Mapping the Time-Series of Essential Urban Land Use Categories in China: A Multi-Source Data Integration Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is interesting, and the outcomes have significantly improved; however, the method portion remains below the reader's expectations. The methodology to obtain the results is not fully represented in the method section.
1. Readers may not comprehend the workflow in Figure 2 due to the mixed approach, tool, and result. The step "GEE platform & local QGIS progress" is rather broad (a tool, not a processing method). The writers should consider showing the key method on the diagram. Please use different symbols for actions and input/output in case that you need to show these kind of element in a diagram.
2. Are sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.2 interchangeable? Is the data source for 2.3.1 composite? If not, talk about briefly how the images were chosen for segmentation so that the results are easier to interpret. In addition, section 2.3.1 contains the results for the number of segmentation objects, which should be included in the results or discussion section. This section should explicitly describe the input image data, including band selection, resolution, and segmentation parameters.
3. In data set combination, the data source provided with diverse resolutions, as shown in table 1, but the resampling and output resolution are still unclear.
4. The results are improved and I do not have new comments.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is difficult to provide specific feedback since the manuscript is lacking line numbers. The first two commas that were subsequently added after “that,” should be removed.

All in all, the authors have made the changes that I previously suggested. The manuscript has been improved compared to the previous version, the content and methods are much clearer, the figures have been slightly improved, the introduction provides a more comprehensive background and the clarity of the results have been enhanced. However, there is still confusion in Figure 6. The color yellow is used for both Residential and Cropland classes, as well as the color green used for both forest and sport and cultural. Please correct this since it is incredibly confusing for the viewer of this figure. Figure 12, same comment, the same color is used to define two different classes, this is very confusing. Colors yellow and green should be only associated with one land cover class.

On pages 4 and 11 there is a lot of white space.

Section 2.2.1 – spell out the indices used, rather than just stating their acronyms.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study focuses on classifying EULUC land use types. The authors have improved the manuscript in this resubmitted version. However, there are still some points on which the authors could improve.

1. Table 6 and Figure 3 show the same results. The authors should show only one of two results. The authors compared the accuracy between different data combinations. But the statistical method is not indicated in the methodology.
2. I don’t understand what the authors want to show in Figure 8. The caption of Figure 8 does not provide a full meaning when using numbers 1 and 2 without explanation (the same way in Figure 14). The term “road parcel” is strange in terms of definition. In the legend, what does “2020clipsingle” mean? And the item 0 missed explanation. I think figure 8 needs to be explained more. Why are the maps so different? Are they validated?
3. The data value in Figure 9 lacks units.
4. The discussion is still mixed with the results (e.g., Sessions 4.1 and 4.2 are the results of the research). This part can be restructured and rewritten.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The authors need to carefully proofread and edit the English language throughout the entire article, especially the captions of figures and tables.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, 

thanks a lot for your intensive work on the revision and additions. As before, I consider that the work carried out is of great interest and relevance: the creation of high-resolution information on land use using a range of freely available data sets in an innovative geospatial data analytic framework.

Even though literature has now been added in the introduction and supports the argument, the derivation and formulation of the research question is still not conclusive for me. Furthermore, it could have been supportive to consider more recent relevant studies as well as statistics. There are far more advanced methods of remote sensing, for example, than those depicted.

The manuscript remains somewhat incoherent and fuzzy (please see my last comments). The focus should be on the method and underlying technologies, citing relevant literature and discussing the challenges and added values of the proposed method.

I sincerely hope you decide to revise your manuscript. Perhaps a reduction in the total number of words, including references, to 8000 words would help to focus the article.  

I look forward to reviewing a newly structured and comprehensible manuscript in good English that describes your no doubt exciting and relevant work!

Many regards,

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The language needs extensive revision (grammar, wording, repetitions). 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper has been improved. However, minor edits and changes are still required before the paper is suitable for publication. There needs to be consistency across the figures and graphs presented. Consider changing the colors of poi 101 and poi 201 so that they are more easily visible on the bottom map of Figure 13. Also consider adding a,b,c to the different maps in Figure 13. Please make the font consistent across all figures and graphs. There is currently an array of different fonts used which make it burdensome to compare the different figures and graphs. Please make everything consistent. Please make the fonts the same sizes and the font colors consistent as well. Lastly consider adding a paragraph which clearly states the contribution that this study is bringing to the existing literature. Figure 8 please change the labeling, what does 2020clipsingle mean? This is not clear. Please rename all the elements in the legend rather than leaving the names of the files used for mapping. 2020clipsingle is not an acceptable legend title.