Dynamic Relationship between Agricultural Water Use and the Agricultural Economy in the Inner Mongolia Section of the Yellow River Basin

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Introduction

How important agricultural water is for the agricultural-based economy of the region?

Is the economy of the study area based only on agriculture?

What are the bidirectional influences are you studying in this research?

 

Methods

What are the limitations of the PVAR model you used in this study since some parameters are estimated?

 

Results

What are the limitations of this study?

What are the other potential factors that may influence your results?

 

Conclusion

 

How does you study contribute to improve livelihoods of the local populations in the study area?

Author Response

Dear reviewer and editor:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and kind suggestions on our submission. Your academic sense and scientific literacy definitely promoted this manuscript to a new level. We highly appreciate your time and effort. The manuscript has been improved according to your comments. The detailed responses are followed in below point by point. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Title:  Dynamic Relationship Between Agricultural Water Use and the Agricultural Economy in the Inner Mongolia Section of the Yellow River Basin

1.     What is the purpose of using a panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model in the study?

2.     How is the agricultural economy growth expressed in the study, and why is the standardization of gross agricultural output necessary during preprocessing?

3.     What was the average total agricultural water consumption in the Inner Mongolia section of the Yellow River Basin between 1998 and 2018? How did it change over time?

4.     Did the agricultural water consumption per mu differ among the cities? If so, how?

5.     How did the agricultural economy, as measured by the total GDP of primary-sector industries, change during the study period? Were there any significant trends or patterns?

6.     What is the significance of the declining proportion of primary-sector GDP in the total economy of the Inner Mongolia section of the Yellow River Basin?

7.     Was there a long-term equilibrium relationship observed between agricultural water use (AWU) and the agricultural economy? What were the results of the cointegration tests?

8.     What were the coefficients of lagged AWU and the agricultural economy in the PVAR model? How do they indicate the interaction between AWU and the agricultural economy?

9.     Did the Granger causality test reveal any causal relationships between AWU and the agricultural economy?

10.  What factors other than agricultural water consumption can influence the agricultural economy in the study area?

 

11.  What suggestions are provided for the sustainable development of agricultural water resources and for promoting agricultural economic growth?

Author Response

Dear reviewer and editor:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and kind suggestions on our submission. Your academic sense and scientific literacy definitely promoted this manuscript to a new level. We highly appreciate your time and effort. The manuscript has been improved according to your comments. The detailed responses are followed in below point by point. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In the present study, the authors explore the “Dynamic Relationship Between Agricultural Water Use and the Agricultural Economy in the Inner Mongolia”. Though the work is largely well-written, the article still needs significant improvement in the introduction, methodology, and conclusion sections. Considering my observations as follows, I suggest that the paper undergo major revision before considering it for publication.

·       The motivation behind this research should be included in the introduction section. Hence, the contribution in this manuscript is weak.

·       In the introduction, I would suggest to review the research progress of the recent literature, then analyze the limitations of past research, and finally clarify the innovation of your own research.

·       Please divide “Results and Discussion' section into two separate sections”: “Results” and “Discussion”, which will provide readers a clearer understanding.

·       The conclusion can be improved by highlighting the innovation content of the paper, future research directions, and recommendations for policy formulation.

·       Please check the English grammar.

·       Please delete the word “the” from the beginning of 3.2 section.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear reviewer and editor:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and kind suggestions on our submission. Your academic sense and scientific literacy definitely promoted this manuscript to a new level. We highly appreciate your time and effort. The manuscript has been improved according to your comments. The detailed responses are followed in below point by point. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Agree

Author Response

We greatly appreciate your time and approval of this manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

I have been brought in a second time to review this manuscript. I appreciate the authors' hard work and thoughtful responses to my comments. But in some cases, I am not convinced, because I could not see so much implication of my previous comment (see below). Besides these I have some other issues which must be addressed before consider it for publication.

Previous comment

·       The motivation behind this research should be included in the introduction section. Hence, the contribution in this manuscript is weak.

·       In the introduction, I would suggest to review the research progress of the recent literature, then analyze the limitations of past research, and finally clarify the innovation of your own research

Other issues

·       Detailed explanation and description are needed for the calculation of the following variables: total effective irrigated area, AWU output efficiency, average AWU per mu, and agricultural economy growth. Please mention it in the 2.2 section.

·       In the PVAR model explained in Section 2.3.1, how many variables were used as independent variables and dependent variables is not clear to me. So far, I understand from the description that AWU and the agricultural economy growth are used as dependent variables. If these two variables were used as dependent variables in that case, how was the relationship between agricultural water use and agricultural economy growth measured? For measuring the relationship and causal effect, either "AWU" has to be considered an independent variable and "agricultural economy growth" a dependent variable, or vice versa.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear reviewer and editor:

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and kind suggestions on our submission. Your academic sense and scientific literacy definitely promoted this manuscript to a new level. We highly appreciate your time and effort. The manuscript has been improved according to your comments. The detailed responses are followed in below point by point. Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

I have no further comments.