Revealing the Structure and Composition of the Restored Vegetation Cover in Semi-Arid Mine Dumps Based on LiDAR and Hyperspectral Images
, Huping Hou 1 and Xiaoxiao Zhu 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have taken the comments very seriously. Almost all the necessary corrections have been made. The manuscript has been significantly improved both in structure and content.
I allowed to make some comments on some inaccuracies left after this edit.
- Latin names of plants. There is such a rule - if it is one species, for example, poplar, then it is written Populus sp., if there are two species or more - Populus spp. (L 30, 115, 183 and so on).
- Sea buckthorn. It is better to name the species - Hippophae sp. (L 30, 117, 183, 185, Figure 2 and so on).
Conclusion - the manuscript can be recommended for publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
authors have incorporated LIDAR and Hyperspectral data for the structure and composition of the study sites.
few major comments-
- Authors should mentioned DT and RF in abstract to emphasize the study importance.
- Figure 1- point out the open pit mining area and main vegetation area with yellow circle or any marker to show the regions to readers.
- Figure 2 page number 5. what are the basis or logic behind arbor as third layer. is this taken overall considering decision tree classifier and RF classifier. ??
- if DT and RF are taken separately, why layers are taken together, ?
- Figure 3, from where this image is taken ? author generated or adapted from previously published articles ? explain or cite properly.
- Table 1- this needs proper citation of original references who gave these indices. REQUIRED.
- Provide one image/ figures of Canopy heights - before figure 16. and try to show 3D models of the vegetation along with that.
- Provide a table for heights of shrubs/ herbs/ trees with maximum/ minimum values and median/ SD.
rest is fine. authors requested to incorporate the changes.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The study presented is certainly an original work, however it presents numerous critical points and numerous inaccuracies that betray an excessive rush to close the work. In summary: some fundamental data, such as ground survey, are not reported (assuming they have been performed); the terminology relating to plant species / communities is often incorrect; many sentences are unclear, others are excessively long; most of the figures have no reference in the text; it is excessively long, some paragraphs, if not chapters, could be excluded from the main text and attached as supplementary material; the results treated statistically, should be filtered (highlighting only the main ones) and interpreted more carefully; the results should be summarized and in the discussion, better discussed and integrated with the bibliography reported. Although I am not a native speaker, I believe that English needs to be improved. In any case, all the observations to be clarified or the parts to be improved / changed are reported on the revised text.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
May be accepted. All suggestion and comments incorporated.
Author Response
Extremely thanks for reviewing our manuscript. Thank you for your time and careful review.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The work is noticeably clearer but there are a few small things to finish.
ATTENTION! a large number of Figures, and some Tabes, have no reference in the text: correct!
line 110 ( and in figure 1 line 124) Are you sure that the transect area is 2.04 ha? From my (approximate) measurement of the area with a red perimeter that you report in figure 1, an area of 20.4 hectares results. (from Google Earth measurement tool). For convenience, I attach the extracted image.
line 114 "Planting specific species on single-specific plots." This phrase, put like this, says nothing. Probably inserted in the next sentence, it is better understood
line 581 "The study area in this study is located in the dump of the Heidaigou open-pit mine. The vegetation is artificially planted, and the overall distribution is relatively regular: " This sentence is useless has already been said.
lines 703-706 English needs to be improved because the sentence is very difficult to understand
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
