Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a high quality, theoretically well framed and methodologically sound empirical paper focusing on a relevant topic. I have only minor recommendations:

1. The research goals should be slightly reformulated - the goal should not be formulated "to analyze...", this is an instrument, not a goal. Rather, the authors should clearly state, which information they aim to obtain and what their usability might be.
2. In section 3 "Data and Methods" the authors should briefly discuss data and methodological limitations of their research, potential disadvantages and weaknesses of their methods.
3. In the concluding section the authors should briefly discuss potential limits of generalizability of their paper - if and to what extent is are their approaches and results applicable in different geographical contexts.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and your comments on our manuscript entitled Resilience of urban network structure in China: The perspective of disruption (Manuscript ID: ijgi-1466994). Those comments are all valuable and have been very helpful for revising and improving our paper and providing important guidance for our research. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections accordingly, which we hope will be approved. The revised portions are marked in revised mode in the paper. The main corrections to the paper and the responses to the reviewers’ comments are as follows:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors：

This is a high quality, theoretically well framed and methodologically sound empirical paper focusing on a relevant topic. I have only minor recommendations:

(1) The research goals should be slightly reformulated - the goal should not be formulated "to analyze...", this is an instrument, not a goal. Rather, the authors should clearly state, which information they aim to obtain and what their usability might be.

Response: We highly appreciate your positive comments and suggestions. In the revised version, the research goals have been reformulated according to the contents of this research. The reformulated research goals are as follows: (1) to establish a framework to assess the network structure resilience; (2) to reveal the spatial pattern and investigate the structural characteristics of China’s urban information, transportation, and economic networks; (3) to present structural resilience of urban networks under disruption scenarios, to identify the dominant nodes and vulnerable nodes affecting the network structure resilience, and (4) to propose suggestions for optimization to provide a reference for strengthening regional cooperation, resource allocation, and development planning.

(2) In section 3 "Data and Methods" the authors should briefly discuss data and methodological limitations of their research, potential disadvantages and weaknesses of their methods.

Response: We highly appreciate your suggestions. As you said, we should briefly discuss the research data and methodological limitations. In section 5 “Discussion” of our original manuscript, we have listed a separate section 5.3 “Limitations and directions for future research” to discuss the limitations of this study in terms of research data and methods, for instance, the limitations in the Baidu search index and Tencent migration big data acquisition, as well as the lag of social statistics. Substitutable data is so difficult to obtain that we could not construct an economic connection network based on flow space data, but adopted the gravity model. In addition, in section 5.1 “Research significance and signatures of urban networks”, we also described the improvement of hierarchy and assortativity indicators based on weight, which can reflect the functional differentiation and imbalance in the urban network structure. Owing to data and methodological limitations that have been stated in detail in this section, we thought carefully and have not added them in section 3 "Data and Methods" of the revised version to avoid redundancy.

(3) In the concluding section the authors should briefly discuss potential limits of generalizability of their paper - if and to what extent is are their approaches and results applicable in different geographical contexts.

Response: We highly appreciate your guidance and agree with this suggestion. In the concluding section of the revised version, we briefly discussed if the approaches and results are applicable in different geographical contexts. The relevant contents are as follows: This study established a framework to measure the network structure resilience and quantitatively assessed the structural resilience of China’s urban networks from the perspective of their structural characteristics, with the goal of advancing sustainable and healthy regional development. The framework can also be used to measure local and global urban relationship networks. However, the gravity model used to construct the economic network in this study may not be suitable for global regions with large differences in geographical contexts.

 

Furthermore, we have polished and consulted native English speakers for paper revision before the submission this time. We obtained assistance from MDPI English Editing Services for the revision of English grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and organization quality. This document certifies that the manuscript listed below was edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by the highly qualified native English speaking editors at MDPI English Editing Services.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Page 1, Keywords: My suggestion is to include “Information”, “Transportation” and “Economic” in the Keywords.

Page 3, line 104: “Specifically, we considered 344 administrative units at…” & page 5, line 208, “We used 344 cities at the prefecture level…”. My suggestion is to use either the term “cities” or the term “administrative units” throughout your manuscript to avoid any misunderstanding.

Page 6, Figure 1. Cities at the prefecture level and above in China.: It is not easy to understand the label of the specific Figure (National capital, Province capital, Other prefecture level cities, Provincial boundaries). Which city corresponds to the label classes?

Please include the geographical background of the map in Figures 1, 3, 4, 9 and 10.

My suggestion is to include the web address for “Baidu” and “Tencent” in the Reference List at the end of the paper and renumber your references within the manuscript.

Please carefully check your manuscript for English grammar and syntax errors. In addition, please also check for typos (e.g., Page 17, Figure 7, (b) Transportaion), Page 19, Figure 8, Transportaion).

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and your comments on our manuscript entitled Resilience of urban network structure in China: The perspective of disruption (Manuscript ID: ijgi-1466994). Those comments are all valuable and have been very helpful for revising and improving our paper and providing important guidance for our research. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections accordingly, which we hope will be approved. The revised portions are marked in revised mode in the paper. The main corrections to the paper and the responses to the reviewers’ comments are as follows:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors：

(1) Page 1, Keywords: My suggestion is to include “Information”, “Transportation” and “Economic” in the Keywords.

Response: We highly appreciate your valuable suggestions. In the revised version, we added “information network; transportation network; economic network” to the Keywords. The details can be found in the revised version.

(2) Page 3, line 104: “Specifically, we considered 344 administrative units at…” & page 5, line 208, “We used 344 cities at the prefecture level…”. My suggestion is to use either the term “cities” or the term “administrative units” throughout your manuscript to avoid any misunderstanding.

Response: Thank you very much for the good instruction. In the revised version, we replaced the term “administrative units” with the term “cities” to avoid any misunderstanding. The details can be found in the revised version.

(3) Page 6, Figure 1. Cities at the prefecture level and above in China.: It is not easy to understand the label of the specific Figure (National capital, Province capital, Other prefecture level cities, Provincial boundaries). Which city corresponds to the label classes?

Response: We are sorry for this confusion. In the original manuscript, we briefly introduced our study area, namely 344 cities in China, but didn’t describe the specific composition of 344 cities. However, the spatial distribution and administrative composition of 344 cities were presented in more detail in Figure 1. In the revised version, we have supplemented the specific composition of 344 cities in China to help readers better understand the situation of the study area. The details can be found in the revised version. The more specific statements are as follows:

China implements the management system of the administrative division. The administrative division consists of the provincial-level administrative region (province, Autonomous Region, municipality directly under the central government, and Special Administrative Region), prefecture-level administrative region (prefecture-level city, prefecture, Autonomous Prefecture, and league), county-level administrative region (municipal district, county-level city, county, autonomous county, banner, Autonomous Banner, special district, and forestry district), and township-level administrative region (town, township, etc.). Among them, the provincial-level administrative region is the first-level administrative region, and its jurisdictional area is within the provincial boundary. Beijing is the national capital, the political and cultural center of China. In addition, each provincial-level administrative region has a provincial capital, which can be found in Figure 1. Specifically, the 344 cities in this study include 4 municipalities directly under the central government, 294 prefecture-level cities, 30 Autonomous Prefectures, 7 prefectures, 3 leagues, and Shihezi city in Xinjiang, Laiwu city in Shandong, Xiantao city, Tianmen city, Qianjiang city and Shennongjia in Hubei. Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan were excluded owing to unavailable data for these areas.

(4) Please include the geographical background of the map in Figures 1, 3, 4, 9 and 10.

Response: We highly appreciate your guidance and agree with this suggestion. In the revised version, we have redrawn Figures 1, 3, 4, 9 and 10. Specifically, we added a new figure 1(b) with geographical background in Figure 1. Although we tried to include the geographical background of the map in Figures 1, 3, 4, 9 and 10, the final exhibition effect is not very ideal. Correspondingly, some map features were appropriately added and the errors in these figures were modified. For instance, the feature of city nodes was added and the term “boundries” was corrected in Figure 3. The term “boundries” was corrected in Figure 4. The legend colors corresponding to different levels were modified in Figure 9(b). The feature of prefecture level city boundaries was added in Figure 10. The revised figures can be found in the revised version.

(5) My suggestion is to include the web address for “Baidu” and “Tencent” in the Reference List at the end of the paper and renumber your references within the manuscript.

Response: Thank you very much for the suggestion. We agree with this suggestion and have listed the web address for “Baidu” and “Tencent” in the References section in the revised version. Correspondingly, the references within the manuscript were renumbered. The details can be found in the revised version.

(6) Please carefully check your manuscript for English grammar and syntax errors. In addition, please also check for typos (e.g., Page 17, Figure 7, (b) Transportaion), Page 19, Figure 8, Transportaion).

Response: We thank you very much for pointing out this issue. Owing to our negligence, there are typos occurring in the word “Transportation”. In the revised version, we have modified it in Figures 6, 7, and 8. For the English grammar and syntax errors of our manuscript, we carefully checked and consulted native English speakers for language corrections before the submission this time. We really hope that the language level has been substantially improved.

 

Furthermore, we have polished and consulted native English speakers for paper revision before the submission this time. We obtained assistance from MDPI English Editing Services for the revision of English grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and organization quality. This document certifies that the manuscript listed below was edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by the highly qualified native English speaking editors at MDPI English Editing Services.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper excellently combines urban and social study of Chinese cities with technical GIS applications (several representative maps made using ArcGIS). It presents a multi-disciplinary study well deserved to be published. However, minor corrections should be improved (colored yellow in my report).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your letter and your comments on our manuscript entitled Resilience of urban network structure in China: The perspective of disruption (Manuscript ID: ijgi-1466994). Those comments are all valuable and have been very helpful for revising and improving our paper and providing important guidance for our research. We have studied the comments carefully and have made corrections accordingly, which we hope will be approved. The revised portions are marked in revised mode in the paper. The main corrections to the paper and the responses to the reviewers’ comments are as follows:

Comments and Suggestions for Authors：

The paper excellently combines urban and social study of Chinese cities with technical GIS applications (several representative maps made using ArcGIS). It presents a multi-disciplinary study well deserved to be published. However, minor corrections should be improved (colored yellow in my report).

(1) I suggest to add the following ones if the 8 keywords are acceptable: “spatial analysis, geoinformation”.

(2) Start a new paragraph from the new line because you start talking here about the geographical space: “The network relationship among cities has penetrated into the original geographical spatial structure” (line 41).

(3) Start a new paragraph here because you start discussing the increasing risks to regional and urban systems: “However, with rapid urbanization, many kinds of <...>” (line 49).

(4) Start a new line here, because you are now talking the controversial effects of connectivity: “Negative network externalities, such as infectious diseases <...>”. Here besides positive effects, the authors also discuss the vulnerability of regions and cities and negative effects (lines 69-79).

(5) Start a new paragraph concerning the objectives, and numerate the objectives using list (or bullets): “The objectives of this article are as follows: <...>” (line 113).

(6) The authors start by introducing the Latin word resiliere (use Italics for Latin words), which means to “bounce back” and discuss then the associated applications of this phenomena in different disciplines, e.g. physics, ecology. (lines 123-138).

(7) Start a new paragraph here, because you start taking about a more extended use of this words and the expansion of the semantics: “Therefore, as new thinking of urban risk management, urban resilience focuses on enhancing the ability of urban systems to organize themselves, functionally coordinate <...>” (lines 150-161).

(8) Start a new paragraph because you start talking about 2 new categories: “The related research can be summarized into two categories: The first <...> The seconds <...>” Highlight it as a separate paragraph. (lines 169-181).

(9) Start a new paragraph as you discuss here the existing research methods including static indicators of network topology in complex network theory: “From the point of view of research methods,<...>” (lines 181-190).

(10) Start a new paragraph because here you introduces what did you do new and how dod you contributed to the existing research: “Therefore, this study measures urban network structure resilience in terms of information, transportation, and economy.” (lines 190-205).

(11) Delete colon: “We found that: the NWAD of the nodes <...>” (line 514).

(12) Delete comma: “This reflects that they were scattered in space, and had more contact” (line 517).

(13) Delete comma: “<...> diffusion of information through the network, and reduces” (line 521).

(14) Start a new sentence with a capital: “, and attention should be paid to strengthening <...>” like this: “<...> of the entire network. Attention should be paid”

(15) Start a new paragraph from this line: “The information network has the strongest disassortative connection and high hierarchy.” (line 787).

(16) Start a new paragraph: “The economic network has the highest hierarchy and the lowest disassortativity” (line 795).

(17) Start a new paragraph from the next line: “On the other hand, substitutable data is so difficult to obtain that we cannot …” (line 953).

(18) Start a new paragraph: “Although the above are so complex that it is inherent” (line 959).

(19) Start a new paragraph: “Whether the spatial structure of the urban 968 network is resilient to disturbances is related to the stable” (line 968).

Response: We highly appreciate your positive comments and suggestions. That will further improve the readability of this manuscript. In the revised version, we added the keywords “spatial analysis, geoinformation”. In addition, we agree with all the suggestions of the expert and have modified them one by one in the revised version.

 

Furthermore, we have polished and consulted native English speakers for paper revision before the submission this time. We obtained assistance from MDPI English Editing Services for the revision of English grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and organization quality. This document certifies that the manuscript listed below was edited for proper English language, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and overall style by the highly qualified native English speaking editors at MDPI English Editing Services.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf