Assessment of Spatial–Temporal Variations of Soil Erosion in Hulunbuir Plateau from 2000 to 2050

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Minor Correction

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Minor Correction

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Thank you very much for your revisions, which have been very helpful to me. Here I would like to explain my changes to you. The text and images are contained in Annex 1.

1. I revised the abstract section to describe the research objectives, methods, findings, and implementation as clearly as possible. Explained the purpose and scope of the article's work. Corresponds to lines 1-18 in the Annex 1.pdf.
2. I revised the introduction section to increase the proportion of the background of the study and the reasons for the study. The modules of hypothesis, questions, objectives and reasons in the study were sorted out. Corresponds to lines 62-81 in the Annex 1.pdf.
3. I have added the element of latitude and longitude to the introduction section of the study area. Corresponds to line 88 of the Annex 1.pdf, and revises Figure 1.
4. I added the validation part of the PLUS model to validate the land use type prediction by kappa coefficients. The land use types in 2000 and 2010 were used to predict the land use types in 2020, which were tested and compared with the real 2020 land use types. Corresponds to lines 223-229 and lines 524-532 in the Annex 1.pdf.
5. I revised the discussion section by adding previous studies from neighboring regions for comparison and briefly revised the conclusions. Corresponds to lines 572-586 in the Annex 1.pdf.
6. I made sure that the citations in the article are listed and that there are no plagiarized parts.
7. I reworked the images of the soil erosion predictions for the three scenarios.
8. In addition to the above changes, I also listened to another reviewer's comments and made changes to the images in the paper.

These are my recent revisions to my thesis. This is my first time writing a thesis, and I have learned a lot from the comments you have given me, so thank you very much for your guidance. In the process of writing my dissertation while studying, I found a lot of my shortcomings, and I will try to revise them in the future.

Thank you again for your guidance.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The work is well written and follows the problem of soil erosion using modern geospatial databases, tools and deals with the issue of climate change and future land cover scenarios.

However, I have two key questions that I ask the authors of this paper, and it concerns that this paper be accepted and published only with some additions.

Question No. 1. You used the land use type from 2020, so why didn't you also use rainfall until 2020? You used 1 km resolution and you have DEM and land cover with 30 m resolution. Wasn't there a resolution for rainfall, let it be better and more precise, for example 30, 50, 100, 500 m?

Question No. 2. Considering that you used the mentioned PLUS model to predict the future state of the land cover, I do not see anywhere in the results a picture or a table showing your obtained future state. If you have already used that PLUS model, you should also explain in the results whether that model provides some parameters such as Kappa location or Kappa Histo that are used in changes and predictions?

In addition, I submit my comments and suggestions to make the work even better before publication:

Line 17: I think it is better to write it like this: "Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation" later you should write the abbreviation of the model, which is "RUSLE"

 

Line 20: t·km^-2·a^-1 I think it's better to write "year" or "yr" rather than "a" if this refers to annual losses.

 

Line 43: The reference should not be in the text, because you have already put the reference tag [4]. Please cite as given in the journal instructions.

 

Line 62: “….(Zhang et al., 2018)[10]….” Correct the citation in the paper according to the instructions in the journal.

 

Figure 1. The position of the image should follow the text itself and go after line 88.

 

Line 88. Figure 1 without a point in between

 

Line 94. Figure 2 without a dot in between

 

Figures 2. You have put too much in this picture that readers get confused. The suggestion that there are three images in particular. Land use type is a very important image in this work and should stand out, especially since it has a huge text on the image that is very small and unreadable. The picture should be corrected and simplified.

 

Table 1 is not transparent and readers can't figure out which databases you used, Please make a more transparent table

 

Line 138: set to year, y or yr if annual losses. And set the superscript where it should be. units must be written in the SI system.

 

Line 233: write full name for GDP

 

Line 266: Missing reference, says Xu et al., but no citation of that reference

 

Line 268-275: The sentence is too long, it should be divided into several shorter sentences, e.g. only the water bodies should be separate, the meadows should be a separate sentence.

 

Figure 4. The image should be much larger and more transparent, because it is very difficult to see like this, and it is very important in the work itself.

 

Figure 7. The image must be much larger because the key results are barely visible

 

Figure 10. The image must be much larger because the key results are barely visible

 

Author Response

Dear reviewers:

Thank you very much for your revisions, which have been very helpful to me. Here I would like to explain my changes to you. The text and images are contained in Annex 1.

1. I would like to answer your first question. The LUCC and precipitation data used for the historical period in the study are for the period 2000-2020. For DEM and NDVI I used 30m data. Some of the data in the study do now find higher resolution data. I was not aware of this problem while I was studying and writing my dissertation, which was an assignment given by my teacher shortly after I enrolled in graduate school, and my inexperience led to this situation. I will accomplish better in my future academic research.
2. I would like to answer your second question. I added the presentation of kappa coefficients and the description of the results in the projections section. I have added the land use transfer matrix chord diagram.
3. I have carefully completed and checked all the details of the corrections you gave. I revised all the diagrams and sentences you requested.
4. I listened to another reviewer's comments to revise some textual contents. This includes the abstract section, the introduction section, the addition of the latitude and longitude elements, the addition of the validation section of the PLUS model, and the revision of the discussion section.

These are my recent revisions to my thesis. This is my first time writing a thesis, and I have learned a lot from the comments you have given me, so thank you very much for your guidance. In the process of writing my dissertation while studying, I found a lot of my shortcomings, and I will try to revise them in the future.

Thank you again for your guidance.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf