Assessment of Ecological Benefits of Urban Green Spaces in Nanjing City, China, Based on the Entropy Method and the Coupling Harmonious Degree Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper entitled as "Assessment of Ecological Benefits of Urban Green Spaces in Nanjing City, China: Based on Entropy Method & Coupling Harmonious Degree Model" is an interesting paper that investigates urban green spaces (UGSs) with various methods. Entropy method is used to evaluate ecological benefits of UGS in Nanjing City, China. Sample covers from 2011 to 2020. The coupling harmonious degree model is also utilized to study the coupling harmonious degree, its temporal evolutionary patterns between subsystems of UGSs.
Following must be addressed by authors and paper should be revised.
1) The abstract should be shortened and should be more focused. The longer text with findings should be in the conclusion and summarized version should be here.
2) In abstract and conclusion, please discuss further the societal implications and policy implications.
3) There is only one paper from 2023. There is space to further improve by including recent literature to the paper.
4) Future directions are noted but not detailed in conclusion. Further, nonlinear methods could be suggested for future research to determine thresholds of ecological effects could be a nice direction for future research.
5) Formating is not correct, it should be revised as the rounds of evaluation succeed. Referencing is not in journal standards.
6) I did not understand the sentence at line 126: "Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in studying the
127 construction of ecological civilization for the entire country"
Is civilization correct wording? Could it be ecological development level or ecological sustainability?
7) Literature research is given mainly in Section 1, introduction. I suggest a more extensive literature review with stating the methods used and findings. As of it is now, this section mainly focuses on the lack of studies on UGSs. However, paralel research could be discussed. Environmental kuznets curve literature, regional sustainable development literature and papers to be added here.
8) In the entropy methodology, avoid simultaneous use of (1) (2) type numbers in text and in equation numbers. Use say, i. ii. instead.
Also, in text, e_j should be e subscript j. Same for w_j and so on...
9) Equation numbers should be on the right hand side all the time.
10) Revise heading 2.General. Situation.
11) This type of referencing is not correct. Revise please:
The references used in this study include 310 Beautiful China
311 Construction Evaluation Index System and Implementation Plan,
312 National Ecological Civilization Construction Demonstration City and
313 County Construction Indicators, Assessment Target System for
314 Ecological Civilization Construction, Index Evaluation Indicator
315 System for The Two-Mountain Theory (lucid waters and lush
316 mountains are invaluable assets), Evaluation Index System for Circular
317 Economy Development (2017 Edition), Green Development Indicator
318 System, Green City Evaluation Indicators, and the United Nations
319 Sustainable Development Indicator System, as well as a series of
320 reference documents (Chen et al., 2020; Gai et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020;
321 Shen et al., 2020; Hou et al., 2016; Kong et al., 2016).
12) If all ecosystem variables calculated continously increase between 2011 - 2020, why China's CO2 emissions are still at high levels? Could you discuss in text? Please. Why does urban level improvement not lead to country level improvement with a similar trend as in the figures presented?
13) How are the findings robust? No robustness analysis is done. It should be added.
14) I suggest following: 6. Epiloque should be 6. Conclusion.
A seperate section should be created before Conclusion. 6.1. Research Conclusion should be taken there. Discussion with comparisons to empirics in literature should be augmented and societal implications and impacts on sustainability should be extended in this new discussion section. Shortcomings should also be moved to this discussion section. Also the future directions.
Following the movement of 6.1., 6.2. and 6.3 to discussion section at the end of section 5, a new conclusion should be written with a summary from those sections. In addition, highlight the contribution and novelty of the paper and importance of findings in terms of sustainability in urban ecosystem.
Good, but a check is needed for minor Grammar issues.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript is very methodologically precise, and I applaud you for the sound and thorough way you present your approach to a new evaluative system for USGs. Your argument for presenting this computational work--and the need for a new approach at all-- would be greatly strengthened with some context of who uses such systems currently and who will benefit by using your new approach. There are many similar terms which go undefined and then are not used within the results section but seem to reappear in the final section of the manuscript. I have recommended structural reorganization and attention to technical jargon which would give more weight to your argument and hard work.
Recommend: A) Manuscript reorganization:
1. Introduction needs to clarify who uses these evaluative systems, how proposal of a better system would benefit outcome over current offerings, and is their adoption only confined to Chinese government.
2. Statistical methods: only correlational? Why introduce time-series methods in final conclusion but not earlier?
3. Results and analysis are currently merged. Recommend shortening results section, taking out interpretation of results and moving them into a discussion section that also draws from policy implications currently in the “Epilogue.”
4. Conclusion: take out policy section and concluding methods paragraph and put into appropriate sections.
B) Clarification of key terms, especially different evaluations methods for UGS. Who currently uses these, if at all, or are they only academic proposals? Also replace jargony terms and newly coined words with more accurate terms.
C) expand references to those beyond China-related literature. Not invalidating these sources as much as questioning the generalizability of methods cited. Aren’t there some USG assessments elsewhere to draw upon?
D) See individual comments.
Abstract:
L 21-25: please explain what coupling harmonious degree model is, since you assume reader is familiar with this term. Also, too much jargon in this sentence to know what you are aiming to do in this study.
Please also conclude abstract with suggestion taken from policy section of why new model is preferable.
Introduction:
L 27: This is opening sentence, and the reader cannot know what the score consists of at this point, so this point is not lost in terms of its importance.
Ln 37: same point as above. Are these findings best placed in the opening without explanation of their definitions?
Ln 42-43. Not confirmed what constraints of the natural environment are vis-à-vis government policies.
Ln 46-47: second half of point well taken. Suggest rewriting and make the constraint the weakness of natural environmental management systems
Ln 53: remove the word “degree”
Ln 58: change occasionally to periodically. Occasionally gives sense of not very often and therefore nothing to worry about.
Ln 59-61 doesn't follow as a sequitor to ecological chaos. Move this to end of paragraph
Ln 71: what is square land? This doesn’t mean anything in English.
Ln 73: remove hyperlink from text and provide proper citation
Ln 98: what are public welfare forests? Either provide a definition or use a different term.
Ln 112: too vague an assessment of the popularity of indicator system. Among whom? Be specific please
Paragraph ending Ln 125: are all the evaluative methods from Chinese researchers/modelers? Why this choice?
Ln 138-139: “Novel system” need a more specific goal. Is the novel evaluation system the authors'? How will evaluation lead to promotion of sustainable development of USGs, as that should be discussed earlier
Ln 155: what is the denominator of urbanization rate? Per annum?
Ln 163: cite this government document/edict
Section 3.2: very nice explanation of Entropy Method. But then you don’t use it at all in results section. Please make this method relevant as to how & why you use it within results.
Ln 233: need a definition of coupling harmonious model, even if you provide the field source from which it is drawn. Or move up defn from Ln 242.
Table 2: add a column with literature source for each classification
Ln 276-277: need to put up front some examples of ecological benefits to distinguish from the other evaluative frameworks
Ln 279: capitalize USGs in section title
Section 4.1: This paragraph illustrates that too much attention is given to best practices but not enough to help reader understand the methods themselves. I am deeply into the paper and not certain what types of indicators are under consideration
Ln 292: “systematicness” is not a word. Systems integration?
Ln 301: “typicality” not needed. Eliminate
Section 4.2: Ecological civilization construction is a new concept here, as L 306 is the first time you mention this jargonistic term. Please describe the term and link to specific language from govt report.
Section 4.3: L 323 - 332- belongs in the intro, not here.
Table 3: currently hard to read & follow. some better organization of T 3 would be more effective, in ways that group System 1 vs 2.
Section 5.1 currently combines results with their interpretation. These need to be separated out. For example,
L 350-365 belong in the discussion section; 365-367 are results; the rest through L 371. is interpretation.
L 353. By upgrading, do you mean improving? Say so.
L 350-365 belong in discussion, not results
L 412-417: interpretation, not results
Fig 2: are these differences (green vs orange bars) statistically significant to merit separating out into 2 systems? Suggest performing some analysis here and not just plot. Fig 2 does not lend itself to the interpretation in paragraph above, just the directionality of scoring
Table 5: these different typologies for harmony level have not been explained previously, and so this column loses its meaning here. Also, all coupling degrees are very high & all fall under coupling stage. So the key differentiator is harmony degree. This all needs better explanation.
Ln 451-457: “gradual increase of indicators … showed neg correlation with these indicators”. Needs clarification of what correlates with what.
L 456-57: changed in what direction--increased or decreased?
Ln 469: USGs are one of several contributors to the correlation matrix it appears. What is its relative weight to total correlation?
Fig 3: Caption needs to clarify some terms which don’t translate. “harmless treatment rate”--Note C1, “non-interference noise.” Need explanation in text that negative correlations mean that green spaces have either displaced industry or captured emissions.
Ln 479: Epilogue is a literary term of events that occur after the conclusion. It does not mean conclusion
L 521: according to Correlation Analysis (FIg 3,) they have a high NEGATIVE correlation, not positive. C1-3 vis-a-vis C 8-10 are blue, not red
L 540-542. What are the various means to strengthen USG planning? wouldn't the restraints of environmental regulations of USG contravene the means? Please explain better
Ln 556: would like to see these favorable regional environmental conditions enumerated in intro. This comes too late to know Nanjing City sits amidst them.
Ln 569: time series data mentioned for first time. Recommend you discuss analytical methods more clearly as well as importance of spatial differences of research questions.
The many issue with the English language used in this paper is that there are too many jargonistic terms and a few neo-logisms (words which do not exist but sound made-up) which need correcting. These are enumerated in the comments to authors. Ex: public welfare forests; systematicness.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
1) [4-4] at line 64 should be revised.
2) Shortened annotations have no explanations. Examples are CTLA at line 106, AVTW at 107, UFORE at 109,
3) Incorrect webpage referencing at line 137.
4) Equation numbers should be in the form of parantheses and numbers (1), (2), avoid (i), (ii).
5) At equations at lines 208-212, the text should be negative instead of reverse indicators.
6) It is not correct to have 1-2 line paragraphs. Add them up make them summed up at lines 212 and afterwards. Also, Where should be where.
7) Again, all equation numbers must be in (number) form.(lines 238 and afterwards). In the text, the revision is made incorrectly, check journal format. It favors * type dotted bullets in text. In the text, replace (1) with i. (2) with ii. and so on.
8) Equation numbers at lines 276-77-78 are wrong form.
9) "T represents the comprehensive
283 harmonious index and α and β are coefficients whose values are yet to
284 be determined."
Academic reference for this selection is needed.
10) In Table 2, first row, 0<C<=0.30 must be 0<=C<=0.30. Coupling type statement "Low-level coupling stage" should be written with a upper script 1 I mean foot note in the table and write "Among the low coupling level, if C=0, it would correspond to no coupling."
11) At line 420, results show that "The results showed that: (1)". Revise again to i. and ii. and so on for results.
12) Regression interpretations of beta estimates are wrong. Example: " the regression coefficient
423 was 0.059 (t=8.202, p=0.000<0.01), indicating that the ecological benefit
424 of UGS in Nanjing had a significant positive change from 2011 to 2020."
It is not interpreted that way. For instance, "positive change" should be "positive effect".
13) R square interpretation is wrong. R square does not show robustness. or robust regression result. R square is R square. It only shows the % of variation in the dependent variable resulting from % of variation in the independent variables. (It is the ratio of explained sum of squares to total sum of squares or sigma square of Y hat divided to sigma square of Y where sigma square is the variance. There must be no misinterpretations in these basic statistics in a paper considered for the journal.
14) Adjusted R square should be presented. Instead of R square it is correct to interpret adjusted R2.
15) Referencing format is wrong at line 496 and afterwards. Correct.
16) Conclusion section, text is numbered again as (1) (2).. revise to i., ii. Further, it is not nice to start first sentence as (1). Write a general outlook in terms of aim of the paper was, which data, which methods, and state that you reached varios important results. Then, by i. ii.. and so on, state conclusions.
17) Limitations section is added but is too long, could you shorten it a little bit? Further, state that in addition to contributions in terms of..., the paper is subject to limitations which resulted from data availability and so on. Then, take the future direction sentence to the end of this section.
18) For economic growth environment context in the literature and also for threshold effects following to be added
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-017-0244-3
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567116302052
Minor editing for Grammar.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
You are to be credited for a major revision which has greatly improved the historical context, purpose, and logic of your solid research work. The additions which you made to this manuscript are thoughtful and soundly articulated to greatly improve your presentation. Thank you for accepting and acting on the suggestions and comments offered to strengthen your argument thesis.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
A few minor revisions remain, particularly with regards choices of phrases which are still slightly off the mark. Please see suggestions for some phrases which do not translate well. These too are offered in the spirit of continued improvement.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been improved after revisions made by the authors at this round. My decision is that the corrections are made and the paper is improved. It is my decision that the paper should be accepted for this last version.
English editing is needed at minor level.
