Interpretation and Spatiotemporal Analysis of Terraces in the Yellow River Basin Based on Machine Learning

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper entitled ‘Interpretation and Spatiotemporal Analysis of Terraces in the Yellow River Basin Based on Machine Learning’ by Li et al 2023 is a scientific work. It has very good potential to be published in the journal Sustainability. However, I have following comments and suggestions and I would like to suggest for a major revision.

 

Comments:

 

1.     How the author estimated the terrace areas ? 

2.     What type of survey or observational data input has been used for the model build up for the terraces in the Yellow River Basin?

3.     Manuscript lacks novelty. Few recent literatures are suggested to improve the novelty.

4.     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125905

5.     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2022.100695

6.     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126905

7.     How the authors corrected the biasness of the model?

8.     Authors used very complex methods to do the spatiotemporal analysis of terraces. It is my impression the methods applied are not very reliable or chance of its reuse in other parts of the world for similar studies.

9.     Minor English corrections needed.  

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The paper entitled ‘Interpretation and Spatiotemporal Analysis of Terraces in the Yellow River Basin Based on Machine Learning’ by Li et al 2023 is a scientific work. It has very good potential to be published in the journal Sustainability. However, I have following comments and suggestions and I would like to suggest for a major revision.

 

Comments:

 

1.     How the author estimated the terrace areas ? 

2.     What type of survey or observational data input has been used for the model build up for the terraces in the Yellow River Basin?

3.     Manuscript lacks novelty. Few recent literatures are suggested to improve the novelty.

4.     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125905

5.     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2022.100695

6.     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2021.126905

7.     How the authors corrected the biasness of the model?

8.     Authors used very complex methods to do the spatiotemporal analysis of terraces. It is my impression the methods applied are not very reliable or chance of its reuse in other parts of the world for similar studies.

9.     Minor English corrections needed.  

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which has significantly improved the presentation of our manuscript. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewers and revised our manuscript accordingly. We believe that our responses have well addressed all concerns from the reviewers. We hope our revised manuscript can be accepted for publication.
In the attachment, we summarize our responses to each comment from the reviewers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Nice Visual representations and visualization to explain the spatial and geographical distributions and year to year changes. Normalization helped with irregularities. Great explanation of data collection and data labeling. Spearman correlation efficiently used but may be good to indicate how it checks for monotonic relationship. If you like to explain the change with training ratio 80% instead of 70% which is OK, would it add a value to your comparison especially if different results are found? Violation of independence is explained well.. Traditional and machine learning methods are clearly explained relating the data at the end.

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which has significantly improved the presentation of our manuscript. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewers and revised our manuscript accordingly. We believe that our responses have well addressed all concerns from the reviewers. We hope our revised manuscript can be accepted for publication.
In the attachment, we summarize our responses to each comment from the reviewers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Line 31, 42, 66: Please use only TRA and GEE, full abbreviation only first time in the manuscript. Authors need to highlight objectives and research significance clearly at the end of the introduction. The authors should present data statistics and the variables' importance. Figures 3a, 4c, and 5 are very poor. Please improve the quality of the figure. Variance in prediction results can be significant and require substantial explanation to warrant using the model vis a vis experimental model. The spatial interpolation models have higher variability even if it is acceptable in the "Math" side, but this will not be scientifically acceptable on the "field" side since the behavior of surface reflections (NDVI) will have higher uncertainty. Please refer: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-11613-y There is no need to write a very lengthy discussion on results in the tins section. Please focus on the scientific justification of the results. Please revise the results section accordingly.

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which has significantly improved the presentation of our manuscript. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewers and revised our manuscript accordingly. We believe that our responses have well addressed all concerns from the reviewers. We hope our revised manuscript can be accepted for publication.
In the attachment, we summarize our responses to each comment from the reviewers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear editor

The structure of paper represent an eco-informatics and machine learning analyses. The banksides are sensitive ecological zones that are classified in priority topic in conservation management, however the additive value of paper including a new analysis and new approach.  Accordingly Author(s) should be pay attention to some key comments including:

Abstract

Should be revised after the main text revision

Introduction 

What are the additive fitness of this study?

New analysis?

New approach?

Collection and comparison?

The structure of manuscript including a mix of review in frame a new analysis, so more powerful introduction seems to be necessary to improve

Hypothesis

Necessity

justification

aims

to justify the importance or study or represent the vacancy of similar studies 

Authors should be provide a suitable structure for material and methods including:

Study area: comprehensive description on ecology and physical geography of studied area. Accordingly, the comprehensive description on ecology of area must be provided.

 

Discussion

What are the main achievements the study in frame of

Conservation ecology

Ecosystem management

Environmental plans and etc.?

Finally the manuscript including valuable concepts and new analysis, regardless showing some shortcomings that must be corrected in detail.

Decision: Major Revision

Best Regards

Author Response

We would like to thank you for your careful reading, helpful comments, and constructive suggestions, which has significantly improved the presentation of our manuscript. We have carefully considered all comments from the reviewers and revised our manuscript accordingly. We believe that our responses have well addressed all concerns from the reviewers. We hope our revised manuscript can be accepted for publication.
In the attachment, we summarize our responses to each comment from the reviewers.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have incorporated all my suggestions in the revised version.I would like to recommend for the acceptance of the manuscript. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor

The manuscript s corrected on the basis my comments. It is accepatable .

Best Regards