Spatial–Temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-Efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is interested and very important, urban Agglomerations are expanding and increasing with the passage of time. Study related to this is need of the hour. Article is well organized and structure is satisfactory. Some suggestions are given hopefully will increase its value.

title is very vast as it discuss Chinese agglomeration (as it don't cover about all Chinese agglomeration)    

Abstract needs some modification generalize to specific.

Page 1, Line 36 "CPC" stands for? first time use complete word with abbreviation.

Objectives are clear and well written.

Introduction should be focused and related to title. Need some rectification to precise.

avoid to use pronouns (I, we etc) in research.

Within article author has admitted that it was difficult to collect data and some of the cities were excluded due to lack of data, then how can we expect accuracy and validation?

Is there any specific reason to study time duration 2006-2020.

"urban agglomerations in China 257 from 2006 to 2020 is between 0.418 and 0.631, with an average of 0.544, indicating that the 258 overall ecological efficiency of China 's urban agglomerations is at a low level, and there 259 is still much room for improvement from the frontier." In which areas/categories it can be improved and how?

"According to the trend of eco-efficiency of urban agglomerations in China during the 317 sample period, it can be divided into two stages: "steady rise" (2006-2012) and "fluctuating 318 decline" (2013-2020)" any specific reason for these different trends?

There are also some formatting issue which can be improve in revision.

Some of the references are old, suggested to use recent.

Suggested to revise carefully

Author Response

Dear reviewer，

Thank you very much for your professional comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations”. 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. Detailed point-by-point response is given below(Revised portions are highlight in YELLOW in the manuscript so that they may be identified.).

Sincerely yours,

Xiyao,Zhang; Yuning Zhao; Xiaolei Wang and Jia Liu

21st,Jul,2023

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper studies spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations. Some weaknesses should be addressed in this paper. Therefore, I suggest the authors resubmit it after a major revision. My suggestions are as follows:

1. Discuss the study's limitations and future research suggestions.

2. I strongly suggest that the paper be proofread and reread meticulously again, particularly regarding the spelling and grammatical mistakes.

 3. Flowchart is beneficial; it’s also important to outline the methodology behind this new approach. Please consider a flowchart of your suggested approach at the beginning of your paper.

 4. Please outline the structure of your paper at the end of the introduction with more details.

 5.  I suggest you update section 2.2 (inputs and outputs) so that the illustration used in the methodology section should be more readable.

 6. All equations are like pictures. Please increase the quality of the formula.

7. It is necessary to include additional information for the results part. You just consider some figures and tables without any explanations among them.

8. Following the mathematical model is difficult due to many notational mistakes.

9. What is your mean in lines 190-192 by mentioning “In urban economic activities, certain pollutants are generated, which cause a burden to the urban environment, so people always hope that the less Undesired output generated by the production activities, the better What is your mean by Undesired output generated competitiveness? What is your strategy by mentioning this word? Clarify more?

10. All figures are blurred and invisible like a picture. Please improve the quality of figures

- Spatial-temporal evolution and influencing factors of urban green innovation efficiency in China. Journal of Environmental and Public Health. 2022 Jun 11;2022. o improve your related works, consider the following related works

-   Improving construction and demolition waste collection service in an urban area using a simheuristic approach: A case study in Sydney, Australia. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2021 Jan 20; 280:124138.

- Spatio-temporal Evolution of the Agricultural Eco-efficiency Network and Its Multidimensional Proximity Analysis in China. Chinese Geographical Science. 2022 Aug;32(4):724-44.

- A Novel Pipeline Age Evaluation: Considering Overall Condition Index and Neural Network Based on Measured Data. Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction. 2023 Feb 20;5(1):252-68.

-. A novel machine learning approach combined with optimization models for eco-efficiency evaluation. Applied Sciences. 2020 Jul 28;10(15):5210.

- Dynamic evolution and the mechanism behind the coupling coordination relationship between industrial integration and urban land-use efficiency: A case study of the Yangtze River Economic zone in China. Land. 2022 Feb 10;11(2):261.

 

-  A novel artificial intelligent approach: Comparison of machine learning tools and algorithms based on optimization DEA Malmquist productivity index for eco-efficiency evaluation. International Journal of Energy Sector Management. 2021 Mar 22.

Extensive editing of the English language required

Author Response

Dear reviewer，

Thank you very much for your professional comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations”. 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. Detailed point-by-point response is given below(Revised portions are highlight in YELLOW in the manuscript so that they may be identified.).

Sincerely yours,

Xiyao Zhang; Yuning Zhao; Xiaolei Wang and Jia Liu

21st,Jul,2023

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer，

Thank you very much for your professional comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations”. 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. Detailed point-by-point response is given below(Revised portions are highlight in YELLOW in the manuscript so that they may be identified.).

Sincerely yours,

Xiyao Zhang; Yuning Zhao; Xiaolei Wang and Jia Liu

21st,Jul,2023

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper aims to study the Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency by developing a super-SBM model. The paper is well organized and can be published after following minor issues are resolved. 

(1) The research gap and theoretical contributions of the paper should be highlighted in the first section.

(2) There lacks of literature reivew section, and a systematic review should be performed to help better understand the motivation of this research, such as:

1) Spatial-Temporal Evolution and Driving Factors of Regional Green Development: An Empirical Study in Yellow River Basin.

2)Spatial-temporal dynamics of carbon emissions and carbon sinks in economically developed areas of China: a case study of Guangdong Province.

3) Spatial-temporal evolution of the eastern Nanhui mudflat in the Changjiang (Yangtze River) Estuary under intensified human activities.

...

(3)The format of Eqs. should be adusted based on the template of mdpi journal, such as Eq. (1).

(4)There are 19 research samples, and why chose these 19 regions as research smaples? 

(5) Please check the text in Page 19. (Line 564, Line 567....)

Author Response

Dear reviewer，

Thank you very much for your professional comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations”. 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. Detailed point-by-point response is given below(Revised portions are highlight in YELLOW in the manuscript so that they may be identified.).

 

Sincerely yours,

Xiyao Zhang; Yuning Zhao; Xiaolei Wang and Jia Liu

21st,Jul,2023

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Author has tried to address all the comments and suggestions, Now its seem good. I still suggest following correction before acceptance

English of the article still need improvement.

Improve the caption of figures.

some of the reference are missing, suggested to use recent and latest reference.

 

Need improvement

Author Response

Dear reviewer，

Thank you very much for your professional comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations”. We are very grateful to receive your comments. The article has been carefully revised according to your comments. 

Sincerely yours,

Xiyao Zhang; Yuning Zhao; Xiaolei Wang and Jia Liu

5th,Aug,2023

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I see numerous improvement in this version compared to the first one, in particular regarding the discussion of the link between urban regions and the various 5 years development plan.

There is a typo line 235 it is not 2004 but 2002.

It would be nice to check again the model, line 240-241-242 about the sign before the slacks...

Line 251-252 the lambdas are not constraints but weights.

Author Response

Dear reviewer，

Thank you very much for your professional comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial-temporal Evolution and Influential Factors of Eco-efficiency in Chinese Urban Agglomerations”. We are very grateful to receive your comments. The article has been carefully revised according to your comments.

Sincerely yours,

Xiyao Zhang; Yuning Zhao; Xiaolei Wang and Jia Liu

5th,Aug,2023

Author Response File: Author Response.docx