Impacts of Ecological Migration on Land Use and Vegetation Restoration in Arid Zones

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The English language has been substantially improved (there are still some cases of incorrect use of the definite article, but perhaps these are not a deal breaker). N.B. There are some typesetting errors in section 2.2. The illustrations are excellent and really enhance the manuscript. 

Author Response

Point1: The English language has been substantially improved (there are still some cases of incorrect use of the definite article, but perhaps these are not a deal-breaker). N.B.

Response1: Thank you for your suggestion. We have checked the manuscript and revised the use of definite articles and other words, and your suggestions have been a great help to our article.

Point2: There are some typesetting errors in section 2.2. The illustrations are excellent and really enhance the manuscript.

Response2: Thank you for reminding us about this. We have corrected the typesetting errors in section 2.2, and checked the typesetting of the entire manuscript. Thank you again for your approval of the illustrations in our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article is interesting. It is about an important topic. The authors used modern and effective methods. The results are well presented. The article contains high-quality illustrations. I believe that the article can be published in its current form.

Author Response

Point1: The article is interesting. It is about an important topic. The authors used modern and effective methods. The results are well presented. The article contains high-quality illustrations. I believe that the article can be published in its current form.

Response1: Thanks for your affirmation. we have further checked and corrected the English, styles, and misspellings in the whole text. We hope these revisions are satisfactory.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The major problem in this paper is about the representativeness of the study area. The authors should clarify it much in details. I don't see a reasonable discussion on the originality and novelty of this paper. I would encourage authors to provide a better conceptual framework to their paper. Moderate revisions overall. Thank you

Author Response

Point1: The major problem in this paper is about the representativeness of the study area. The authors should clarify it much in details.

Response1: Thanks for your suggestion. We have re-explained the representativeness of the study area in the final part of the introduction. The southern part of Gulang County contains the Qilian Mountains National Park, an important ecological security barrier in western China. The local government has organized and implemented 62,400 migrants, and the ecological environment has been effectively improved, not only protecting the environment in the areas that have been moved out, but also reducing a large number of poor people, which is representative and has implications for ecological migration in other parts of the world (please see italics below).

In this paper, we explore these issues by focusing on Gulang County, a typical eco-logical migration area in China. The southern Gulang County is part of the Qilian Mountain National Park. The Qilian Mountain is an important ecological security barrier in northwest China. However, the area has a fragile ecological environment and is home to numerous population in poverty. In response to environmental protection and poverty reduction, the local government has implemented a large-scale ecological migration project in 2010, gradually transferring 62,400 farmers and herdsmen living in deep mountainous areas to lower altitude areas. By the end of 2018, good results had been achieved. Giving that the complex ecosystem and the massive migration in the arid area, we, therefore, regard the Gulang County as a representative study area.

In this context, we conducted field research and used the land use transfer matrix, NDVI, and vegetation recovery degree (VRD) to systematically analyze the spatial pattern of ecological migration, spatial and temporal changes in land use, and vegetation recovery in Gulang County from 2010 to 2018. Exploring the environmental impacts of ecological migration can provide some policy implications for subsequent planning and development of ecological conservation in such arid zones.

 

Point2: I don't see a reasonable discussion on the originality and novelty of this paper. I would encourage authors to provide a better conceptual framework to their paper. Moderate revisions overall. Thank you.

Response2: Thank you very much for such good advice! In the discussion section, we have re-framed the overall paragraphs and highlighted the innovative nature of the paper's findings and methods by comparing them with previous studies (please see italics below).

 

Ecological migration is a complex process, and assessing its impact on land use and vegetation restoration requires comprehensive consideration [9]. Previous studies have only unilaterally used land-use data to study the impact of ecological migration on the ecological environment, without examining specific environmental changes through field research. However, based on the field survey, we found that mass migration in the short term would cause some risks to livelihood or ecology in the resettlement areas. In addition to reducing harm to the ecological environment [5, 40-42], ecological migration can lead to some shocks in the social network in the resettlement areas. Noteworthy, we also found that grasslands were larger than woodlands in the contribution of land-use change to NDVI in the dry zone, which may be an innovative research finding. Although ecological migration would help the restoration of grassland or forest in these outmigration areas in the short term, grassland or forest were also reduced in the resettlement areas. If the mi-gration programs do not respect the environmental characteristics in the arid zone, this would lead to more serious ecological problems in the long term [43]. Specifically, in the outmigration areas, artificial grassland or forest will be lost due to the lack of necessary manual maintenance. Furthermore, in the resettlement areas, the increasing demand for cropland and construction land will decrease the grassland or forest, causing harm to the ecological environment. New migrants would increase the employment pressure in the resettlement areas. Therefore, the local government should provide more job opportunities, and increase non-agricultural skills’ training. The government should adjust the agricul-tural structure and consumption structure to reduce the dependency on the land [28]. This would help to alleviate the ecological and environmental pressure.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

I feel that the paper is very well written. I have a few suggestions in methodology. The methodology part is difficult to follow. How about making a diagram of the research process? In addition, the table about data will be helpful to understand the materials of your study.

Author Response

Point1: I feel that the paper is very well written. I have a few suggestions in methodology. The methodology part is difficult to follow. How about making a diagram of the research process?.

Response1: Thank you very much for your suggestions, which have greatly improved the quality of our manuscripts. We have reorganized the logic of the methodology section to form a clear framework for the study, which is finally presented graphically so that the reader can better understand the methodology of the article. 

Point2: In addition, the table about data will be helpful to understand the materials of your study.

 

Response2: Thank you very much for such good advice! In order to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the sources and uses of the research data in this paper, we have redone a simple table of data sources (Please see the table below).

Data Type	Time Periods	Data Sources	Usage
MODIS-NDVI	2010,2015,2018	NASA’s Earth Observing System MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 250 m	Reflect the vegetation condition and detect its trends
Land-use	2010,2015,2018	Resource and Environmental Science Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (http://www.resdc.cn)	Analyze the area changes and shifts in land use
Socio-economic statistical data	2000–2019	Government statistical bulletins and yearbook	Analyze the changes of socio-economic development
Ecological migration data	2000-2018	Government Administration	Analyze the scale of ecological migration and the location of resettlement

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Revision was carried out appropriately. Thank you

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

The catastrophic climatic events are more frequent nowadays and milion of people are affected by natural disasters. the climatic events have not only a long-lasting impact for the inhabitants but also many and complex ecological effects.

this paper analyses the results of the mass resettlement plan for the ecological migration in Gulang county, China, taking into account the spatial-temporal changes of land use and vegetation restoration. 

Ecological migration is an important policy for sustainable ecosystem management, applied from the beginning of the XXI  century in China. So, the paper in very important for understanding the social and ecological value of this policy.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is illegible in its current form, as there are too many grammatical errors and typos. It needs to be thoroughly revised by a native English speaker before resubmission, at which point I would be happy to comment on its scientific soundness etc.