Review Reports - Research on the Spatial-Temporal Variation of Resources and Environmental Carrying Capacity and the Impact of Supply-Side Reform on Them: Evidence from Provincial-Level Data in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is generally well written and makes a useful contribution to the literature. I suggest some minor corrections to improve clarity, as follows.

1. In the abstract, please explain the novelty of the study in more detail.

2. Figure 3 on page 11 (L: 379) is blurred. Please check all figures.

Author Response

Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback on our manuscript titled "Research on Spatial-temporal variation of Resources and Environmental Carrying Capacity and the impact of Supply-side Reform on them: Evidence from provincial-level data in China". We appreciate the time and effort you dedicated to reviewing our work.

Response: 1.In the abstract, we highlight the innovative indicators selection from industrial structure perspective, the methods used for indicator calculation (supply-demand balance method and environmental capacity method), and unveil the relationship between RECC and supply-side reform.

For Figure 3, we have replaced it with a clearer image, and checked all figures.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is interesting and find some valuable conclusion. This paper utilized the TOPSIS Model coupled with the supply-demand balance method, the analysis of evolutionary characteristics and spatial heterogeneity is carried out by statistical and spatial econometric methods, and the impact of the Supply-side Reform policy on RECC is examined using a bidirectional fixed effect model. The paper can be published after making the following minor revisions:

1. The innovation of this paper needs to be highlighted in the abstract.

2. The literature review is not enough, the innovation of this paper and the contribution made by previous studies have not been clearly expressed.
3. Compared with the available literature, what are the theoretical contributions and application values of this study? It is suggested to enhance the corresponding discussions in the conclusion part

4. This article has obtained some interesting findings through the models, but these findings need to be further verified from theory or actual conditions. Also, further highlight the contribution of this article.

5. The article lacks an important discussion link, in which the author should focus on describing the differences between the article study and other scholars' studies, thus highlighting the relevance and academic value of the article, the following literature should be helpful for your research：(1) Adaptability analysis of water pollution and advanced industrial structure in Jiangsu Province, China. (2)Coordination of the Industrial-Ecological Economy in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China. (3)Compilation of Water Resource Balance Sheets under Unified Accounting of Water Quantity and Quality, a Case Study of Hubei Province.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Response: 1. In the abstract, we highlight the innovative indicators selection on the industrial structure perspective, the methods used for indicator calculation, and the assessment of the Supply-side Reform impact on RECC.

In the introduction, we conducted a literature review on the comprehensive resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) research at various regional levels including prefecture-level and counties-lever studies, both domestic and international sources. This review aimed to identify any gaps in previous studies in this area.
In the Discussion and Conclusion, we emphasize the theoretical contributions and practical applications of this study. Specifically, we establish a provincial-level RECC indicator system and framework, focusing on the perspective of industrial structure. Moreover, our empirical research on the impact of supply-side reform on resource and environmental carrying capacity holds potential for application in other policy analyses. We ague that by facilitating the cross-regional flow of population, resource elements, China can achieve an overall improvement in the RECC and strengthen its spatial correlation.
As the Chinese government promotes Supply-side Reform to ensure sustainable national developments, it becomes crucial to reasonably estimate the RECC and understand the impact of Supply-side Reform on RECC. This research has practical applications in in China’s industrial restructuring and its influence on RECC.
We address the lack of crucial discussions by thoroughly examining the potential impacts of factor market liberalization and industrial restructuring on resource and environmental carrying capacity. Additionally, we investigate the coordination and overlapping effects of supply-side reform and other relevant policies that may negatively affect RECC.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article combines China's basic national conditions, comprehensively analyzes the temporal and spatial changes of RECC, and measures the impact of supply-side structural reform on RECC, which is of practical value and relevance. However, the article still has some shortcomings.

1. the article should accurately describe the marginal contribution of the article;

2. the overview of the RECC evaluation system is not comprehensive enough, failing to accurately define the existing existing basis and research deficiencies, which makes it difficult to fully draw out the research significance of the article;

3. the RECC evaluation system is the core content of this manuscript, but the composition of the indicator system lacks the necessary detailed discussion, and the choice of indicators lacks an account, for example, whether it is reasonable to use the supply of agricultural products such as grains, vegetables, fruits, livestock and poultry, milk, and so on, all separately as a sub-division of the indicators, after all, there is a great deal of variability in the dominant industries of different provinces;

4. the research results need to increase the comparison and discussion with the existing research results, so as to analyze the reliability and uniqueness of the results of the article;

5. the mechanism variables of supply-side structural reform lack the method of indicator measurement;

6. the literature is not comprehensive enough.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

We highlighted the article’s marginal contribution in introduction and conclusion.
In the introduction, we have conducted an extensive review of domestic literature on comprehensive carrying capacity research. We have identified the shortcomings of existing studies, which primarily pertain to the lack of indicator selection based on industrial (sectoral) structure and the neglect of considering both the supply and demand of resource and environmental elements in current indicators.
In the section of carrying capacity indicator selection, we have provided a comprehensive and detailed discussion, presenting the rationale behind each indicator’s and supporting literature references.
The national average carrying capacity in this study is 1.98, slightly higher than the measurement result of 1.72 reported by Zhang et al. (2004). Furthermore, we introduce comparisons with other countries and researchers in the results analysis (see revised references in L: 346 [31], L: 359 [1, 5, 42], L: 378 [45], L: 449 [46], L: 454 [47], and L: 583 [27, 42]). Moreover, in response to your suggestions, we have included the references you mentioned as [16], [25], and [38] in the reference list.
The paper provides a detailed explanation of the policy indicators for the supply-side reform's "three reductions, one optimization, and one compensation" on page9 (L: 286-302).
Based on all the revisions, the number of references in this paper has increased by 47.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The author has revised all comments and I have no further comments.