Water and Energy Conservation across Provinces and Sectors in China: Based on a Complex Network Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the manuscript titled “Water and Energy Conservation Across Provinces and Sectors in China: Based on a Complex Network Perspective,” the water and energy consumption of various sectors in China are evaluated, and the key nodes and paths of resource networks are identified. Some suggestions for improvement are as follows:

 

I.                General Comments

Sentence Structure:

Several sentences are overly long, making them difficult and confusing to read. For instance, the first paragraph of the introduction starts with a lengthy sentence that attempts to explain the crux of the research. Breaking these sentences into shorter, clearer statements would enhance readability.

References:

The introduction lacks references, particularly in the second paragraph. Most of the sentences in this section require proper citations to support the statements made.

Formatting:

The manuscript contains bold paragraphs in several sections (e.g., 3.2, 3.2.3, 4.1, 4.2.5, 5.2). It is unclear if there is a specific reason for this formatting. Consistency in formatting is recommended unless there is a deliberate reason for emphasis.

Equation Alignment:

The alignment of the equations throughout the manuscript needs to be consistent. Uniform formatting will improve the overall presentation of the mathematical content.

II.              Specific comments

The advantage of MSIO lies in its ability to consider the severity of foreign impact. It is also essential to provide a comprehensive and easily understandable explanation of the importance of MSIO.

The constructed energy-related water and water-related energy networks are evaluated, but the validation of these methods appears to be missing. Can these results or methods be validated?

The data used in the evaluation is up to 2017. The specific range of timelines needs to be provided. Additionally, the current scenario should be considered and discussed.

The claim that water use efficiency increases at an average rate of 8.42% needs further explanation. How valid is this?

Mongolia and Shanxi are mentioned as economically developed provinces with poor energy endowments. Is there a specific reason for choosing these provinces? If so, please provide references to support this choice.

 

 

These comments aim to enhance the clarity and consistency of the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

.

Author Response

Response to the comments in water-3102946

“Water and energy conservation across provinces and sectors in China: Based on a complex network perspective”

We would like to thank you for the valuable questions which led to the improvement of the quality and presentation of this manuscript. We modified our manuscript on many of the points raised. Detailed replies to each comment are as follows:

Responses to the reviewer:

Responses to reviewer 1:

1. General Comments

Sentence Structure:

Several sentences are overly long, making them difficult and confusing to read. For instance, the first paragraph of the introduction starts with a lengthy sentence that attempts to explain the crux of the research. Breaking these sentences into shorter, clearer statements would enhance readability.

Responses: The opening sentence has been revised and improved in the revised manuscript. In addition to the opening sentence, some of the long statements in the manuscript were split into shorter sentences.

 

References:

The introduction lacks references, particularly in the second paragraph. Most of the sentences in this section require proper citations to support the statements made.

Responses: The references in the introduction section have been added and improved in the revised manuscript. Details in red words in the following paragraph.

“China is abundant in total water resources but low in per capita water. There is a serious geographical mismatch between the available freshwater resources and the water demand (Li et al. 2022), which is mainly manifested in the contradiction between the high degree of energy development and the poor condition of water resource endowment in the northern provinces. China’s energy consumption ranks first in the world, the energy consumption per unit of output value reaches twice the world average level, and the annual emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere exceeds 6 billion tons, also ranking first in the world (Song et al. 2024). Per capita carbon emissions are higher than 40% of the world average. China thus faces enormous international pressure in energy conservation and emission reduction. To control resource consumption and protect the ecological environment, China has established a strict water resources management system and national energy standardization management measure. However, relevant policies usually focus on industrial sectors or enterprise entities, such as limiting the development of high-water and high-energy consuming industries and encouraging the development of new energy industries (Hong et al. 2021). There is a lack of understanding of the industrial linkages that influence water and energy consumption. The national economic system is complex, and there are complex interweaving relationships among various sectors, leading to the complexity of the potential water and energy consumption of various sectors (Qian et al. 2022; Ding et al. 2023). In resource management, if policy makers only focus on a single province or a single sector but ignore the internal relationship, it may weaken the effectiveness of regional policies and inhibit resource conservation and resource utilization efficiency improvement (Wang et al. 2021). Therefore, it is necessary to explore the characteristics and internal relationships of water-energy transfer across provinces and sectors in China and propose targeted resource management measures accordingly.”

 

Formatting:

The manuscript contains bold paragraphs in several sections (e.g., 3.2, 3.2.3, 4.1, 4.2.5, 5.2). It is unclear if there is a specific reason for this formatting. Consistency in formatting is recommended unless there is a deliberate reason for emphasis.

Responses: The formatting in the original manuscript was incorrect, probably due to the word version, and the formatting has been corrected in the revised manuscript.

 

Equation Alignment:

The alignment of the equations throughout the manuscript needs to be consistent. Uniform formatting will improve the overall presentation of the mathematical content.

Responses: The alignment of the equations has been harmonized in the revised manuscript.

 

1. Specific comments

The advantage of MSIO lies in its ability to consider the severity of foreign impact. It is also essential to provide a comprehensive and easily understandable explanation of the importance of MSIO.

Responses: Additional explanations of the advantages and importance of the MSIO method have been provided in the revised manuscript, the modified part is as follows

“The multiscale input-output method builds on the traditional input-output method by distinguishing resource intensities originating from economies at different scales (Chen et al. 2011), and for the subnational level, the method distinguishes between resource intensities originating from abroad and from other regions of the country. In addition, the results obtained by this method can not only be used to account for the resources embodied in final consumption, but also quantify the resources embodied in intermediate inputs, thus expanding the application of input-output analysis, and providing a more complete and reliable theoretical method for the accounting of resources at different scales. ”

 

The constructed energy-related water and water-related energy networks are evaluated, but the validation of these methods appears to be missing. Can these results or methods be validated?

Responses: Most of the existing related studies focus on the characteristics of resource circulation, construct resource network models, and further reflect the network topological properties through the quantification of network metrics. For example, related scholars (Shi et al. 2017; Chen et al. 2018; Gao et al. 2018) have constructed resource network models and quantified network topology attributes, however, there are few researches on network model validation.

In the revised manuscript, the validation part of the resource network was added in the section of “Deficiencies and prospects”. Details are as follows:

“ Third, in this study, four types of resource networks were constructed, namely, water, energy, energy-related water, and water-related energy network, and network topological attributes were quantified, but the resource network models and their computational results were not validated. In future studies, the analysis and validation of the model can be further improved to enhance the accuracy and adaptability of the model, and provide a reliable reference for similar studies in other regions.

[1] Chen B, Li J S, Wu M Y, et al. Global energy flows embodied in international trade: A combination of environmentally extended input–output analysis and complex network analysis[J].Applied Energy, 2018, 210: 98-107.

[2] Shi J L, Li H J, Guan J H, et al. Evolutionary features of global embodied energy flow between sectors: A complex network approach[J]. Energy, 2017, 140: 395-405.

[3] Gao C X, Su Bin, Sun M, et al. Interprovincial transfer of embodied primary energy in China: A complex network approach[J]. Applied Energy, 2018, 215: 792-807.

 

The data used in the evaluation is up to 2017. The specific range of timelines needs to be provided. Additionally, the current scenario should be considered and discussed.

Responses: Additional explanation of the reasons for the selection of 2017 data has been provided in the revised manuscript. Details are as follows:

“It is worth noting that the 2017 multiregional input-output table and provincial input‒output tables are the most recent versions of data currently available. To maintain the consistency of the data time period, 2017 data were selected for both water resources and energy data.”

In addition, the issue of updating data for input-output studies is also described in “Deficiencies and prospects” section.

 

The claim that water use efficiency increases at an average rate of 8.42% needs further explanation. How valid is this?

Responses: There is some ambiguity in the statement that “water use efficiency increases at an average rate of 8.42%”, so it has been modified in the revised manuscript as follows:

“Considering the output value data in the China Economic Census Yearbook and the China Statistical Yearbook 2018 (NBS 2018), and the water use efficiency of each sector in the authors’ previous research results (Hong et al. 2021), the water withdrawal of each sector was extrapolated.”

 

Mongolia and Shanxi are mentioned as economically developed provinces with poor energy endowments. Is there a specific reason for choosing these provinces? If so, please provide references to support this choice.

Responses: This paper focuses on the flow of water resources and energy among 30 provinces in China, without selecting specific provinces for analysis. Inner Mongolia and Shanxi belong to the provinces with good energy endowment conditions, so they appear more frequently in the calculation results of the energy network, belong to the key nodes with large node strength, and are also areas that need to be focused on in resource management.

 

These comments aim to enhance the clarity and consistency of the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors, 

The manuscript submitted for review is essentially an attempt to determine which factor is primarily responsible for improving the efficiency of resource use (whether looking at it through the prism of energy or through the prism of water) so that a positive effect can be perceived in the furthest part of the network. The analysis of the results is very interesting and can indeed justify long-term decisions to save key resources such as water and energy. Although the topic of efficient resource management has been analysed many times due to different parameters, the authors have managed to bring something new to the subject and to organise existing views. 

From my perspective, I think the section describing the methodology uses the abbreviations WN, EN, etc. should be expanded and explained more widely. Although they have a very precise way of naming, linking the province number to the type of industry, the authors do not fully describe how the frequencies of the key edges in a given pathway were created. The values are given in the style of 136, 232, 131, etc., are not adequately commented on, and there is no reference to what these numbers mean in practice. Of course, one can guess, but from my point of view, there is not much in the manuscript about this. Figure 7 should be larger so that the various relationships between provinces can be better seen.

Sincerely Yours, 

Reviewer

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Dear Authors, 

The manuscript submitted for review reads very well. There are no significant grammatical or stylistic errors in the text. The few errors are difficult to point out specifically because the authors have not numbered the individual lines. I think it is important to carefully at the font used and the size of the letters, which are different in different sentences. It even happens that some of the letters in one word are different from the rest of the letters. This causes certain parts of the manuscript to look sloppy.

Sincerely Yours, 

Reviewer

Author Response

Response to the comments in water-3102946

“Water and energy conservation across provinces and sectors in China: Based on a complex network perspective”

We would like to thank you for the valuable questions which led to the improvement of the quality and presentation of this manuscript. We modified our manuscript on many of the points raised. Detailed replies to each comment are as follows:

Responses to the reviewer:

Responses to reviewer 2:

Dear Authors,

From my perspective, I think the section describing the methodology uses the abbreviations WN, EN, etc. should be expanded and explained more widely. Although they have a very precise way of naming, linking the province number to the type of industry, the authors do not fully describe how the frequencies of the key edges in a given pathway were created. The values are given in the style of 136, 232, 131, etc., are not adequately commented on, and there is no reference to what these numbers mean in practice. Of course, one can guess, but from my point of view, there is not much in the manuscript about this. Figure 7 should be larger so that the various relationships between provinces can be better seen.

Responses: Since water, energy, energy-related water, and water-related energy networks appear frequently in the article, the abbreviations WN, EN, EWN, and WEN are still maintained, and the abbreviations are highlighted in tabular form in order to present them more visually.

Table 2. Resource network types and their abbreviations

abbreviation	WN	EN	EWN	WEN
full name	water resource network	energy network	energy-related water	water-related energy network

The expression “For example, the occurrence frequencies of Jiangsu-El→Zhejiang-El in the WN, EN, EWN and WEN were 136, 232, 131, and 131, respectively” in the original text is ambiguous. The relevant content in the revised manuscript is amended as follows: "For example, as mentioned earlier, 631, 585, 624, and 661 key paths were identified in the WN, EN, EWN, and WEN, respectively. Key paths were connected by different key edges, among the key paths of the above four networks, the edge Jiangsu-El→Zhejiang-El occurred 136, 232, 131, and 131 times respectively, which was the edge with the highest frequency.”

Figure 7 in the original manuscript was not clear enough. Therefore, the names of the provinces on the map have been enlarged in the revised manuscript to show the calculations more clearly.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript submitted for review reads very well. There are no significant grammatical or stylistic errors in the text. The few errors are difficult to point out specifically because the authors have not numbered the individual lines. I think it is important to carefully at the font used and the size of the letters, which are different in different sentences. It even happens that some of the letters in one word are different from the rest of the letters. This causes certain parts of the manuscript to look sloppy.

Responses: The font and letter sizes have been corrected consistently in the revised manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All the comments and suggestions have been addressed. The authors have made significant improvements to the quality and clarity of the paper. The revisions have enhanced the overall structure. The manuscript can be accepted for the publication.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

NA