Spatio-Temporal Changes and Influencing Factors of Meteorological Dry-Wet in Northern China during 1960–2019
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript titled "Spatio-temporal changes and influencing factors of meteorological dry-wet in Northern China during 1960-2019" estimates the spatio-temporal evolution of meteorological dry-wet in Northern China. The study is important but there are few issues that need to be addressed before acceptance.
1. The abstract should start with a background sentence to express the importance of the study. Also, in the end, the key findings/conclusion of this study should be included in a sentence.
I suggest merging Figure 2 into Figure 1 as the information is not significant to be shown in a separate figure.
The citation style is not according to the MDPI standard format.
The authors are also suggested to discuss the dry-wet characteristics in other surrounding regions of TP (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0271626)
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is interesting and useful.
However, come changes are necessary.
The paper needs a deep and extensive English revision for language and grammar.
Figure 7 represents some points characterised by a different value from the close ones. It is strange and difficult to accept in a graphical representation. So, I believe you must justify these discrepancies and avoid this kind of representation if the real values are so far from the others.
Please check the references style of MDPI and revise the paper following it. The same problem for equations.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I think this is an outstanding paper, which provides a detailed analysis of the drought conditions in the moisture-limited region of northwest China with the help of the SPI index, which is a great guide for ecosystem restoration in the dryness. Overall, the paper is written logically, well-structured, and highly innovative, and I recommend accepting it with minor revisions. However, I still have small part of problems here that need to be addressed.
P1: The author's expressions emphasize too much on the third person to state the results and conclusions, which is not in line with the English expressions. For example, in Line 12, "The results" can be replaced by "Our results", which I hope the authors will review in full.
P2: SPEI has obvious methodological advantages over SPI, and the authors should highlight the reasons for choosing SPI in the introduction.
P3: The article is missing some key literature Citation Panxing He et al 2022 Environ. Res. Lett. 17 104054; Nicholas Depsky and Diego Pons 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 014001
P4: The last paragraph of the introduction does not seem to state very clearly what the authors' research objectives are? I would suggest writing three specific research objectives.
P5: Figure 1 should show the complete nine-dashed line in the South China Sea
P6: The figure notes in Figure 5 are in italics, which I think is inappropriate, and I suggest that it be standardized throughout.
P7: The conclusion section is too long, I suggest the author to streamline some of the content.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have addressed the comments raised in the earlier version. I am glad to recommend acceptance.
Reviewer 2 Report
In my opinion, the authors have revised the paper according to the reviewers' comments. The. paper can be accepted in the present form.
