Spatial-Temporal Relationship Analysis of Vegetation Phenology and Meteorological Parameters in an Agro-Pasture Ecotone in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an interesting work about the spatio-temporal variability of vegetation phenology in an agro-pasture zone in China and the links to temperature and precipitation variables over a twenty-year period. The approach and methodology are well presented but the results and discussion are sometimes difficult to follow mainly because of the poor quality of the figures which are for some of them, too small and difficult to read. The English has also to be revised in some parts especially (for example in the abstract and the introduction). The references have also to be revised , some references appear twice and there is a problem with S. Piao and S.L. Piao which are the same person and are referenced differently. Otherwise, the work is interesting and could be a valuable contribution to the Remote sensing journal.
Figures 3, 4 7 and 9 have to be revised at least. A point on land cover map uncertainties need to be added in the discussion.
Author Response
See attachfile.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
thank you for your submission of the manuscript, which I like due to its topic, but the current version of the manuscript needs a significant improvement. First the manuscript contains a lot of general well-known statements. You need to add much more details to the Introduction, Methods and Discussion.
All your figures need to be significantly improved, it cannot read many parts of the used text, the maps are too general, and used graphs do not present anything due to their sizes.
Discussion does not discuss anything, you need to add much more direct comparisons between your outcomes and achievements presented in the references.
All References need to be reformatted.
Much more details are presented in the attached manuscript.
Best regards
Reviewer
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
See attachfile.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
In Abstract, pag. 1, rows 13-14: please include a short description of the location of the agro-pasture ecotone in China.
In chp. 1. Introduction, pag. 2, rows 62-63: in the sentence ”Of all the physical parameters, the start of the growing season (SOS) and the end of the growing season (EOS) are the …” the SOS and the EOS are phenology parameters; please modify.
In chp. 1. Introduction, pag.3, row 98: please include a reference for the Savitzky–Golay(S–G) filter.
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp 2.1. Study Area, pag. 3, row 112: In the sentence “The agro-pasture ecotone (Fig. 1) is distributed from northeast to southwest across…) please mention that fig. 1 has two parts (a) Distribution of vegetation and (b) its topographic features.
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp 2.2. Data Source and Preprocessing, 2.2.1. MODIS EVI, pag.4, row 157: in Formula (1) please explain the parameters used (Ci, Yj, i, N, m).
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp 2.2. Data Source and Preprocessing, 2.2.2. Meteorological Data, pag. 4-5, rows 167-168: The sentence “The temporal resolution and spatial resolution are respectively is the month and 0.0083333° (about 1km), and the selected time range is from January 2000 to December 168 2020.” is unclear; please clarify it.
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp 2.2. Data Source and Preprocessing, 2.2.3. Eco-geographical data, pag. 5, rows 188-189: In “Note: All of the eco-geographic regions mentioned below are referred to by their abbreviations and are not repeated.”, please correct below with above.
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp. 2.3. Data analysis methods, 2.3.1. Extraction of Data on Vegetation Phenology, pag. 6, rows 221 – 222: please take into account that “x” in the formula (3) is the EVI value associated with a day of the year;
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp. 2.3. Data analysis methods, 2.3.2. Trend Analysis Based on Theil-Sen’s Slope and the Mann-Kendall Test, pag. 7, rows 245 - 248: please define the parameters used in the formulas (5), (6), (7) and (8).
In chp. 2. Data and Methods, sub-chp. 2.3. Data analysis methods, 2.3.2. Trend Analysis Based on Theil-Sen’s Slope and the Mann-Kendall Test, pag. 8, rows 269 - 270: in the sentence ”where n is the length of the time series; xi is the SOS, EOS, or LOS value in days corresponding to each image element; … is the average value of SOS, EOS, or LOS in days.” please include the parameter -x.
In chp. 3. Results and analysis, subchp. 3.4. The relationship between vegetation phenology and climate, 3.4.1. Precipitation and temperature response to SOS”, pag. 14, rows 475- 476: “In terms of temperature band divisions, the response of the effect of temperature on the SOS…”, please define the term “temperature band divisions”.
In chp. 3. Results and analysis, subchp. 3.4. The relationship between vegetation phenology and climate, 3.4.2. Impact of precipitation and temperature on EOS, pag. 16, rows 512-513: In the sentence “However, regionally, some months showed a more concentrated distribution.”; please specify the months with a more concentrated distribution.
In chp. 5 Conclusions, pag.18, rows 603-604: in the sentence “This study investigated the spatial variation characteristics of vegetation phenology 603 in different eco-geographic regions of the agro-pasture ecotone over 21 years.”, please include the study area i.e. the agro-pasture Ecotone in China.
Author Response
See attachfile.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for having revised your manuscript following my suggestions. I still see that the English needs to be check . Best regards,
Author Response
Answer: Thank you for your comments on the language of our paper. We apologize for the English grammar problem of our manuscript. Before the first submission, we had already submitted the manuscript to the MDPI Professional English Editor to polish our article. We proofread the subsequent revisions again this time to improve the language level. Since there are many problems in modifying the language, we uniformly adopt the green marking language. Please check the manuscript for details.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
most of my comments were ignored, the Introduction, Methods and Discussion are still too general, there were not added key elements confirming a proper theoretical background of the research. The manuscript looks like a report of a data analysis.
All figures need a significant revision, because used scales and size fonts do not allow to identify analyzed targets and to understand what they mean.
All formulas need to be cited in the main text.
References need an improvement, as well. Please, look at journal guidelines.
Please, use a proper template of the Remote Sensing. The current version of the manuscript is not properly formatted.
Best regards
Reviewer
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear Authors,
Most of my comments were ignored, the Introduction, Methods and Discussion are still too general, there were not added key elements confirming a proper theoretical background of the research. The manuscript looks like a report of a data analysis.
All figures need a significant revision, because used scales and size fonts do not allow to identify analyzed targets and to understand what they mean.
All formulas need to be cited in the main text. References need an improvement, as well. Please, look at journal guidelines. Please, use a proper template of the Remote Sensing. The current version of the manuscript is not properly formatted.
Best regards
Reviewer
Answer: It is an honor to receive your review. However, we are sorry that our revisions did not satisfy you. We did make the changes to the manuscript as you requested. In the first revision, we marked all changes in yellow. This time our changes are also marked in yellow.
First of all, the formulas we have quoted in the text. Secondly, the graphs we have adjusted in the first revision. After a careful comparison with our graphs to the graphs in other Remote Sensing papers, we found our graphs are clear enough. If any of the charts are blurred, please point them out and we will make serious corrections.
We have modified the reference format by referring to the endnote format provided by MDPI. We are sorry for the inconsistent formatting of some references due to our carelessness in the first time. We have substantially revised the introduction and discussion, and added more details and cited more researchers' results.
According to the comments, we have made all changes, which are summarized as follows and marked in yellow in the paper. Meanwhile, in order to help other reviewers to review the first revision, we have marked the first revision in grey and the language issues in green. Here are some of your first comments.
Specific comments
- Please, look at guidelines, the references need to be changed.
Answer: Thank you very much for your suggestion. Based on your suggestion, we have revised the formatting of the manuscript references according to the EndNote format provided by MDPI.
- The Introduction is properly structured, but it contains a lot of well-known statements, please, add much more details oriented on methods and results used by other researchers to solve out the research topic. Please, add much more details from the cited papers.
Answer: We thank the commentators for the reviwer’s very good comments/suggestions here. We have added more details about the literature in the introduction. At the same time, we marked the modification of the first introduction in gray, and this modification in yellow. We revised page 2, lines 50-63 and lines 77-80 of the article.
- all equations need to be cited in the main text.
Answer: Thank you for raising this insight question. We have revised it in the manuscript. Pleased see page 4, line 175, and page 6, line 228.
- It is not possible to identify something on the presented maps. almost everything is too small.
Answer: Thanks to the reviewer for helpful comments. We have redrawn the chart in the article to make the font size of the chart clear, but due to the border limitation, the current chart font is more appropriate, if it is still not clear, we will redraw it again.
- The Discussion should contain direct comparisons between your more important achievements with references to highlight the most innovative elements, which you proposed in the study. Currently it looks like an analysis of acquired results. Please add a table to compare your outcomes with references. Much more details are needed.
Answer: Thanks for the constructive suggestions to improve our manuscript. The discussion is an important part of the article, and we revised it at first, but we are sorry that we did not meet your requirements. We thus have made a second revision and compared it with the findings of more researchers. Please see page 17, lines 548-553, page 18, lines 583-598 and lines 610-611.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors, I can see your manuscript 3rd time, and I can see that many of my requests were igonred, e.g. what is easy to recognise: - all formulas are not cited in the main text, - please, look at the figures, most of used fonts are so small, that it is very hard to read and to understand what present colors of legend units, because maps are so small, so it is not possible to recognise the patterns on the maps, please try to understand something on the Figure 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ... - I requested to cite all www addresses as a normal references, and it was not completed, e.g. lines 164, 188, - does the Discussion present a comparison of results, which achieved Authors with references?I think that manuscript is so similar to the first version.
best regards
Reviewer
Author Response
Responses to the Comments from the Editors and Reviewers
Dear Editor,
We appreciate very much the instructive and helpful comments by the Editors and Reviewers. According to the comments, we have made all changes, which are summarized as follows and marked in yellow in the paper.
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear Authors,
I can see your manuscript 3rd time, and I can see that many of my requests were igonred, e.g. what is easy to recognise: - all formulas are not cited in the main text, - please, look at the figures, most of used fonts are so small, that it is very hard to read and to understand what present colors of legend units, because maps are so small, so it is not possible to recognise the patterns on the maps, please try to understand something on the Figure 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ... - I requested to cite all www addresses as a normal references, and it was not completed, e.g. lines 164, 188, - does the Discussion present a comparison of results, which achieved Authors with references?
I think that manuscript is so similar to the first version.
best regards
Reviewer
Answer: We are honored to receive your comments. Thank you for being so patient in reviewing our paper. We have carefully revised your comments and have marked all changes in yellow. The feedback is now organized as follows.
Specific comments
- All formulas are not cited in the main text.
Answer: Very much feel your advice. We have carefully checked all the formulas and found that they have all been referenced in the manuscript. According to the Remote Sensing paper template, formulas were also cited correctly. You can refer to the every formulas in our manuscript.
At the same time, we compared with papers published recently, and formulas were also cited in the same way, for example, formulas of “Analysis of the Spatial and Temporal Evolution Patterns of Grassland Health and Its Driving Factors in Xilingol” published in the year of 2022 can be seen in the follows:
In the same way, formulas of “The Response of Land Surface Temperature Changes to the Vegetation Dynamics in the Yangtze River Basin” published in this year can be seen in the follows:
In sum, all formulas cited in our manuscript have labeled with references. And if there are still any question, point out clearly in order to we can comprehend your meanings, please.
- Please, look at the figures, most of used fonts are so small, that it is very hard to read and to understand what present colors of legend units, because maps are so small, so it is not possible to recognize the patterns on the maps, please try to understand something on the Figure 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ...
Answer: Thank you for your very good comments/suggestions here. The color and fonts have adjusted bigly. And the layout of figure have been changed in the manuscript. Please see the figure 3, 4,…, and 10.
- I requested to cite all www addresses as a normal references, and it was not completed, e.g. lines 164, 188,
Answer: Thank you for raising this insight question. We have checked the Remote Sensing template again and found that there is indeed a problem. Every www address has been corrected in this revision. Please see page 4, lines 165, page 5, lines 189,214 and page 6, lines 221.
- Does the Discussion present a comparison of results, which achieved Authors with references?
Answer: Thanks for the constructive suggestions to improve our manuscript. We have cited several references, and compared results with our study. Please see page 18, lines 546-565, page 19, lines 579-601 and page 20, lines 606-629.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
