Quantifying the Impacts of Urbanization on Urban Agriculture and Food Security in the Megacity Lahore, Pakistan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript presents a study on the impact of land use change on urban agriculture. It is supposed to be an interesting study. However, the shortcomings of the manuscript including low language standards, poor presentation and discussion, and inadequate integration of the methods, make the study difficult to understand. The following can be considered in improving the study.

1. The introduction does not present a strong justification for the study. What is the gap in the literature and why is the study needed?

2. In the literature review, the authors mention a lack of comparison between peri-urban and urban agriculture but it seems the study focuses mainly on urban agriculture or peri-urban agriculture. There is no rigorous comparison.

3. The study area section is poorly written and the study area location is confusing throughout the study. Is the study on Lahore or peri-urban Lahore (Shahdara town) or both? The impression is that the study is about Shahdara town while the results presented are for Lahore as a whole.

4. The authors should have included questions about the impacts of land use change on agricultural land in the questionnaire to corroborate the findings of the GIS analysis. The residents know their neighborhood, they can explain what they observe. 

5. How did the authors get "total consumption in Table 1? One tends to assume it is the addition of columns 3 and 4. 

6. In Figure 2, the first mention in the text identifies it as Figure 3. This is an example of the poor presentation mentioned earlier. What do the bars labeled year mean? The years are increasing? 

7. In Figures 3 to 5, the authors should have presented two legends, one for the town showing the percentages and one for Lahore. The Figure is about Lahore, so readers do not know what is the situation in Shahrada town.

8. The authors make the discussion section another literature review. The discussion of the results is very limited. The results should be explained in the context of the existing literature. Is there any limitation? What about suggestions for future studies? 

 

Needs extensive language revision.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presents a study on the impact of land use change on urban agriculture. It is supposed to be an interesting study. However, the shortcomings of the manuscript including low language standards, poor presentation and discussion, and inadequate integration of the methods, make the study difficult to understand. The following can be considered in improving the study.

1. The introduction does not present a strong justification for the study. What is the gap in the literature and why is the study needed?

We added more justification at the end of the introduction, hope it will work,

2. In the literature review, the authors mention a lack of comparison between peri-urban and urban agriculture but it seems the study focuses mainly on urban agriculture or peri-urban agriculture. There is no rigorous comparison.

We rephrase the whole of this section to make a comparison between urban and peri-urban agriculture. actually, our study area is also a transition zone between urban peri-urban boundary of the study, that’s why we make a comparison between urban and peri- urban agriculture. we hope these things improve the structure of this section.

3. The study area section is poorly written and the study area location is confusing throughout the study. Is the study on Lahore or peri-urban Lahore (Shahdara town) or both? The impression is that the study is about Shahdara town while the results presented are for Lahore as a whole.

We add more clear description of our study area. Shahdara Town Lahore is an ancient, dense and congusted urban/peri urban transition boundary of city in Lahore Pakistan, The maps highlighted the study area with Box in Black color, while the larger map sows the whole city Lahore.

4. The authors should have included questions about the impacts of land use change on agricultural land in the questionnaire to corroborate the findings of the GIS analysis. The residents know their neighborhood, they can explain what they observe. 

We use the land sat images with different temporal variations as secondary data. These temporal variation from 2001 to 2020 provide a details images/results of land use change and impacts of urbanization in our study area. These changes can be observed from maps. Here GIS analysis is a separate analysis, to observed the land use pattern in the area.

5. How did the authors get "total consumption in Table 1? One tends to assume it is the addition of columns 3 and 4. 

It is combination of Total (Production +Consumption+ Selling) ratio.

6. In Figure 2, the first mention in the text identifies it as Figure 3. This is an example of the poor presentation mentioned e ratioarlier. What do the bars labeled year mean? The years are increasing? 

The figure 2 made a comparison with agriculture production with time in years wise, according to figure, when the time is changing from 2001 to 2020 the production ratio is goes on decreasing.

7. In Figures 3 to 5, the authors should have presented two legends, one for the town showing the percentages and one for Lahore. The Figure is about Lahore, so readers do not know what is the situation in Shahrada town.

We mentioned I the figure 1, the study areas (shahdara town indicated in box colored in black), we hope the readers will get the location of examination where the study was done.

8. The authors make the discussion section another literature review. The discussion of the results is very limited. The results should be explained in the context of the existing literature. Is there any limitation? What about suggestions for future studies? 

We add more relevant data according to reviewers comments,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Here are my comments on the paper Quantifying the Impacts of Urbanization on Urban Agriculture and Food Security in the Megacity Lahore, Pakistan submitted to Sustainability.   

1.  Make sure that the review of the literature is written in past tense at the work has already been completed; similarly with the empirical estimates.

2. In the abstract revise the following:  The regression coefficient 23 expresses the results of three variables as food security assessment, through R (coefficient of determination) that is 0.557, adjusted R square (a goodness-of-fit measure, showing the strength of the model)

3. Page 4 line 150-151, Pakistan is an agricultural country even then the prices of agricultural products are very high [28]. Should be rewritten as Pakistan is an agricultural country with high agricultural prices. [28].

4. Line 173 should philosophers be something else?  Maybe economists? 

5. The literature review is especially plodding, each paragraph begins with an author’s name.  There needs to be a unifying summary for this section, so the readers will have a good grasp of what the review of literature covered. 

6. Line 187 sourroundings is misspelled.  It should be the surroundings

7. Throughout the paper remove the hyphen from "figure-1"

8.  Line 238  Punjab agriculture department,  should be Punjab Agriculture Department,

9. Line 223  remove the word very 

10. In table 1 what does Agriculture product out of 100 for every food  mean?

11. Line 266  The following table 1 shows the  should be rewritten as Table 1 showed 

12. Line 274, put a comma after respectively

13. Line 277  The above table 2 shows   should be rewritten as Table 2 showed 

14. Lines 290-293 table-3 shows the regression result where the value of R (coefficient of 290 determination) is 0.857 showing the positive correlation among dependent and 291 independent variables. Similarly, the adjusted R square (a goodness-of-fit measure, 292 showing the strength of the model).   Should be rewritten as table-3 shows the regression result where the value of R (coefficient of  determination) is 0.857 showing the positive correlation among dependent and  independent variables. Similarly, the adjusted R square (a goodness-of-fit measure,  showing the strength of the model)

15. Line 297The above table 4 expresses the coefficients of regression variables result  should be rewritten as Table 4  expressed the coefficients of regression variables result

16.  Lines 299 to 303 it is not clear what this means.  The authors need to improve the explanation.

17. Are the standard errors in these regressions robust standard errors?  Clustered standard errors?

18. Line 323 The above table 5 shows how residual statistics predicted the value, where the should be rewritten as Table 5 showed how residual statistics predicted the value, where the

19.  Line 327 add the word statistical before results

20. Line 328 Below figure 3 represents agriculture production historically  should be rewritten as Figure 3 represented agriculture production historically

21. Line 332 remove the word only

22.  Line 352 &  should be spelled out as "and"

23. The margins on page 14 does not follow the rest of the paper

24. Line 458  forming should be farming 

 

This paper needs a careful review of the English language. 

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Here are my comments on the paper Quantifying the Impacts of Urbanization on Urban Agriculture and Food Security in the Megacity Lahore, Pakistan submitted to Sustainability.   

1. Make sure that the review of the literature is written in past tense at the work has already been completed; similarly with the empirical estimates.

We checked this section and make the sentence is past tense.

2. In the abstract revise the following:  The regression coefficient 23 expresses the results of three variables as food security assessment, through R (coefficient of determination)that is 0.557, adjusted R square (a goodness-of-fit measure, showing the strength of the model)

The revisions has been done

3. Page 4 line 150-151, Pakistan is an agricultural country even then the prices of agricultural products are very high [28]. Should be rewritten as Pakistan is an agricultural country with high agricultural prices. [28].

Revisions has been done and we changed the structure of the sentence as suggested.

4. Line 173 should philosophers be something else?  Maybe economists? 

We added the suggested words according to the nature of the study, as we proposed the structure of the sentence.

5. The literature review is especially plodding, each paragraph begins with an author’s name.  There needs to be a unifying summary for this section, so the readers will have a good grasp of what the review of literature covered. 

We added a core description at the end of this section, we hope the readers will get the core idea of the study after reading this portion.

6. Line 187 sourroundings is misspelled.  It should be the surroundings

We changed the words as corrected.

7. Throughout the paper remove the hyphen from "figure-1"

Hyphen has been removed.

8. Line 238  Punjab agriculture department,  should be Punjab Agriculture Department,

The same has been done as suggested.

9. Line 223  remove the word very 

Many thanks for this valuable comments. We remove the word, “Very”

10. In table 1 what does Agriculture product out of 100 for every food  mean?

We changed the content of the table to make the concept clear.

11. Line 266  The following table 1 shows the  should be rewritten as Table 1 showed 

We make the changed as suggested.

12. Line 274, put a comma after respectively

Comma has been added.

13. Line 277  The above table 2 shows   should be rewritten as Table 2 showed 

Changing has been done

14. Lines 290-293 table-3 shows the regression result where the value of R (coefficient of 290 determination) is 0.857 showing the positive correlation among dependent and 291 independent variables. Similarly, the adjusted R square (a goodness-of-fit measure, 292 showing the strength of the model).   Should be rewritten as table-3 shows the regression result where the value of R (coefficient of  determination)is 0.857 showing the positive correlation among dependent and  independent variables. Similarly, the adjusted R square (a goodness-of-fit measure,  showing the strength of the model)

We changed the whole structure of the sentence as suggested. And delete the words written in parenthesis

15. Line 297The above table 4 expresses the coefficients of regression variables result  should be rewritten as Table 4  expressed the coefficients of regression variables result

We changed the words as suggested.

16. Lines 299 to 303 it is not clear what this means.  The authors need to improve the explanation.

We changed the structure of the sentence to make the concept clear. We hope it will work.

17. Are the standard errors in these regressions robust standard errors?  Clustered standard errors?

These are the regression standard errors. See table 5

18. Line 323 The above table 5 shows how residual statistics predicted the value, where the should be rewritten as Table 5 showed how residual statistics predicted the value, where the

Changing has been made accordingly.

19. Line 327 add the word statistical before results

The word statistical has been added as suggested in the place.

20. Line 328 Below figure 3 represents agriculture production historically  should be rewritten as Figure 3 represented agriculture production historically

Changing has been made accordingly.

21. Line 332 remove the word only

It has been removed.

22. Line 352 &  should be spelled out as "and"

We changed the sentence. We remove the word area (barren land area)

23. The margins on page 14 does not follow the rest of the paper

We corrected the margins as requested,

24. Line 458  forming should be farming …..It is corrected

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Lines 40-41.’ But, it has been investigated that urbanization 40 around the world threatens the agricultural industry by converting natural land into 41 built-up’.- rewording and references are needed here. You could say something along the lines of -research has shown that urbanization threatens…. converting farmlands to built up environments

Line 45- alongside the population, is 45 poor and unable to meet their food demands along with nutrition values.’ Rewrite this. You could Eend the previous sentence by putting a period and this would become a new sentence you begin with -Also(or similar), the population

Lines 57-58 -On the bases of these values, the conclusion was made for sustainable urban planning and management’ This is your introduction- we don’t need this sentence here. It should rather be in your conclusion

 

Lines 83-84 ‘In this study, it is documented that food security was of concern to humans 10,000 years ago, and key authorities in ancient Egypt and China released food from storage during drought’.

I see no where you document this as claimed in this paper. You could mean something different so it is on you to communicate clearly with the appropriate language

Line 152 ‘Another issue these products are exported without planning’- unclear what you mean here!

 

There are a lot of grammatical issues with this work and I recommend you engage editing services. I am forced to stop commenting here as my job is to review the quality of the paper and the writing quality is making this very difficult as I am forced to comment on grammatical issues.

Extensive editing needed. I recommend you engage professional editing services

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Lines 40-41.’ But, it has been investigated that urbanization 40 around the world threatens the agricultural industry by converting natural land into 41 built-up’.- rewording and references are needed here. You could say something along the lines of -research has shown that urbanization threatens…. converting farmlands to built up environments

We changed the wording and rewrite the sentence, hope it will work,

Line 45- alongside the population, is 45 poor and unable to meet their food demands along with nutrition values.’ Rewrite this. You could Eend the previous sentence by putting a period and this would become a new sentence you begin with -Also(or similar), the population

We rewrite both of these sentences, hope this would better the concept development.

Lines 57-58 -On the bases of these values, the conclusion was made for sustainable urban planning and management’ This is your introduction- we don’t need this sentence here. It should rather be in your conclusion

We move the sentence from introduction to conclusion

Lines 83-84 ‘In this study, it is documented that food security was of concern to humans 10,000 years ago, and key authorities in ancient Egypt and China released food from storage during drought’.I see no where you document this as claimed in this paper. You could mean something different so it is on you to communicate clearly with the appropriate language

Many thanks for your comments, indeed our sentence was not appropriate. Anyhow we changed the working from start, to make it appropriate.

Line 152 ‘Another issue these products are exported without planning’- unclear what you mean here!

We think this sentence does not make any sense here, so we delete this line.

 

There are a lot of grammatical issues with this work and I recommend you engage editing services. I am forced to stop commenting here as my job is to review the quality of the paper and the writing quality is making this very difficult as I am forced to comment on grammatical issues.

We rechecked the paper from English native expert in the field, we hope the quality of the content in this paper is now able to consider for publication in an international journals.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have tried to revise the manuscript according to the comments. However, a couple of points have not been adequately addressed. 

1. The authors still need to address the issue of comparing peri-urban areas with urban areas. The whole of Lahore should be the urban area while the town of Shahdara should be the peri-urban area. Figures 1, and 3-5 are very relevant to the analysis. Are the percentages of land use shown in the legends for Shahdara or Lahore? If they are for Lahore, the authors should compute the ones for Shahdara and place them on the maps. 

2. The discussion section still needs improvement.

3. Figure 2 is missing. The year bars are not necessary since the readers can see how the percentages were reducing over the years. There are two y-axes already - one for the year and one for the percentage. 

Still needs further copy-editing to improve the manuscript. 

Author Response

The authors have tried to revise the manuscript according to the comments. However, a couple of points have not been adequately addressed. 

Thank you for reading our revised version of the paper for further improvements. We will try at level best to make more changes according to your comments to make the study more clear for better understanding of the main idea and findings of the research.

1. The authors still need to address the issue of comparing peri-urban areas with urban areas.

 The whole of Lahore should be the urban area while the town of Shahdara should be the peri-urban area. Yes you are right, we add a sentence in the paper to make it clearer. Peri-urban areas (a transition area between urban and rural boundary of the city)

Figures 1, and 3-5 are very relevant to the analysis. Are the percentages of land use shown in the legends for Shahdara or Lahore? If they are for Lahore, the authors should compute the ones for Shahdara and place them on the maps. 

We add the percentage only for shahrada not Lahore. As Shahdara is only study area. We also makes some changes in our description of the results along with titles of the tables to make the concept clearer.The legends and tables in results section only showed the percentage for Shahdara Town.

2. The discussion section still needs improvement.

We make some changes as highlighted in green, we hope it will work.

3. Figure 2 is missing. The year bars are not necessary since the readers can see how the percentages were reducing over the years. There are two y-axes already - one for the year and one for the percentage

The missing figure has been added. Actually the years bar is added to compare the reduction with different time period from 1990 to 2020.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Here are my comments on this draft:  I have no additional comments on this paper

Make sure that the authors check the exposition for the last time before submission

Author Response

Thank you for reading our revised paper for further improvements. we will try our best to make more improvement in empirical research, results and quality of write-up. 

Reviewer 3 Report

There are many flaws in this work some of which I have highlighted below. As you will observe, I did not go beyond literature review. This is beacuse the flaws and incoherence in the paper impacts a clear understanding of the paper's direction. You need to work more on the paper and have a clear focus. You throw in and mix up a lot of different concepts in this paper which is not ideal in a scholarly work. You must have a clear focus and stick to the theme. see examples below

Line 34-35-‘Many studies proved that urbanization worldwide threatens the agricultural industry by converting natural land into built-up [4]’.- You still say many studies while you reference only  one

Line 39-‘The migrated population is primarily poor and unable to meet their food demands to ensure their quality of life’- you make a blanket statement here with no support from the literature

Lines 40-42 need more analysis and referencing. ‘The factor threatens the food cycle and..’

What factor? Migration? How s? There is no such thing as food cycle in the same was as carbon cycle, water cycle etc

Line 52 -53 –‘The past few studies have been done on urban and peri-urban agriculture in developing…’

What studies exactly?

Line 54- ‘Alongside this, there is no proper definition of urban and peri-urban  agriculture’. What are the shortcomings of the definitions? Are you filling this gap by providing a better definition?

Line 128- ‘On the other hand, an area having a low population and lack of infrastructure is correlated to cities [25]’- This statement makes no sense- check meaning of correlation

Line 140- ‘and every Pakistani will desire the development of this industry’ You don’t make such blanket statements. Even where you say most, you need to back it up with evidence in the form of reference

Line 151- 152‘philosophers, including Urban managers, ecologists, planners, and agriculturists, have described urban agriculture differently’ you imply here that all these professions are philosophers which is false

Your sentences from lines 151-169 are incoherent and illogical. There are many holes. For example, you say - Most perishable crops 152 were provided to urban centers, while today, peri-urban agriculture provides services 153 and goods locally to the global marketplace [29]. A separate geographical location is 154 required to differentiate between urban and peri-urban agriculture within or outside 155 the city's boundaries [30].- what do you mean exactly here? Perishable crops were provided from where?why is a separate geographical location required?

 

needs improvement

Author Response

There are many flaws in this work some of which I have highlighted below. As you will observe, I did not go beyond literature review. This is beacuse the flaws and incoherence in the paper impacts a clear understanding of the paper's direction. You need to work more on the paper and have a clear focus. You throw in and mix up a lot of different concepts in this paper which is not ideal in a scholarly work. You must have a clear focus and stick to the theme. see examples below

Line 34-35-‘Many studies proved that urbanization worldwide threatens the agricultural industry by converting natural land into built-up [4]’.- You still say many studies while you reference only  one

We changed the structure of the  sentence.

Line 39-‘The migrated population is primarily poor and unable to meet their food demands to ensure their quality of life’- you make a blanket statement here with no support from the literature.

We changed the whole sentence, whole it will work.

 

Lines 40-42 need more analysis and referencing. ‘The factor threatens the food cycle and..’

References added.’

What factor? Migration? Yes its migration, when supply is lower and demand is high.

 How s? There is no such thing as food cycle in the same was as carbon cycle, water cycle etc

Food cycle growth, provisions, availability and consumption), Added in the paper

Line 52 -53 –‘The past few studies have been done on urban and peri-urban agriculture in developing…’

What studies exactly? with urban and peri-urban agriculture have been done on urban and peri-urban agriculture in developing nations [9] and [10]. Added……..

Line 54- ‘Alongside this, there is no proper definition of urban and peri-urban  agriculture’. What are the shortcomings of the definitions? Are you filling this gap by providing a better definition?

Urban agriculture or peri-urban agriculture is the process of growing, transforming, and circulating food in urban or peri-urban areas of city boundary. This statement is provided in intro,,, section.

Line 128- ‘On the other hand, an area having a low population and lack of infrastructure is correlated to cities [25]’- This statement makes no sense- check meaning of correlation

This statement is invalid, we removed.

Line 140- ‘and every Pakistani will desire the development of this industry’ You don’t make such blanket statements. Even where you say most, you need to back it up with evidence in the form of reference

We changed the whole paragraph,

Line 151- 152‘philosophers, including Urban managers, ecologists, planners, and agriculturists, have described urban agriculture differently’ you imply here that all these professions are philosophers which is false

We rewrite this sentence.

Your sentences from lines 151-169 are incoherent and illogical. There are many holes. For example, you say - Most perishable crops 152 were provided to urban centers, while today, peri-urban agriculture provides services 153 and goods locally to the global marketplace [29]. A separate geographical location is 154 required to differentiate between urban and peri-urban agriculture within or outside 155 the city's boundaries [30].- what do you mean exactly here? Perishable crops were provided from where?why is a separate geographical location required?

After a very critical review, we decide to remove this section of paragraph, this is totally invalid and lack of concept has been found in this para.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Unfortunately, the manuscript is not yet ready for publication. Probably it can be improved sufficiently at this third revision. 

1. The authors have changed one of the aims of the study which is comparison of urban agriculture at the peri-urban and urban area to the study of urban agriculture at peri-urban area only. So, the analysis in the study are just land use change and the regression assessment. The land use change analysis is standard while the regression assessment is not fully explained. So, the contribution of the study in understanding peri-urban and urban agriculture.

2. One of the gaps identified in the literature by the study is the lack of definition for urban and peri-urban agriculture. The authors have not shown how this study has filled that gap.

3. The explanation in the discussion section is still not related to the existing literature. 

4. The authors have changed the captions of some figures but the title inside the figures still indicate Lahore instead of Shahdara. Also, some captions are still indicating Lahore.

5. The manuscript needs extensive copy-editing. It should be edited by a professional editor. For example, the statement "A very past few studies associated with urban and peri-urban agriculture have been done on urban and peri-urban agriculture, particularly in developing nations [9] and [10]" is recursive. also, in line 150, the statement "urban and peri-urban agriculture occurs in different locations" should be "urban and peri-urban agriculture occur in different locations"

Needs extensive copy-editing. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We made extensive editing as directed by you, kindly find the attached file in which we responce point by point to your comments.

Thank you for your valuable feeback and time to ready our paper. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

n/a

n/a

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you fr reading our paper again,

We made and go through this paper by an English language professional and ensure you the quality of the English language is much better than earlier. Comprehensive editing has been done, we hope it polish the quality of language of this paper now.