association—LISA Geogr anal. 1995, 27, 93-115.

Comment 5: Results - Subsection 4.1. “Temporal-spatial dynamics”. Replace with “spatio-temporal dynamics” please.

“…Using the invest model and arcgis…”. These should be take place in the methodology section, not in the Results.

Figure 6. A good chart to interpret. Please add some other comments to the text regarding these findings. The authors can also compare their findings in relation with the findings from other ES using similar charts. Here are two examples for the Discussion:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10212-7,https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-09912-x

Specific comments:

What is the meaning of “ecological ecosystem”. A weird term.

Response: Thanks much for the suggestions. In accordance with the reviewer's comments, the phrase "time-space dynamics" was replaced with: "space-time dynamics". Also, the text was carefully checked for misrepresentations.

The phrase "Using the InVEST model and Arcgis" is intended to lead to the conclusions obtained below and is not discussed in detail in the methods section.

In accordance with the reviewer's comments, a discussion of Figure 6 has been added to the manuscript:

The reason for this trend may be the implementation of ecological environment protec-tion policies and the increase of population in the study area [20. 25].

Comment 6: Discussion - I do not agree with the authors’ first statement in this section. There are also some matches between demand and supply sides for specific ecosystem services. Each ecosystem service should be evaluated separately. Moreover, how do you know local climatic and hydrothermal conditions are responsible for this imbalance. You did not examine them in this study. So, it is an assumption.

On the other hand, supply and demand sides do not necessarily have to be matched exactly (i.e., 1:1) since you quantified them very precisely. Namely, if one ecosystem service’s supply and demand match as 0.9:1.1, it should be evaluated in balance. You studied natural ecosystems, not controlled lab conditions…

This section needs more references to compare and discuss similar works.

Response: Thanks much for reviewer’s valuable suggestions for the manuscript. Strongly agreeing with the comments made by the reviewers, we have added relevant references to support the conclusions of the article and revised them in the first part to read:

The supply of ES is influenced by the ecology and type of land use, and the demands is influenced by the size of the population and the level of socioeconomic development [22].

In addition, in terms of matching supply and demand, this paper only assesses the degree of matching between supply and demand through a formula, and of course, we will blur this threshold when we study how to cope with the balance of supply and demand at a later stage, as the reviewer said, this is a natural science study.

Comment 7: Conclusion - Seems appropriate, in general. However, the authors should mention the limitation of their study as well as the uncertainty embedded in their findings since they mostly rely on models.

Response: Thanks much for the suggestions. We have added the corresponding content to the text as follows:

In this study, the ES supply and demand changes and their correlations were effec-tively incorporated into the ecological conservation and policymaking. In order to gain a more thorough understanding, more social and ecological factors will be used for accurate ES calculations, and more detailed changes on temporal scales should be extended in the future.

 

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 6 Report

This is an interesting study made on the Spatio-temporal changes in the ecosystem services in a river basin. Such studies are the need of the hour. I congratulate the authors for this huge work. However, I would prefer to see the purpose behind this study. Do the authors feel that there are global changes that may cause changes in such services like global warming and climate change or what so ever? Then they should clearly write the purpose of the study in the first 3-4 lines of Abstract and in the first paragraph of the Introduction. Overall, this is an excellent contribution to the science of Sustainability. I would recommend its publication in Sustainability with minor revision in the Abstract and the Introduction.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 6 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand Measure-ment of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China” (ID: 2319408).Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

1. Comment 1: This is an interesting study made on the Spatio-temporal changes in the ecosystem services in a river basin. Such studies are the need of the hour. I congratulate the authors for this huge work. However, I would prefer to see the purpose behind this study. Do the authors feel that there are global changes that may cause changes in such services like global warming and climate change or what so ever? Then they should clearly write the purpose of the study in the first 3-4 lines of Abstract and in the first paragraph of the Introduction. Overall, this is an excellent contribution to the science of Sustainability. I would recommend its publication in Sustainability with minor revision in the Abstract and the Introduction.

Response: Thanks much for your encouragement and good suggestion. And we are grateful that you like our study. The Kaidu-Kongque river basin is a typical inner basin in arid regions, and its tail-end lake is the famous lake-Lop Nur. The basin had experienced server ecological degradation in recent years, and the problems of water scarcity and excessive water utilization lead to the ES supply-demand contradictions, and the increasing agricultural yields and urbanization did not match with the low habitat quality and aggravating desertification. Therefore, the ES supply and demand were evaluated and their spatial matching was analyzed, so as to provide a scientific basis for the payment for ecosystem services and ecological compensation. The other question is whether climate change will be a triggering factor of ES changes. Yes, climate change is an important factor, and the water yield supply is increasing in recent years, so climate change is a beneficial factor, but the the supply-demand contradiction of water resource affect the spatial matching of ecosystem services. The abstract and the Section 1 have modified, as can be found as follows.

Abstract: The assessment of ecosystem services(ES) supply and demand is crucial for the sustainable development of dryland drainage basins. The Kaidu-Kongque river basin had experienced server ecological degradation in recent years, and the problems of water scarcity and excessive water utilization lead to the ES supply-demand contradictions. In this paper, the basin was chosen to evaluate the supply-demand of five key ecosystem services and provide insights into the supply-demand spatial matching…………..

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have”

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors adequately addressed all the comments made.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and the reviewers' comments on our manuscript entitled " Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China" (No. 2319408). They are very helpful for us to revise and improve the paper, and they are also important guidance for our research. We have carefully studied these comments and made revisions, which we hope will be approved by all of you. The main revisions in the paper and responses to the reviewers' comments are as follows:

Comment 1: The authors adequately addressed all the comments made.

Response: Thank you for your careful review of the manuscript, which we have improved by checking and touching up the full formatting and grammar of the manuscript:

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have”

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks to the revision of the authors, the level of the manuscript has been significantly improved and it is ready for publication. But before I do, I'd still like to suggest that the authors condense the language in the conclusion to better highlight the study's unique findings.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and the reviewers' comments on our manuscript entitled " Spatiotemporal Changes in the Supply and Demand of Ecosystem Services in the Kaidu-Kongque River Basin, China" (No. 2319408). They are very helpful for us to revise and improve the paper, and they are also important guidance for our research. We have carefully studied these comments and made revisions, which we hope will be approved by all of you. The main revisions in the paper and responses to the reviewers' comments are as follows:

1. Comment 1: Thanks to the revision of the authors, the level of the manuscript has been significantly improved and it is ready for publication. But before I do, I'd still like to suggest that the authors condense the language in the conclusion to better highlight the study's unique findings.

Response: Thanks for the suggestion. We have adjusted the conclusions of the manuscript, refined the language, and expressed them more precisely and better, as follows:

As one of the nine tributaries of the Tarim river, the Kaidu-Kongque river plays an irreplaceable role in water resource management and ecosystem services. In this study, the InVEST model, RWEQ model, and ArcGIS spatial analysis tool were employed to evaluate the supply and demand of five key ES based on multi-source data, and the ES supply and demand was also analyzed to provide insights into their spatial matching. The conclusion is as follows:

(1) Generally, the ES supply and demand showed an overall increased trend from 1990 to 2020, and the food supply, water production, carbon sequestration, and habitat quality services showed an increasing trend, which means that the supply exceeded the actual demands, while the windbreak and sand fixation service showed a decreasing trend, indicating a rising need for this service.

(2) The spatial heterogeneity of ES supplies and demands varied over time. High supply areas are mainly located at the upstream natural and rural areas, while high demand areas are usually located at the midstream dense populated areas and downstream riparian desert zones. These ES mismatches indicated the imbalance between the ES supply and demand.

(3) Although the overall water yield was relatively sufficient at the basin scale, the water supply varied across the different regions. The upstream mountainous area was sufficient in water supply, while the midstream oases and downstream riparian zones were insufficient with water supply, which makes low supply-high demand mismatches for food supply, water yield, carbon sequestration, habitat quality services, which were mainly distributed in densely populated cities and cultivated areas. Optimization of water supply in the midstream and downstream is suggested to provide sustainable ecosystem services and coordinate supply-demand of natural ecosystem services.

In this study, the ES supply and demand changes and their correlations were effectively incorporated into the ecological conservation and policymaking. In order to gain a more thorough understanding, more social and ecological factors will be used for accurate ES calculations, and more detailed changes on temporal scales should be extended in the future.

 

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have”