Exploring the Response of Ecosystem Services to Socioecological Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I had the opportunity to read and review the manuscript entitled “Exploring the Response Process of Ecosystem Services to Socio-ecological Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China” (land-3001637).

The manuscript's intent is to developed a theoretical framework to integrate land use/land cover data and supply and demand matrices with random forest models to assess the response process, including the relative importance and marginal effects, of essential driving factors for ESs demand, supply, and supply-demand balance. I felt confident that the authors performed actual and careful spatial data processing.The results have some important implications for decision makers in regional sustainable ecosystem management and the article made a contribution. However, some parts of the manuscript need to be revised. I recommend that a major revision is warranted. I ask that the authors to explain my concerns and specifically address each of my comments in their response.

My review below suggests some improvements.

1. Abstract: Lack the content of the conclusion.

 

2.The review is not organized enough and deep enough, and it does not clearly discuss the relationship between the method of measuring ecosystem services and the mainstream methods, why this method is chosen, and why the random forest method is chosen. Moreover, the innovation of the paper is not clearly pointed out.

 

3. The ES supply and demand in Figure 3 are only divided into three levels, which is too few, compared with 1070 counties and districts.

 

4. The conclusion part can be further improved, and it is not well organized at present.

 

5. In many places, more than 10 documents are cited in one sentence at the same time, so it is suggested to select the key documents to quote.

 

6. The citation of references is not standardized, and there are two ways to cite references.

 

7.There are many mistakes in this manuscript, such as in line 452. The manuscript must be reviewed carefully.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments on our manuscript, " Exploring the Response Process of Ecosystem Services to Socioecological Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China (land-3001637)" The manuscript has been revised, and responses to the comments follow (The modified part is marked with red font in the MS).

Response to Reviewer 1's comments and suggestions:

I had the opportunity to read and review the manuscript entitled “Exploring the Response Process of Ecosystem Services to Socioecological Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China” (land-3001637).

The manuscript's intent is to develop a theoretical framework to integrate land use/land cover data and supply and demand matrices with random forest models to assess the response process, including the relative importance and marginal effects, of essential driving factors for ESs demand, supply, and supply-demand balance. I felt confident that the authors performed actual and careful spatial data processing. The results have some important implications for decision makers in regional sustainable ecosystem management and the article made a contribution. However, some parts of the manuscript need to be revised. I recommend that a major revision is warranted. I ask that the authors to explain my concerns and specifically address each of my comments in their response.

My review below suggests some improvements.

1. Abstract: Lack the content of the conclusion.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We've added the content of the conclusion in the Abstract. “Moreover, this study indicated that natural environmental factors (such as slope and precipitation) significantly influence the supply and supply–demand balance of ESs, while socioeconomic factors (such as cropland ratios and population density) profoundly influence the demand for ESs. However, cropland ratios were the most important drivers of ES supply, demand, and supply–demand balance in the YREB. Moreover, three types of response processes were identified in this study: logarithmic increase, logarithmic decrease, and volatility increase. Specific driving factors (e.g., proportion of cropland area, precipitation, population density, and slope) had significant threshold effects on the supply–demand balance of ESs. The turning points that can be extracted from these response processes should be recommended for ecosystem restoration projects to maintain regional sustainable ecosystem management.”

 

2. The review is not organized enough and deep enough, and it does not clearly discuss the relationship between the method of measuring ecosystem services and the mainstream methods, why this method is chosen, and why the random forest method is chosen. Moreover, the innovation of the paper is not clearly pointed out.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We rewritten and reorganized the content of the Introduction. The modified part is marked with red font in the MS. We also summarize the reasons for choosing the expert-based matrix model to calculate the ES supply-demand balance. “Numerous methods have been developed to assess ES supply and demand. For example, the InVEST model, revised universal soil loss equation and many empirical equations have been used to calculate the supply and demand for special ESs, including water yield, crop production, and carbon sequestration. These methods usually require a large amount of data, such as land use data, soil data, meteorological data, and socioeconomic data, to assess only special ESs, which makes these methods difficult to quantify and verify. However, an expert-based matrix model based on land use/land cover (LULC) and expert scoring was proposed to quantify the multiple ES supply, demand, and supply–demand balance simultaneously. This matrix method requires only land use data with a scoring matrix to evaluate the multiple ES supply, demand, and supply-demand balance; therefore, less data is required compared with the calculations of the model and equations mentioned above. Although this method is semiquantitative, it can incorporate more types of ESs and provide a more complete assessment. This method has been proven to be a convenient and effective measurement method in China”.

The reason for choosing random forest model: “Many studies have shown that the random forest model is a machine learning algorithm based on statistics that can quantify the relative importance of driving factors and their nonlinear relationships, revealing their threshold effects and effectively compensating for the shortcomings of traditional methods. The random forest model performs well in identifying the driving mechanisms of specific ESs, but research on the driving mechanisms of the supply and demand balance of multiple ESs and the threshold effects needs to be strengthened. Few studies have focused on the nonlinear response processes of multiple ES supply, demand, and supply-demand balance to dominant factors when considering the mechanisms driving ESs. These nonlinear response processes are also essential for quantitatively assessing the relative importance and marginal effects of socioecological factors on multiple ESs”

The main innovations of this article: This study modified an expert-based matrix model to fit the commonly used land use data in China. Moreover, the spatial assessments of changes in the ES demand, supply, and supply-demand balance were performed in the YREB. This study analyzed the complex nonlinear relationships between socioecological factors and ESs and explored their response processes and driving mechanisms at the county level in the YREB.

 

3. The ES supply and demand in Figure 3 are only divided into three levels, which is too few, compared with 1070 counties and districts.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. For Figure 3, the ES supply and demand have been divided into five levels using the Natural Breaks method in ArcGIS 10.2.

4. The conclusion part can be further improved, and it is not well organized at present.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We've rewritten the conclusion. The modified part is marked with red font in the MS.

“Based on the land use/land cover data of 2020 and combined with two ES matrices, this study analyzed the spatial distribution characteristics of ES supply, demand and supply–demand balance at the county level in the YREB. In addition, the response processes of the ES supply, demand and supply–demand balance to changes in socioecological factors were examined. The results revealed obvious spatial differences in the supply, demand and supply–demand balance of the supply, demand and supply–demand balance in the YREB. The regions with high ES supply were mainly located in the southeastern parts, while high ES demand areas were mainly located in the three national urban agglomerations. Similarly, the ES deficit regions (332 of 1070 counties or 14.45% of the area) of the YREB were mainly concentrated in the three national urban agglomerations. We also found that natural environmental factors such as PRE and slope had a profound influence on the ES supply and supply-demand balance, while socioeconomic factors such as CLR and POPd had a significant impact on the ES demand. Notably, CLR ranked first among all the driving factors in terms of the ES supply (positive effect), demand (negative effect), and supply–demand balance (positive effect). Furthermore, our results indicated that the response processes of the ES supply, demand and supply–demand balance significantly differed with changes in the driving factors. Three types of response processes were identified in the YREB. First, the ESs decreased logarithmically with increasing driving factors. Second, the ESs increased logarithmically with increasing driving factors. Finally, ESs had an increasing fluctuating trend with increasing driving factors. Thus, turning points can be extracted from the three types of response processes, which should be focused on in future ecosystem restoration projects to ensure the success of these projects.”

5. In many places, more than 10 documents are cited in one sentence at the same time, so it is suggested to select the key documents to quote.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have selected several key documents to quote. The modified part is marked with red font.

 

6. The citation of references is not standardized, and there are two ways to cite references.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have deleted “(Lu et al., 2020)” in line 103 and “(Wu et al., 2022)” in line 218.

7. There are many mistakes in this manuscript, such as in line 452. The manuscript must be reviewed carefully.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have corrected the mistakes and reviewed carefully. The modified part is marked with red font.

8. Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. This MS has been edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by one or more of the highly qualified native English speaking editors at American Journal Experts (AJE, verification code 5E5D-80BC-64CF-F62A-0E1P). The modified part is marked with red font.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reply to the Author:

The study attempts to analyze the complex relationship between social ecological factors and ESs (Ecosystem Services) at the county level in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and explore their driving mechanisms. The research objectives are clear, and the research methods are appropriate, which can effectively address the research questions. However, there are still some shortcomings overall, and the feedback for revisions is as follows:

Introduction:

1. In lines 36-38, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) by the United Nations, ecosystem services are categorized into four types: supporting services, regulating services, provisioning services, and cultural services. Delete "and" in line 95.

2. The literature review in the Introduction section is not comprehensive and thorough enough. While summarizing the previous research, it is necessary to evaluate it, pointing out the unresolved issues in existing studies and indicating the exploratory content of one's own research. What are the innovations of this article? In the last paragraph, the marginal contribution of this article can be proposed.

Materials and Methods:

3. There is a citation format error in line 103.

4. Whether using the Ecosystem Services Demand-Supply Ratio (ESDR) in section 2.4 can better reflect the balance between ESs supply and demand should be further discussed.

Discussion:

5. This article only analyzes the pattern, relationship, and driving forces of ecosystem service supply and demand for one year, which cannot reflect the spatiotemporal evolutionary characteristics. Future research can start from a long-time series and a multi-spatial scale perspective to propose targeted policies for ecosystem enhancement.

Conclusion:

6. The conclusion section should accurately, concisely, and comprehensively summarize the main research results, highlighting the research contributions.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Pay attention to grammatical accuracy and sentence structure to ensure that the text flows smoothly. In addition, in some cases, the wording can be improved for better readability and understanding.In general, with some minor modifications to address these issues, the English quality of journal papers will be further improved, thus strengthening the professionalism and credibility of the published research.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments on our manuscript, " Exploring the Response Process of Ecosystem Services to Socioecological Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China (land-3001637)" The manuscript has been revised, and responses to the comments follow (The modified part is marked with red font in the MS).

Response to Reviewer 2's comments and suggestions:

The study attempts to analyze the complex relationship between social ecological factors and ESs (Ecosystem Services) at the county level in the Yangtze River Economic Belt and explore their driving mechanisms. The research objectives are clear, and the research methods are appropriate, which can effectively address the research questions. However, there are still some shortcomings overall, and the feedback for revisions is as follows:

Introduction:

1. In lines 36-38, according to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) by the United Nations, ecosystem services are categorized into four types: supporting services, regulating services, provisioning services, and cultural services. Delete "and" in line 95.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. In this study, we have chosen the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES, V5.1, https://cices.eu/) as the basis for the ecosystem service classification. In CICES, ecosystem services are categorized into three categories: provisioning, regulating and cultural services. We follow this classification to match the Burkhard's matrices, where the ecosystem services are also categorized into three categories in the Burkhard's matrices. Therefore, we changed this sentence (lines 36-38) to “According to the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (V5.1, https://cices.eu/), these multiple ESs are usually classified into three categories: provisioning, regulating and cultural services [7-9]”. We have deleted "and" in line 95.

2. The literature review in the Introduction section is not comprehensive and thorough enough. While summarizing the previous research, it is necessary to evaluate it, pointing out the unresolved issues in existing studies and indicating the exploratory content of one's own research. What are the innovations of this article? In the last paragraph, the marginal contribution of this article can be proposed.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We rewritten and reorganized the content of the Introduction. The modified part is marked with red font in the MS. We added the evaluation of previous researches, for example, “These methods usually require a large amount of data, such as land use data, soil data, meteorological data, and socioeconomic data, to assess only special ESs, which makes these methods difficult to quantify and verify.”, “This matrix method requires only land use data with a scoring matrix to evaluate the multiple ES supply, demand, and supply–demand balance; therefore, less data is required compared with the calculations of the model and equations mentioned above. Although this method is semiquantitative, it can incorporate more types of ESs and provide a more complete assessment”, and “The random forest model performs well in identifying the driving mechanisms of specific ESs, but research on the driving mechanisms of the supply and demand balance of multiple ESs and the threshold effects needs to be strengthened. Few studies have focused on the nonlinear response processes of multiple ES supply, demand, and supply–demand balance to dominant factors when considering the mechanisms driving ESs”, etc.

The main innovations of this article: This study modified an expert-based matrix model to fit the commonly used land use data in China. Moreover, the spatial assessments of changes in the ES demand, supply, and supply–demand balance were performed in the YREB. This study analyzed the complex nonlinear relationships between socioecological factors and ESs and explored their response processes and driving mechanisms at the county level in the YREB. We have added these contents in the last paragraph of the Introduction.

 

Materials and Methods:

3. There is a citation format error in line 103.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have deleted “(Lu et al., 2020)” in line 103 and “(Wu et al., 2022)” in line 218.

4. Whether using the Ecosystem Services Demand-Supply Ratio (ESDR) in section 2.4 can better reflect the balance between ESs supply and demand should be further discussed.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We also considered the ESDR. Generally, the ESDR can be assessed using the following equation:

(1)

where ESDR, ESSI_k and ESDI_k are the ES demand-supply ratio, the ES supply index and the ES demand index of the kth county in the YREB, respectively. ESSI_max indicates the maximum value of ES supply, ESDI_max indicates the maximum value of ES demand.

The ES supply-demand balance (ESSDB) at the county level was assessed using the following equation:

         (2)

where ESSDB_k, is the ES supply-demand balance of the kth county in the YREB, respectively.

We have tested the correlation between the ESDR and ESSDB, where R²=1 (Figure 1), which means that these two indices are the same. At the same time, we also found that ESSDB is simpler and faster to calculate, and only involves subtraction, so we chose ESSDB as an index to represent the ES balance of supply and demand.

 

Figure 1 the correlation between the ESDR and ESSDB.

Discussion:

5. This article only analyzes the pattern, relationship, and driving forces of ecosystem service supply and demand for one year, which cannot reflect the spatiotemporal evolutionary characteristics. Future research can start from a long-time series and a multi-spatial scale perspective to propose targeted policies for ecosystem enhancement.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have added these contents into the last paragraph of section 4.4.

Conclusion:

6. The conclusion section should accurately, concisely, and comprehensively summarize the main research results, highlighting the research contributions.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We've rewritten the conclusion.

“Based on the land use/land cover data of 2020 and combined with two ES matrices, this study analyzed the spatial distribution characteristics of ES supply, demand and supply–demand balance at the county level in the YREB. In addition, the response processes of the ES supply, demand and supply–demand balance to changes in socioecological factors were examined. The results revealed obvious spatial differences in the supply, demand and supply–demand balance of the supply, demand and supply–demand balance in the YREB. The regions with high ES supply were mainly located in the southeastern parts, while high ES demand areas were mainly located in the three national urban agglomerations. Similarly, the ES deficit regions (332 of 1070 counties or 14.45% of the area) of the YREB were mainly concentrated in the three national urban agglomerations. We also found that natural environmental factors such as PRE and slope had a profound influence on the ES supply and supply-demand balance, while socioeconomic factors such as CLR and POPd had a significant impact on the ES demand. Notably, CLR ranked first among all the driving factors in terms of the ES supply (positive effect), demand (negative effect), and supply–demand balance (positive effect). Furthermore, our results indicated that the response processes of the ES supply, demand and supply–demand balance significantly differed with changes in the driving factors. Three types of response processes were identified in the YREB. First, the ESs decreased logarithmically with increasing driving factors. Second, the ESs increased logarithmically with increasing driving factors. Finally, ESs had an increasing fluctuating trend with increasing driving factors. Thus, turning points can be extracted from the three types of response processes, which should be focused on in future ecosystem restoration projects to ensure the success of these projects.”

 

7. Comments on the Quality of English Language

Pay attention to grammatical accuracy and sentence structure to ensure that the text flows smoothly. In addition, in some cases, the wording can be improved for better readability and understanding.In general, with some minor modifications to address these issues, the English quality of journal papers will be further improved, thus strengthening the professionalism and credibility of the published research.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. This MS has been edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by one or more of the highly qualified native English speaking editors at American Journal Experts (AJE, verification code 5E5D-80BC-64CF-F62A-0E1P). The modified part is marked with red font.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript explore the response process of ecosystem services to socioeconomic factor on a county level in the YREB, China.

All analyses are built on solid data and methods applied are suitable. Manuscript is very well written and understandable for the reader.

I like Figure 2 as it nicely demonstrate the applied workflow.

Figure 1 b) is there really the lowest elevation point -61 m?

Figure 1 c) uses too many land use subclasses to be legible, I suggest to reduce it to the wider 6 classes (line 141).

Results are clearly presented and discussed. I like sub-chapter 4.3 where specific implications for ecosystem management are discussed and proposed. Authors also rightly acknowledged the simplicity of the Burkhard’s method for supply and demand assessment. However, this drawback can be bypassed when more complex assessment methods are used. The proposed workflow will just adopt those better methods as inputs. This made it truly universal.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your comments on our manuscript, " Exploring the Response Process of Ecosystem Services to Socioecological Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China (land-3001637)" The manuscript has been revised, and responses to the comments follow (The modified part is marked with red font in the MS).

 

Response to Reviewer 3's comments and suggestions:

Manuscript explore the response process of ecosystem services to socioeconomic factor on a county level in the YREB, China.

1. All analyses are built on solid data and methods applied are suitable. Manuscript is very well written and understandable for the reader.

Response: Thank you for your comment.

2. I like Figure 2 as it nicely demonstrate the applied workflow.

Response: Thank you for your comment.

3. Figure 1 b) is there really the lowest elevation point -61 m?

Response: Thank you for your comment. were generated based on the latest SRTM Version 4.1 data, which were available at the Resources and Environmental Science and Data Center Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (http://www.resdc.cn). The areas with an altitude of less than 0 are mainly concentrated in the coastal areas of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, such as Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang. In the middle reaches of the river valleys and basins and other areas, there are also some areas with elevations less than 0.

4. Figure 1 c) uses too many land use subclasses to be legible, I suggest to reduce it to the wider 6 classes (line 141).

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. Land use/land cover (LULC) data at a 1 km resolution in 2020 were also collected from the Resources and Environmental Science and Data Center Sciences (RESDC) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (http://www.resdc.cn). The LULC dataset includes six LULC classes and 25 subclasses. There are 23 LULC subclasses in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. We have reduced 23 land use subclasses to 6 classes in Figure 1c.

In addition, Burkhard et al. established two matrices covering 44 LULC types and 22 ESs supply/demand capacities. In order to better connect Burkhard's matrices to the LULC types in our study, we choose the 23 LULC subclasses, therefore, we used 23 LULC subclasses in Figure S1 in the Supplementary Materials to show the spatial distribution of these LULC subclasses.

5. Results are clearly presented and discussed. I like sub-chapter 4.3 where specific implications for ecosystem management are discussed and proposed. Authors also rightly acknowledged the simplicity of the Burkhard’s method for supply and demand assessment. However, this drawback can be bypassed when more complex assessment methods are used. The proposed workflow will just adopt those better methods as inputs. This made it truly universal.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have added the following content after the first paragraph of section 4.4: “In addition, more complex assessment methods (such as the InVEST model and empirical formulas) could be used to modify the LULC-based matrix.”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors explain my concerns, the revisions were very careful, and I have no further comments.