System Dynamics Tools to Study Mediterranean Rangeland’s Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors wrote a good article, they analyzed land use for pasture using dynamic systems little used in agronomy, forestry and livestock. This article is novel to understand and generate land use suggestions.

Congratulations good job.

Many figures with very large titles.

References are not in Land format (MDPI)

1. What is the main question addressed by the research?

In lines 74 to 83, the authors define the theme and objectives of the manuscript. The issue of European grasslands has already been addressed in this same journal, but from the point of view of ecosystem services, now a better analysis is made of the factors that could lead to the degradation or sustainability of these rangelands.

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it
address a specific gap in the field?

The aspect that I consider most original is the description of the tools (dynamic systems) that they use for the study of grasslands. The definition and description of internal and external factors are very clear. Current issues include biological, environmental, and econometric models for studying productive systems in dynamic systems.  

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published
material?

The article will be a great example to follow for studying other land uses of significant expansion in other parts of the world.
Like, for example, sugar cane in America or avocado cultivation in Mexico, and many other cases. The dynamic systems approach and the tools created are wonderful.

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?

This manuscript is a review; it does not carry methodology as such. It is a review of your tools and approaches used. The authors used 123 references to support their text, with nothing to suggest.

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the central question posed?

The conclusions are a general reflection on the subject and the text, which is very good because it is not an experimental article.

6. Are the references appropriate?

There are 123 references on the subject.

7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures. Figures 3 to 6 need to be improved in quality
Figure titles should be shorter

 

Author Response

We are grateful to the comments of this reviewer. We are especially pleased by their appreciation of the contribution of this work, which is to understand how these socio-ecosystems function using a holistic approach. The improvements it proposes relate to:

 

• Figures 3 to 6 need to be improved in quality.

 

1. Thank you for the appreciation. We guess that you should also refer to figure 7. We have chosen to use the graphical output of the Vensim program to display the sketch diagrams. In other magazines such as System Dynamics Review this is common practice. It is true that the Vensim output does not have good resolution. We have treated the images to improve the drawing of the arrows. We hope that this will make the figures look better.

 

• Figure titles should be shorter.

 

2. The figure captions are not long except perhaps in the cases of figures 3 and 11. However, in this case they are justified since it is necessary to give these explanations so that the reader does not get lost. However, even in these cases, they are not excessively long either. We have seen many cases, both in Land and in other journals with much longer captions.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is well written. However, the authors need to do a minor check and also indicate how the literature for review was selected

Author Response

Many thanks to reviewer two for his/her positive evaluation of the paper. The issues she/he raises are generic. In the light of the other reviews and a critical reading of the paper we have made several corrections. Regarding the literature, we have added some references. The selection of these has been made on the basis of their relevance to the field of research.

Reviewer 3 Report

Τhe authors made a very comprehensive review. It is obvious their experience, and the deeply involvement with the models deal to the rangelands. All  the corrections and comments to the authors have been done in the PDF article.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We are pleased to know that this Reviewer has found our work interesting and appropriate for this journal. We have followed all the indications and edits made by the reviewer in the pdf version of the article. Some comments are addressed here:

 

• Which annual species have rhizomes as a way of propagation?

 

1. Thanks to this comment we have detected an error. we had considered that all herbaceous plants are annuals. Propagation by rhizomes occurs in perennial herbaceous plants, such as esparto grass. we have deleted that sentence so as not to create confusion (lines 223-225).

 

• not only the capacity, and the biodiversity too

 

2. We agree with the reviewer that the degradation is not only quantitative, but qualitative. However, this aspect was not evaluated in the model referred to in the text, so we have not included it.

Reviewer 4 Report

 

This paper focuses on the compilation and discussion of the application of system dynamics tools in the study of sustainability in Mediterranean rangelands. In general, the topic of this study is interesting and has some implications for sustainable development of rangelands. This research fits in the main theme of the journal, but still requires several revisions. Below are some specific comments:

 

1.       The references are not updated to the latest. The reference format needs to be further checked and corrected.

2.       Line 74-75, you stated that “The economic and environmental importance of rangelands and the challenges they face (climate change, intensification, land-use change, or abandonment) is a relevant field of research”, You may need to add references to expand the description further.

3.       The main idea of the description in the introduction section may not be very prominent, and the overall logical framework needs to be further adjusted.

4.       The rationale to choose this study area should be more clearly presented.

5.       The article focuses on the dehesa farm in the Mediterranean region, but the article does not specifically mention which data from this farm were used.

6.       How the SD model can be applied in Mediterranean rangelands does not seem to be clearly reflected in the text.

7.       In chapter 4.4 on the ranking of influencing factors, the text does not seem to have a description of these influencing factors.    

8.       In line 507-508, you stated that “Among the main conclusions reached through the establishment of rankings, we have been able to verify the supremacy of climatic factors over the rest”, but there is no relevant data or figures to support the point. How was this view arrived at?

9.       The theoretical development of this study is weak and the theoretical logic is not very clear, perhaps a research framework based on the SD model can be listed.

10.   In line 583-584, the authors point out that socioeconomic drivers have less influence than climate drivers on the sustainability of the rangelands, how did this conclusion come about? It is not explained in detail, and there is no relevant data or references to support the point.

11.   As for Chapter 5.2 of the article, the content seems to deviate from the research topic of the article, it is suggested to make appropriate deletion and modification, and combine it with the research.

12.   The value of the SD model in the sustainability study of rangelands is not fully reflected in the article, and a more comprehensive and in-depth discussion is recommended.

13.   The paper needs to clearly point out the direction of further research.

14.   The overall logical framework of the article and the layout of the content need further adjustment.

 

Author Response

We appreciate this reviewer's very positive evaluation of the article. The comments he has made are very timely and we try to clarify the issues raised in the following paragraphs.:

 

• The references are not updated to the latest. The reference format needs to be further checked and corrected.

 

1. We have included references from very different periods. Many of the foundations of these models are based on seminal works by Holling or Noy-Meir, or on the ecological models of Lotka and Volterra, which are from the 1920s. But there are also very current references, for example in relation to climate change in the Mediterranean or the effect of grazing on aridity. There are many works after 2010. In addition, and following other reviewer comments, we have added new references.

We have corrected the numerous editing errors in the bibliography, as well as eliminated some repetitive references.

 

• Line 74-75, you stated that “The economic and environmental importance of rangelands and the challenges they face (climate change, intensification, land-use change, or abandonment) is a relevant field of research”, You may need to add references to expand the description further.

 

2. Ok, we have provided references for that.

 

• The main idea of the description in the introduction section may not be very prominent, and the overall logical framework needs to be further adjusted

 

3. We have added lines 86-104 to provide a framework for System Dynamics models and coupled analyses.

 

• The rationale to choose this study area should be more clearly presented.

 

4. We have added a new paragraph for clarification (lines 44-53).

 

• The article focuses on the dehesa farm in the Mediterranean region, but the article does not specifically mention which data from this farm were used

 

5. The paper is a methodological review and we have avoided detailing each case study. The reader can find in each of the referenced works the data used for each study.

 

• How the SD model can be applied in Mediterranean rangelands does not seem to be clearly reflected in the text.

 

6. Section 3.2 explains how a generic equation structure is adapted to the case of the dehesas, which is a typical rangeland in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The idea that this generic scheme is intended to convey is that there are elements common to several socio-ecological systems (not only rangelands, in fact, we have a good collection of models of this type adapted to the study of irrigation systems based on groundwater exploitation). In other words, in Mediterranean rangelands, there is an economic use of natural resources (pasture, soil) motivated by the benefit they give to certain economic agents (herds, livestock, farms...). Therefore, Mediterranean rangelands, like any other socio-ecological system, are susceptible to be modeled under the paradigm of the predator-prey presented.

 

• In chapter 4.4 on the ranking of influencing factors, the text does not seem to have a description of these influencing factors

 

7. This subsection only intends to show that by implementing sensitivity analyses using a rather complex and statistically robust scenario design, it is possible to rank all the factors (i.e., the model parameters) involved in the system according to their influence on the variables considered by the analysis. An example is presented to illustrate how the results of these sensitivity analyses are interpreted. Since the reviewer considers that a more extensive example is necessary, and taking into account the next two comments, we add a table with the ranking resulting from a PBSA (line 564).

 

• In lines 507-508, you stated that “Among the main conclusions reached through the establishment of rankings, we have been able to verify the supremacy of climatic factors over the rest”, but there is no relevant data or figures to support the point. How was this view arrived at?

 

8. Thank you for the remark. We added Table 1.

 

• The theoretical development of this study is weak and the theoretical logic is not very clear, perhaps a research framework based on the SD model can be listed

 

9. The reviewer is correct. We added a short revision in the introduction (lines 86-104).

 

• In lines 583-584, the authors point out that socioeconomic drivers have less influence than climate drivers on the sustainability of the rangelands, how did this conclusion come about? It is not explained in detail, and there is no relevant data or references to support the point

 

10. This results from a Sensitive Analysis (SA). There are several SA types, as we explain in section 4.4. We have added the output of a PBSA (Table 1) to illustrate the statement.

 

• As for Chapter 5.2 of the article, the content seems to deviate from the research topic of the article, it is suggested to make appropriate deletions and modifications, and combine them with the research

 

11. It is true that this section lacks the technical content that is present in the rest of the text. However, it has seemed to us very opportune to point out the tremendous difficulties of doing holistic research. However much this approach is claimed, the truth is that very few researchers come to appreciate (or understand) it. This is a teaching or discovery, which is not of a technical nature, but which we believe is timely for those who deal with multidisciplinarity, both in rangelands and in other systems. We have also combined this with the need to create tools, such as decision support systems, that show non-experts or stakeholders a simple way to explore these socioecological systems.

 

• The value of the SD model in the sustainability study of rangelands is not fully reflected in the article, and a more comprehensive and in-depth discussion is recommended

 

12. We have tried throughout the text to show how the characteristics of system dynamics (considering non-linear behaviors, delays, and applying a holistic approach) are ideal to approach the understanding and management of rangelands since they allow us to integrate the biophysical characteristics in their socioeconomic framework. The development of early warning indicators is precisely a tool that addresses the issue of sustainability. the idea is to put prevention before restoration, in order to safeguard both the ecological and economic values of rangelands.

 

• The paper needs to clearly point out the direction of further research

 

13. This is done in the conclusions (lines 763-774). We have not wanted to go much further since this section should not be much longer.

 

• The overall logical framework of the article and the layout of the content need further adjustment

 

14. We have reinforced the introduction with the above-mentioned contributions to cover this aspect.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors made adequate revisions to the manuscript. However, there are still some small issues. The caption for the Table in page 16 is missing. The format for the references need to be udpated (line 809-820).  

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
We have reviewed your comments but found no such errors. Table 1 (on page 19 has your caption (above the table)). Regarding the references, we have corrected them according to the journal style by removing the doi. We remain at your disposal for any further questions. Thank you very much for your time.