Spatial Differentiation and Driving Factors of Traditional Villages in Jiangsu Province
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled “Spatial Differentiation and Driving Factors of Traditional Villages in Jiangsu Province” is an interesting piece of work. Overall, the manuscript needs improvement and can be accepted after a clear and well-structured revision.
The abstract needs an introductory remark and a conclusive sentence about the significance of the work.
The introduction section needs more explanation, clarification, and references to the described facts and figures.
The introduction section needs more reasoning. For example, if the villages were destroyed then why did the study assess the distribution on the basis of multiple driving factors (e.g., elevation, temp, etc)?
The hypothesis of the study needs more arguments.
Neither the introduction nor the abstract mentioned the study year.
The fine resolution Land Cover datasets are available already? Why 1km?
An overview of the methodology is missing. How were the 15 datasets processed at what native resolution in driving factor analysis?
Also, the attached manuscript has some highlighted sentences and annotations.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
There are many complex sentences (few are highlighted in the attached file) which can be simplified. The methodlogy sections needs to be written in consistent tense form.
Some acronyms are not defined and some terms need be consistent (e.g., pH).
Similarly, the results sections has many grammatical errors.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers, Thank you very much for your consideration and for the reviewers' comments on our manuscript entitled” Spatial Differentiation and Driving Factors of Traditional Villages in Jiangsu Province”. We are very grateful to receive your comments which are very helpful for improving our paper. We have sincerely and carefully considered the comments and revised the manuscript thoroughly. A detailed point-by-point response is given below. Revised portions are highlighted in YELLOW in the revised manuscript. I hope that the revised manuscript is suitable for publication in sustainability. Thank you again for your help with the manuscript. I am more than happy to provide any further information you may need.
Sincerely yours,
Qinghai Zhang ＆ Jiabei Wang
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is well prepared and ready for publication
n.a.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers,
Thank you very much for your consideration and for the reviewers' comments on our manuscript entitled” Spatial Differentiation and Driving Factors of Traditional Villages in Jiangsu Province” We are very grateful to receive your comments which are very helpful for improving our paper.
I hope that the revised manuscript is suitable for publication in sustainability. Thank you again for your help with the manuscript. I am more than happy to provide any further information you may need.
Sincerely yours,
Qinghai Zhang ＆ Jiabei Wang
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper analyzes the spatial distribution pattern and influencing factors of traditional villages in Jiangsu Province, China by using geographic detectors. The paper is well organized and well written. But I think there are too many similar articles at present, I searched Google Academic for some articles and put them at the end of this paragraph. Some of these articles analyze the whole of China, and some analyze some provinces. The methods are similar, like geodetectors. Therefore, from this point of view, this paper is only different in the research area, and the innovation is insufficient. Here are some suggestions for the authors:
(1) The traditional villages analyzed in this article are only identified by the government. What are the criteria for identification? Is it representative? This paper gives a detailed introduction. I think the traditional villages identified by the government are only a small part of the well-preserved ones. Did the authors intend to analyze the reasons for the well-preserved ones? I think the authors need to rethink the purpose of this article.
(2) It is suggested that authors compare other articles and show different content from other articles.
(3) The data used in this article are some of the most recent data, such as 2022. Is the distribution of traditional villages affected by current meteorological conditions or by historical climatic conditions?The authors seem to be writing from the point of view of conservation, and these factors are beneficial or detrimental to the preservation of traditional villages. But these traditional villages are only identified by the government. Are there some subjective factors involved? Please think about this question carefully.
(4) Sections 6.2 and 6.3 can be moved to Section 5.
(5) Enlarge Figures 2 and 3 to make sure the text is clearly visible.
Bian, J.; Chen, W.; Zeng, J. Spatial Distribution Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Traditional Villages in China. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 4627. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19084627
Chen, W., Yang, L., Wu, J. et al. Spatio-temporal characteristics and influencing factors of traditional villages in the Yangtze River Basin: a Geodetector model. Herit Sci 11, 111 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-023-00948-x
Jia, A.; Liang, X.; Wen, X.; Yun, X.; Ren, L.; Yun, Y. GIS-Based Analysis of the Spatial Distribution and Influencing Factors of Traditional Villages in Hebei Province, China. Sustainability 2023, 15, 9089. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15119089
Ma H D, Tong Y. Spatial differentiation of traditional villages using ArcGIS and GeoDa: A case study of Southwest China[J]. Ecological Informatics, 2022, 68: 101416.
Su, H.; Wang, Y.; Zhang, Z.; Dong, W. Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Traditional Village Distribution in China. Land 2022, 11, 1631. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11101631
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please see the attachment.
Thank you very much for your consideration and for the reviewers' comments on our manuscript entitled” Spatial Differentiation and Driving Factors of Traditional Villages in Jiangsu Province” We are very grateful to receive your comments which are very helpful in improving our paper. We have sincerely and carefully considered the comments and revised the manuscript thoroughly. A detailed point-by-point response is given below. I hope that the revised manuscript is suitable for publication in sustainability. Thank you again for your help with the manuscript. I am more than happy to provide any further information you may need.
Sincerely yours, Qinghai Zhang ＆ Jiabei Wang
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for your reply, I have no further comments.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your kind response. I greatly appreciate your feedback and taking the time to review my work. If you have any additional insights or suggestions, I would be extremely grateful to hear them. I will continue to strive for improvement and provide better content as an author. If you have any further questions or need any assistance, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Thank you for your support and encouragement!
