Analysis of Spatial and Temporal Changes in Vegetation Cover and Driving Forces in the Yan River Basin, Loess Plateau

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I reviewed the manuscript remotesensing-2551899 entitled « Analysis of spatial and temporal changes in vegetation cover and driving forces in the Yan River Basin, Loess Plateau». This paper aims at adopting the modified 3D vegetation cover model to calculated FVC of the Yan River Basin from 2001 to 2021, and then, analyzing the driving relationships between FVC and factors that include meteorological, surface, and anthropogenic elements. The topic of this manuscript has a great significance for monitoring vegetation cover accurately and protecting regional ecological environment.  This paper has a complete structure and sufficient arguments and results, however, there are several aspects should be considered before potential publication from my perspective:

1. I think the quality of figures in this paper should be promoted with higher DPI, the size, format, fonts, etc. should accord with the requirements of the journal. The format of the figures needs to be consistent.

2. In section 3.5, the geodetector was used to measure the interactions and effects of driving forces, but the driving factors did not show in this section. Therefore, I suggest that the detail of factors in Table 7 should be shown in section 3.5.

3. the structure of section 4.1 and 4.2 should be revisited. I suggest that the order of 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 could be changed, and the titles should be reconsidered to indicated the content clearly. In section 4.2.1, Figure 4 shows the spatial distribution of FVC from 2001 to 2020, but it has only one figure in Fig.4, does this mean that Fig. 4 is a 20- year average?

4. the title of Fig.7 cannot represent the content, same question in fig.8 and fig.9.

5. I recommend that the author should reconstruct the content of section 4.1 and 4.2, and the figures in Fig 4-9 should be combined fro presentation.

In the present form, firstly, this research paper is meaningful, which has adopted 3DFVC to evaluate the vegetation cover in the Yan River Basin. It may be of interest to other researcher. But secondly, this manuscript should be promoted with careful revision. There are more structural and figure issues, especially in section 4.1 and 4.2. 

In short, the paper could be structured much better with a minor revision is made to address these shortcomings.

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. The annex contains the changes we have made to the comments, for which I once again express my sincere thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a typical case study of environmental carrying capacity at the watershed scale. The advantages and disadvantages of this work are very distinct. It is commendable to have such a thorough analysis of environmental carrying capacity issues at the watershed scale. They claimed that the majority of research has focused on examining broad-scale geographical and temporal fluctuations in vegetation, neglecting the more detailed alterations at smaller scales. However, I do not see any differences in their methods in small-scale work compared to large-scale research, which makes me doubt the foresight and contribution of this work. I hope to make a decision after the authors reply to these issues and the following concerns. Therefore, I suggest a major revision.   major concerns:   -1, The authors highlighted 3DFVC. First, they qualitatively believe that 3DFVC is superior to FVC without providing a quantitative comparison between the two, as Li et al. did. Second, The use of the two expressions 3DFVC and FVC throughout the manuscript could easily confuse readers. [1] M. Li, Q. Yan, G. Li, M. Yi, J. Li, Spatio-Temporal Changes of Vegetation Cover and Its Influencing Factors in Northeast China from 2000 to 2021, Remote Sensing, 14 (2022).   -2, Please ensure that all formulas are written correctly and their parameter descriptions are accurate. Please also provide the classification criteria for 3DFVC, coefficient of variation, and Hurst Index.   -3, L69-73. First, the authors used an incorrect writing style for this reference. Second, the authors seem to have provided information out of thin air, and I don't understand why they drew conclusions about the 1981–2016 period from a study conducted between 2001 and 2020.   -4, Figure 2. Please provide the significance test results of the univariate linear regression analysis.   -5, L115-116 and Table 1. Since the authors have chosen Landast imagery as the data source, why not choose the research period from the 1980s to 2020 but instead choose the period from 2001 to 2020 (MODIS product)? Notably, Efforts to convert agriculture back to forests and grasslands were started in the Loess Plateau region in 1999, and 2020 is a key time node for assessing changes in the environment's carrying capacity, which should be a priority.   minor concerns:   -1, L59-62. In the introductory section, it is crucial to provide an objective description of various methodologies and elucidate their distinctions. The exposition of the methodologies employed in this work needs to be included in the methodology section. It is advisable to relocate these descriptions to the methods section.   -2, L109. What is "yellow cotton soil"? Do you mean "loessial soil"?   -3, L146-147. Why did you employ the equally spaced classification method? What is the basis for this? Is it an empirical approach?

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. The annex contains the changes we have made to the comments, for which I once again express my sincere thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have not clearly formulated the purpose of the work. Let's assume that the ecosystem approach is the main tool for assessing vegetation dynamics. It is then necessary to add sources on this topic to the article. Knowledge of the situation in the studied area. References are also needed to the state of vegetation in the studied area for at least the last 50 years. Anthropogenic factors are randomly selected, and do not show the real impact of human activity on productivity. Natural factors that significantly change the state of vegetation, such as fires, floods, droughts, are also not shown.

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. The annex contains the changes we have made to the comments, for which I once again express my sincere thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

The manuscript is ‘Analysis of spatial and temporal changes in vegetation cover and driving forces in the Yan River Basin, Loess Plateau’. This manuscript is well written. The title and abstract of this paper clearly reflect its content. The introduction presents the purpose of the research investigation and is supported by the pertinent literature. Authors can include a few more examples regarding the FVC application in different study areas. The study design is appropriate to answer the research question. However, methodology can be improved by explaining more details on the analysis of factors influencing vegetation cover using the non-linear spatial response of climatic, topographic and other factors. Need more explanation on risk detector methodology and ecological detector. The results and discussion are adequately explained. Tables and Figures are clear and up to the standard. The evidence presented supports the conclusion, and it addresses the main question posed. However, the conclusion can improve by including a sentence on the adopted three-dimensional vegetation cover model progress.

Thank you.

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. The annex contains the changes we have made to the comments, for which I once again express my sincere thanks!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have improved the manuscript regarding my comments, and I have no further comments for the authors. Thank you again.