Impacts of Land Use Intensity on Ecosystem Services: A Case Study in Harbin City, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

This work present an application interesting to the Impact of Land Use Intensity on Ecosystem Services, the paper, although it does not adopt an innovative methodology nor it proposes new investigating techniques for land-use; presents an interesting and solid case study. However, after reviewing the manuscript, there are some points that require review

The title of the manuscript are concise, specific and relevant. This is Ok.

The paper contain all main obligatory chapters (Introduction; Materials and Methods; Results; Discussion). This is Ok

The materials and methods section is not described in sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and take advantage of the published results.

L331 There is no reference to support this information.

L363 There is no reference to support this information.

The cited references relevant to research can be improved, add more cited references in the results and discussion section to support the results.

Figure 2 does not clearly show the data, consider improving it

Figure 4 showing the spatial distribution pattern of ES in different years is confusing, improve its presentation.

Figure 5(b) Composition and relative magnitude of ES in ES packages, is not mentioned and described in the previous paragraph, and is not clear either.

Table 2 has an error where the years are mentioned in another language, please change it to the magazine format.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Impact of Land Use Intensity on Ecosystem Services: A case study in Harbin City, China”. These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article. According to your comments, we have made extensive modifications to our manuscript and supplemented extra data to make our results convincing. In this revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using yellow-colored text. The detailed point-by-point responses are listed below.

1.The materials and methods section is not described in sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and take advantage of the published results.

Reply: Thanks for your suggestion. We have supplemented the Materials and Methods section with more detailed research methods, including the detailed calculation process for WC and SC, the correction process for CS, and data such as the biophysical coefficient table for HQ. This allows the reader to have a clearer understanding of how ESs are calculated. At the same time, we added two parts, "2.5.1. Hotspot delineation" and "2.5.2. Spearman's Correlation Analysis", to discuss more in depth about the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics and correlations of ESs.（L150-L280）

2.L331 There is no reference to support this information.

Reply: Thanks for your review. We have added relevant references.

3.L363 There is no reference to support this information.

Reply: Thanks for your review. We have added relevant references.

4.The cited references relevant to research can be improved, add more cited references in the results and discussion section to support the results.

Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have added an introduction to the InVEST model and the main contributions of this paper in the Introduction section. In the Discussion section, we add the related strategies to the management of ecological functional zoning and cite a large number of related literatures.

5.Figure 2 does not clearly show the data, consider improving it.

Reply: Thanks for your suggestion. We have replaced Figure 2 with Table 4 (Land use transition matrix), enabling readers to get a clearer picture of land use transfer in Harbin City from 2000 to 2020.

6.Figure 4 showing the spatial distribution pattern of ES in different years is confusing, improve its presentation.

Reply: Thank you for your advice. We modified Figure 4 to make the individual ESs more clearly presented to the reader.（Figure 3. Spatial distribution pattern of ESs in different years in Harbin.）

7.Figure 5(b) Composition and relative magnitude of ES in ES packages, is not mentioned and described in the previous paragraph, and is not clear either.

Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have added a description of ES bundles in "2.5.3. Identification of ES bundles" and "3.5. Spatial-temporal patterns of ES bundles". we added relevant descriptions of ES bundles and explained the characteristics of the five ES bundles identified in this study.（L277-L280, L388-L398）

8.Table 2 has an error where the years are mentioned in another language, please change it to the magazine format.

Reply: Thanks for your suggestion. This was an oversight on our part and we apologize. We have fixed the error here.

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions that enable us to keep improving our research. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to let us know. Thank you very much!

Reviewer 2 Report

I read the manuscript entitled ‘Impact of Land Use Intensity on Ecosystem Services: An Example from Harbin City, China’ with interest. This study quantified five important ecosystem service bundles in the study area with the aid of the R-language “kohonen” package and used bivariate spatial autocorrelation modeling to examine the effects of LUI on the ESs in Harbin City from 2000 to 2020. However, it is considered that the paper needs to be improved and some additional experiments are needed which may help to make the manuscript more acceptable to the readers.

1. The abstract mentions some findings, such as trends in LUI and correlations between ESs, but does not provide specific implications of these findings and how they can be applied to urban ecosystem management and sustainable development. In the main text, more explanations of the findings and policy recommendations need to be provided.

2. The introduction could include a description of the theoretical framework or conceptual model used in the study to help readers better understand the theoretical underpinnings and research assumptions of the study. This can help to put the study into a broader context.

3. The introduction needs to clearly state what the contribution of the study is, i.e. what scientific references are provided for land resource management planning. This helps the reader to better understand the practical implications of the study.

4. Please add all cited sources of official data in Table 1 to the reference list

5. Please ask the authors to consider integrating different ecosystem service models to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the combined impacts of urban land use on ecosystems. This can help to reveal the interactions between different ecosystem services.

6. If data are available, attempts can be made to predict future LUI and ESs to help urban planners better understand potential ecosystem service trends so that preventive management measures can be taken.

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Impact of Land Use Intensity on Ecosystem Services: A case study in Harbin City, China”. These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article. According to your comments, we have made extensive modifications to our manuscript and supplemented extra data to make our results convincing. In this revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using yellow-colored text. The detailed point-by-point responses are listed below.

1. The abstract mentions some findings, such as trends in LUI and correlations between ESs, but does not provide specific implications of these findings and how they can be applied to urban ecosystem management and sustainable development. In the main text, more explanations of the findings and policy recommendations need to be provided.

Reply:  Thanks for your suggestion. We added the analytics "2.5.1 Hotspot delineation" and "3.4. Identification of ES hotspots" in the revision process. The spatially synthesized ESs of Harbin City are evaluated in "3.4. Identification of ES hotspots". Finally, based on the evaluation results and the characteristics of LUI, "Figure 9" is added in "4.3 Policy implications" to propose more comprehensive planning strategies for different ecological function zones.

2. The introduction could include a description of the theoretical framework or conceptual model used in the study to help readers better understand the theoretical underpinnings and research assumptions of the study. This can help to put the study into a broader context.

Reply: Thanks for your review. We have added a brief description of the InVEST model, its benefits and applications in the Introduction section, which is intended to make it easier for the reader to understand the reasons for selecting this model.(L67-L74)

3. The introduction needs to clearly state what the contribution of the study is, i.e. what scientific references are provided for land resource management planning. This helps the reader to better understand the practical implications of the study.

Reply: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have added the main contributions of this study in the last point of the INTRODUCTION section, including (1) assessing the spatial and temporal evolution of LUI and ESs in Harbin City from 2000 to 2020, and exploring the relationship between the response of ESs to LUI; (2) based on the identification of hotspot areas and the impact of LUI on ESs, dividing the land space of Harbin City into three major functional subdivisions, namely, ecological governance, ecological enhancement, and ecological protection; and (3) based on the characteristics of different ecological functional subdivisions, the scientific recommen-dations on the management of land space in Harbin City. For example, the western part of the city is dominated by governance and focuses on the maintenance of FP, while the northern and eastern parts of the city are dominated by protection and large-scale human interference is strictly prohibited.(L89-L99)

4. Please add all cited sources of official data in Table 1 to the reference list

Reply: Thank you for your advice. We searched the literature for data sources on the official website and added them to this article.

5. Please ask the authors to consider integrating different ecosystem service models to provide a more comprehensive assessment of the combined impacts of urban land use on ecosystems. This can help to reveal the interactions between different ecosystem services.

Reply:  Thank you very much for your suggestions. We added relevant experimental data. Integration of different ESs using hotspot analysis. The top 10% of each ES hotspot was defined by Getis-Ord GI*, and hotspot and non-hotspot areas were assigned 1 and 0, respectively, and the hotspot areas of each ES were superimposed to obtain the hotspot map of ESs in Harbin City.（L258-L272, L373-L387）

6. If data are available, attempts can be made to predict future LUI and ESs to help urban planners better understand potential ecosystem service trends so that preventive management measures can be taken.

Reply: Thank you for your suggestion, ESs future scenario simulation is indeed something we will continue to study in the future, due to time and space issues, scenario simulation was not conducted in this study, which is a shortcoming of this study. We have written the future research direction at the end of the paper and we will further follow your suggestion in the future.（L612-L614）

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions that enable us to keep improving our research. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to let us know. Thank you very much.

Reviewer 3 Report

In this paper, the authors analyzed five sets of ecosystem services (food provisioning, water conservation, soil conservation, carbon storage, water purification, and habitat quality) in an area using two-dimensional spatial autocorrelation modeling. The work is interesting and relevant.

In the second section, the authors o provide formulas for determining the listed five complexes. It is not clear whether the authors assessed their complex influence? It would be interesting to see their complex influence in the form of a multivariate regression dependence or a target function.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our article. Thank you very much for reviewing our manuscript entitled “Impact of Land Use Intensity on Ecosystem Services: A case study in Harbin City, China”. These comments are all valuable and helpful for improving our article. According to your comments, we have made extensive modifications to our manuscript and supplemented extra data to make our results convincing. In this revised version, changes to our manuscript were all highlighted within the document by using yellow-colored text. The detailed point-by-point responses are listed below.

In the second section, the authors provide formulas for determining the listed five complexes. It is not clear whether the authors assessed their complex influence? It would be interesting to see their complex influence in the form of a multivariate regression dependence or a target function.

Reply:  Thanks for your suggestion. Due to time and space constraints, we did not perform multiple regression analysis, but we added some experiments and data to make the ESs more clear and concise.

We added "2.5.1. Hotspot delineation" and "2.5.2. Spearman's Correlation Analysis", to discuss more in depth about the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics and correlations of ESs. And the trade-offs and synergies between ESs are explored.（L150-L280）

At the same time, we added "3.4. Identification of ES hotspots" in the revision process. We added relevant experimental data. Integration of different ESs using hotspot analysis. The top 10% of each ES hotspot was defined by Getis-Ord GI*, and hotspot and non-hotspot areas were assigned 1 and 0, respectively, and the hotspot areas of each ES were superimposed to obtain the hotspot map of ESs in Harbin City. This facilitates the reader to get a clearer picture of the integrated ESs in Harbin.（L258-L272, L373-L387）

 Finally, based on the evaluation results and the characteristics of LUI, "Figure 9" is added in "4.3 Policy implications" to propose more comprehensive planning strategies for different ecological function zones.(L373-L387, L561-L566)

As for the multivariate regression analysis, we can put it in a future study on the drivers of ESs. Thank you very much for your help and suggestions, and we will conduct the study based on your suggestions next.

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions that enable us to keep improving our research. If you have any other suggestions, please feel free to let us know. Thank you very much!

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors properly addressed the comments made to them during the first review.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have more fully revised the first round of review comments and added relevant experiments, and recommend acceptance of the paper.

Minor editing of English language required.