The Changes of Spatiotemporal Pattern of Rocky Desertification and Its Dominant Driving Factors in Typical Karst Mountainous Areas under the Background of Global Change
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments on the research paper remotesensing-1690013 entitled "The changes of Spatio-temporal pattern of rocky desertification and its dominant driving factors in typical karst mountainous areas under the background of global change."
This paper aims to introduce the feature space model to quantitatively invert the rocky desertification index from 1985 to 2020 based on Landsat satellite images and then analyse the long-term spatial-temporal evolution pattern and characteristics. I found the idea compelling, and there is merit in the data provided. However, there are some issues concerning the methods and the conclusion, and I believe must be addressed prior to acceptance.
The methods and conclusion section of this manuscript needs attention.
Specific comments
- Please ensure all abbreviations are defined the first time they appear in the abstract, main text, and Figures/tables throughout.
- The introduction section needs some beefing up and relevant literature of recent years on related work integrated.
- Figures 4, 6 and 7 (Legend) contain poor text quality inside the artwork. Please do not re-use the file or attempt to increase its resolution and re-save. It is originally poor; therefore, increasing the resolution will not solve the quality problem. Please do it again and incorporate it.
- Please incorporate a work flowchart of your methods that will help the readers understand your methods' flow.
- Please provide detailed descriptions of used data and their sources in tabular form.
- Line 58: Mention the relevant remote sensing techniques
- A substantial part of Section 3.1 should move to the method section. Please keep only your results in this section
- Replace km2 with km2 throughout the manuscript
- Some form of validation/accuracy assessment is required to determine the reliability of the used Models.
- Section 4.3 and 4.4 have the same title; please correct it
- Rewrite the conclusion section. Line 610-620 is just a repetition of the introduction section
- The reference list needs a careful revision for consistency
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Please ensure all abbreviations are defined the first time they appear in the abstract, main text, and Figures/tables throughout..
Response 1: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of these problems. According to your suggestions, we have checked and revised all these similar problems throughout the whole paper.
Point 2: The introduction section needs some beefing up and relevant literature of recent years on related work integrated..
Response 2: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have rewritten the section of Introduction and added some relevant literature of recent years.
Point 3: Figures 4, 6 and 7 (Legend) contain poor text quality inside the artwork. Please do not re-use the file or attempt to increase its resolution and re-save. It is originally poor; therefore, increasing the resolution will not solve the quality problem. Please do it again and incorporate it.
Response 3: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have re-produced all the above figures.
Point 4: Please incorporate a work flowchart of your methods that will help the readers understand your methods' flow.
Response 4: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have added a work flowchart in the section of Methods.
Point 5: Please provide detailed descriptions of used data and their sources in tabular form.
Response 5: Thank you for your good suggestions and according to your suggestions, we have added the Table 1 for the detailed descriptions of used data and their sources.
Point 6: Line 58: Mention the relevant remote sensing techniques.
Response 6: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have rewritten this sentence.
Point 7: A substantial part of Section 3.1 should move to the method section. Please keep only your results in this section.
Response 7: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have moved the section of 3.1 to the section of 2.3.2. Construction of point-to-point BLI-DI rocky desertification monitoring model.
Point 8: Replace km2 with km2 throughout the manuscript.
Response 8: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have checked and revised all these similar problems for the whole paper.
Point 9: Some form of validation/accuracy assessment is required to determine the reliability of the used Models.
Response 9: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for not clarifying this problem. Clealy. According to your suggestions, we have added the validation method in the section of 2.3.4 and the validation process in the section of 3.1 Validation of monitioring index for rocky desertification.
Point 10: Section 4.3 and 4.4 have the same title; please correct it.
Response 10: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have corrected it.
Point 11: Rewrite the conclusion section. Line 610-620 is just a repetition of the introduction section.
Response 11: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have rewritten the conclusion section.
Point 12: The reference list needs a careful revision for consistency.
Response 12: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have revised all the listed references.
Special thanks to you for your good comments
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript proposed a point-to-point BLI-DI feature space model and used it to analyze the changes of spatio-tempral pattern of rocky desertification. This study is interesting and the manuscript is well written. I have some specific comments.
- Line107: Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI images were used in this study. But the bandwidth of NIR in Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 is different. Is this difference affect the final result? Please add some comments in the discussion.
- Lines 130-131: Why select dryness index (DI) and surface bare land index (BLI) to indicate the rocky desertification process?
- Lines 158-162: Please remove the verification method to Section 2. Please add a new figure to show the locations of field observations.
- Line 256: As shown in Table 2, the proportion of levels of rocky desertification areas show great changes in 2010. What caused these changes?
- Lines 504 to 506: The authors declare that the proposed method could improve the accuracy of rocky desertification monitoring to a certain extent. But no comparisons show in section 3.1.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: Line107: Landsat 5 TM and Landsat 8 OLI images were used in this study. But the bandwidth of NIR in Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 is different. Is this difference affect the final result? Please add some comments in the discussion.
Response 1: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for not clarifying this problem. According to your suggestion, we have added some comments in the section of 4.1 Advantages of analysis model.
Point 2: Lines 130-131: Why select dryness index (DI) and surface bare land index (BLI) to indicate the rocky desertification process?
Response 2: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for not clarifying this problem clearly. According to your suggestions, the reasons for selecting the two indices have been added in the section of 2.3.1. Calculation of typical parameters and principle of feature space model.
Point 3: Lines 158-162: Please remove the verification method to Section 2. Please add a new figure to show the locations of field observations..
Response 3: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of these problems. According to your suggestions, we have added the verification method in section 2 and produced a new figure to show the locations of field observations.
Point 4: Line 256: As shown in Table 2, the proportion of levels of rocky desertification areas show great changes in 2010. What caused these changes?.
Response 4: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for not clarifying this problem clearly. In 2010, the rocky desertification showed an obviously exacerbating trend than that of 2005.The reason was that the severe drought in 2009-2010 of southwest mountainous area had led to widespread vegetation degradation, which aggravated the rocky desertification condition. And we have clarified this problem in the section of 4.3.
Point 5: Lines 504 to 506: The authors declare that the proposed method could improve the accuracy of rocky desertification monitoring to a certain extent. But no comparisons show in section 3.1.
Response 5: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for not clarifying this problem.
Previous studies on monitoring of rocky desertification information were mostly carried out based on image classification and comprehensive index method. However, image classification had great advantages in distinguishing the boundaries and ranges of rocky desertification and non-rocky desertification, but it was difficult to quantitatively identify different levels of rocky desertification. Comprehensive index method evaluates the rocky desertification condition by selecting different types of surface parameters to obtain a comprehensive index. However, this method often enhanced the contribution of a certain type of influencing factors in the process of rocky desertification. In addition , the accuracy of comprehensive index for rocky desertification was not higher than 90%. In this paper, the novel proposed monitoring index of rocky desertification had a inversion accuracy of 91.3%.
Special thanks to you for your good comments
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have done well in addressing my scientific comments on the first draft of the paper. I do, however, remain concerned about the need for the following corrections:
- Line 88: Please revise this sentence and remove unnecessary words.
- Cite tables in the appropriate place, not with the section title ( for instance, citation of table 1 should be placed inside the text)
I believe that if the authors address these minor typographical errors in terms of the quality of the research and its presentation, the paper is suitable for publication.
Author Response
Point 1: Line 88: Please revise this sentence and remove unnecessary words..
Response 1: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions, we have revised this sentence.
Point 2: Cite tables in the appropriate place, not with the section title ( for instance, citation of table 1 should be placed inside the text).
Response 2: Thank you for your good suggestions and we are sorry for negeligence of this problem. According to your suggestions,we have placed this citaion of Table 1 inside the text.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have revised the manuscript according to the comments.
Author Response
Point 1: The authors have revised the manuscript according to the comments.
Response 1: Thank you for your good suggestions and kind work for improving our paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
