Suitability Evaluation and Engineering Matching for Agricultural Development of Barren Grassland in Mountainous Area: A Case Study of County Scale

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article: " Suitability evaluation and engineering matching for agricultural development of barren grassland in mountainou area: a case study of county scale" examines the challenges in utilizing barren grassland as arable land and proposes a systematic approach. It divides suitability into natural and engineering dimensions, using evaluation indexes from geomorphological, soil, location, water source, and soil source conditions. The article is well structured, the bridging of the research gap is well described and also the limitations of the methodology used. In general, the paper needs more bibliographical references, especially in the introduction and conclusion.

Here are some minor comments:

- L. 87-88 the sentence "...Most studies on Barren grassland..." needs bibliographical references;

- Tables 4 and 5 could be placed in the appendix since they are very large and distract attention from the text of the paper.

 

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:
On behalf of all the contributing authors, I would like to express our sincere appreciations of your letter and reviewers’ constructive comments concerning our article entitled “Suitability evaluation and engineering matching for agricultural development of barren grassland in mountainous area: a case study of county scale (Original title: New ideas of precise land development: Land suitability evaluation and engineering practices)” (ID: sustainability-2361973). These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article. According to the your comments, we have made extensive modifications to our manuscript to make our results convincing. In revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using red-colored text. Point-by-point responses to you are listed below this letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I think it's a very interesting study. But the authors seem to have overlooked some crucial details.

1. The most important ambiguity in this article is the lack of scientific evidence in Tables 1, 2 and 3. Why choose these indicators. What is the basis of index classification?

2. The authors have divided 54 categories, which are helpful for us to understand this resource or make use of this resource.

3. Whether the case area selected by the authors can prove the rationality of the classification evaluation.

Until these three questions are answered, I cannot judge the scientific value of this article.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:
On behalf of all the contributing authors, I would like to express our sincere appreciations of your letter and reviewers’ constructive comments concerning our article entitled “Suitability evaluation and engineering matching for agricultural development of barren grassland in mountainous area: a case study of county scale (Original title: New ideas of precise land development: Land suitability evaluation and engineering practices)” (ID: sustainability-2361973).  These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article.  According to the your comments, we have made extensive modifications to our manuscript to make our results convincing.  In revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using red-colored text.  Point-by-point responses to you are listed below this letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Many thanks to the editor for allowing me to read this interesting article. I think it is a very good article, clear and precise regarding its methodology, results and findings.

On the other hand, it presents a very important problem for the present times, especially in view of the change in agricultural conditions that are foreseen for the coming years.

In this sense, the article has an important merit, as it presents a method of analysis and simulation of impacts in the face of changes in these sterile soils for agriculture. 

Without further ado, I believe it is necessary to publish it, and the only thing that could be improved is the introduction, with a view to placing the challenges of these lands in a scenario of climate change. 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:
On behalf of all the contributing authors, I would like to express our sincere appreciations of your letter and reviewers’ constructive comments concerning our article entitled “Suitability evaluation and engineering matching for agricultural development of barren grassland in mountainous area: a case study of county scale (Original title: New ideas of precise land development: Land suitability evaluation and engineering practices)” (ID: sustainability-2361973).  These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article.  According to the your comments, we have made extensive modifications to our manuscript to make our results convincing.  In revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using red-colored text.  Point-by-point responses to you are listed below this letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I checked the authors' revisions. I think the quality of the writing has improved a lot. Here are some more suggestions:

1. The drawing of the article does not meet the specification. Figure 2 has no scale. The legend in Figures 4 and 8 overlaps with the map.

2. Limitations of the article should be changed to discussion part. The authors can supplement the policy recommendations of this study in this section. The applicability of the results of this study to other regions also needs to be discussed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:
On behalf of all the contributing authors, I would like to express our sincere appreciations of your letter and reviewers’ constructive comments concerning our article entitled “Suitability evaluation and engineering matching for agricultural development of barren grassland in mountainous area: a case study of county scale (Original title: New ideas of precise land development: Land suitability evaluation and engineering practices)” (ID: sustainability-2361973). These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article. According to your comments, we have made modifications to our manuscript to make our results convincing. In revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using red-colored text. Point-by-point responses to you are listed below this letter.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx