Can Property Rights Reform of China’s Agricultural Water Facilities Improve the Quality of Facility Maintenance and Enhance Farmers’ Water Conservation Behavior?—A Typical Case from Yunnan Province, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Based on the chaos of end-use agricultural water conservancy facilities and serious agricultural water waste in China. Based on the micro study of the pilot reform of property rights in Yunnan Province, oprobit and Ⅳ-oprobit models were used to empirically analyze the influence of the reform on the maintenance quality of irrigation facilities and the adoption of water-saving technology by farmers. The research results provide Chinese experience for promoting the management of agricultural water conservancy facilities and promoting farmers' water-saving behavior.  However, the article still has the following problems to be modified :

1. 2.2.2. Analysis of the governance logic of the Yunnan case pilot:  The paper points out that if the field study is conducted in Yunnan Province, can the pilot location map be provided to mark the specific pilot areas of Multiple Cooperative Governance Model and private contracting governance model?  In addition, does the "p" in the private contracting governance model need to be capitalized?

2. 3.2 Variable setting and descriptive statistics: The variety and number of variables selected in the article are large. How to assign values to unquantifiable variables?  Is there a scientific basis?  Please add a note in the text.

3. The fonts shown in Figure 4-6 are recommended to be the same as those in this article.

4. 6.Conclusion: In the discussion part, it is suggested to add the shortcomings of the article in order to achieve them in the future and provide a scientific basis for promoting the management of agricultural water conservancy facilities;In addition, the language of the discussion section is suggested to be recondensed and now looks like a concluding paragraph in the report

5. References：References are formatted in a confusing way, e.g:1. Hao, N.; Sun, P.; He, W.; Yang, L.; Qiu, Y.; Chen,Y.; Zhao, W. Water Resources Allocation in the Tingjiang River Basin: Construction of an Interval-Fuzzy Two-Stage Chance-Constraints Model and Its Assessment through Pearson Correlation.Water,2022,14(18).Missing page numbers;2. Lin,X.;Chen,G.;Ni,H.;Wang,Y.;Rao,P.Impact of Water Saving Policy on Water Resource and Economy for Hebei, China Based on an Improved Computable General Equilibrium Model. Water,2022,14(13).Missing page numbers,and so on. It is recommended to re-examine the format of the reference.

 

Author Response

Response 1: Please provide your response for Point 1. (in red)

First of all, on behalf of all authors, I would like to thank the reviewer for your hard work and we have made the following changes based on the reviewer's comments.

1. In response to the reviewer's precious comments, I have added Map 4 to the paper, labelling the research area and indicating the specific locations of the 'multiple governance model' and the 'private contract governance model'. However, we have included the map in section 3.1 as an illustration of the data sources.
2. we have capitalised the “p”in the “private contracting governance model” throughout the text, and have also amended other similar changes to the same effect.
3. the reviewer's reference to non-quantifiable data was in fact a misspelling of the variable name. we thank the reviewer for bringing this up and we have corrected it and added the literature source to the variable selection.
4. The variable description statistics have large values due to different types of variables, e.g. some are categorical variables (e.g. whether you are a village leader, whether you are employed on a non-farm basis; some are continuous variables, e.g. household income, acreage), and we have noted the references for these.
5. In figures 4-6, as the font in the figure is automatically generated by the Stata software, it is not possible to change its font, only its size, position, and color. We have therefore adjusted the color of the text in the diagram to make it more clear what the legend means.
6. we have rewritten the discussion section of the paper in light of the reviewers' comments, condensing the language, restructuring the original discussion, and providing a fuller discussion based on a wider range of perspectives and literature.
7. we have added Shortcomings of the research to the discussion section.
8. the references have been added to further enrich the theoretical review of this study
9. the formatting of the references has been revised to compensate for the missing page numbers of each reference, and for references without page numbers, the DOI of the article has been provided.
10. We have also made changes to the language throughout the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an important topic for research and a well designed study.  The only suggestion I can make is that a brief discussion of the limits of the study (e.g., how representative the case study is) could be added to the conclusion.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

 

Point 1:  This is an important topic for research and a well designed study.  The only suggestion I can make is that a brief discussion of the limits of the study (e.g., how representative the case study is) could be added to the conclusion.

Response 2: Please provide your response for Point 1. (in red)

First of all, on behalf of all authors, I would like to thank the reviewer for your hard work and we have add the Shortcomings of the research based on the reviewer's comments.

1. The study data and study area are not comprehensive enough. Long-term panel data were not available due to the early introduction of this reform policy, as well as the small sample size. Also due to the limitations of epidemic control in China, we only studied the most typical reform pilot in Yunnan. In the future, the group intends to expand the sample size and collect panel data over multiple periods to further substantiate the findings of this study. And the study needs to be further expanded to include different reform pilots in the empirical analysis, taking into account regional heterogeneity to make the results more generalizable.
2. The choice of research perspective could have been broader. This study only examined the quality of maintenance of farmland water facilities and the adoption of water-saving techniques by farmers. Future attempts could be made to study other reform effects, such as the impact of property rights reform on farmers' income and the impact on farmers' cropping restructuring.
3. The case studies are limited in their scope of representativeness. Due to the vast differences in hydrological, economic and topographical conditions around the world, the two property rights governance models presented in this case study are not representative of their replicability in all regions, and further research is needed to explore their replicability and scalability in other regions, as well as to explore additional governance models to enrich agricultural water management policies.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

-Note on the form of the text: I believe that the bold font is reserved for specific places in the manuscript template;

-The introduction lacks reference to the situation in this respect in the world;

 

-Lines 115-116: It seems that it should be added that it also depends on cultural and historical conditions;

-The first information about model 3 and model 4 appears on line 398 without being defined first and the definitions appear on line 410 for the regression models with instrumental variables (quality of facility maintenance)  and further in line 425 (water saving).   It seems that this element needs to be earlier clarified.

-There is no unequivocal statement about the verification of hypothesis 3;

 

-Thank you for your interesting study.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

 

Point 1:  Dear Authors,-Note on the form of the text: I believe that the bold font is reserved for specific places in the manuscript template;The introduction lacks reference to the situation in this respect in the world;Lines 115-116: It seems that it should be added that it also depends on cultural and historical conditions;The first information about model 3 and model 4 appears on line 398 without being defined first and the definitions appear on line 410 for the regression models with instrumental variables (quality of facility maintenance)  and further in line 425 (water saving). It seems that this element needs to be earlier clarified.There is no unequivocal statement about the verification of hypothesis 3;

Response 3: Please provide your response for Point 1. (in red)

First of all, on behalf of all authors, I would like to thank the reviewer for your hard work and we have made the following changes based on the reviewer's comments.

1. We have removed all unnecessary bolding from the manuscript in response to the authors' comments.
2. In the introduction we have added a large number of comparisons of relevant aspects of research from around the world.
3. Lines 115-116 of the original manuscript have been changed to " The summary of typical property rights models is conducive to the replication of agricultural water facilities governance models in other countries and regions according to local conditions." based on the reviewer's comments
4. The first places where Model 3 and Model 4 appear have been defined according to the reviewer's comments. The definitions are as follows"(Model 3 is a model that includes only the core independent variables after using instrumental variables.Model 4 is a model with all control variables added to model 3)"
5. Instrumental variables were defined earlier in the manuscript by adding definitions under equation 3, defined as follows" IV1:The topographic condition of the largest plot of the farmer; IV2:The distance between the largest plot of the farmer and the nearest irrigation canal ."
6. Added a description of hypothesis 3 validation in section 4.4.1 in response to reviewer comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx