Extraction of Winter Wheat Planting Area Based on Multi-Scale Fusion
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Title:“Extraction of winter wheat planting area based on multi-scale fusion”. It’s very important to use remote sensing data to accurately identify crop growth area. The purpose of this research is to improve the accuracy of China's medium-spatial resolution image data in extracting the large area of winter wheat planted. And the authors selected Shuyang County, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province, China as the research area. Though this study, the authors proposed that the combination of medium spatial resolution HJ-1/CCD images and high spatial resolution GF-1 satellite images can effectively extract the planting area information of winter wheat in large regions. I think the manuscript can be considered to accept after minor revision. Some suggestions are as follows:
1. English writing needs improvement, some sentences in the manuscript are too long, which may make it difficult for readers to understand. And it is suggested to invite a native English speaking teacher to help to edit the manuscript.
2. I am curious why the author chose to conduct this research at the jointing stage of winter wheat instead of other growth periods? What’s more, the winter wheat sowing date may be different in different fields in this study region, therefore, the growth and development stage of wheat may also be different. So how do the author consider this impact to remote sensing image data acquisition in this study?
3. Although the author has described the importance and innovation of this study in the introduction section, I suggest the author further elaborate the innovation of this study in the introduction to highlight it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing the manuscript (Manuscript ID: remotesensing-2107804, Title: Extraction of winter wheat planting area based on multi-scale fusion) so carefully. We have carefully considered the comments and suggestions and tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Responds to the reviewers' comments and suggestions:
- English writing needs improvement, some sentences in the manuscript are too long, which may make it difficult for readers to understand. And it is suggested to invite a native English speaking teacher to help to edit the manuscript.
Response: We are very sorry for our writing, which has been revised in the newly submitted manuscript.
- I am curious why the author chose to conduct this research at the jointing stage of winter wheat instead of other growth periods? What’s more, the winter wheat sowing date may be different in different fields in this study region, therefore, the growth and development stage of wheat may also be different. So how do the author consider this impact to remote sensing image data acquisition in this study?
Response: Jointing stage is one of the main growth periods of winter wheat and also an important period of fertilizer and water management. The GF-1/PMS panchromatic image on March 26, 2021 and the HJ-1/CCD multispectral image on March 25, 2021 were selected, and all winter wheat in Jianghuai region were in jointing stage during this period.
- Although the author has described the importance and innovation of this study in the introduction section, I suggest the author further elaborate the innovation of this study in the introduction to highlight it.
Response: It is really a great suggestion and it is added at Lines 123-127 of the newly submitted manuscript.
Author：Weiguo Li, Hong Zhang et.al
Time：25 December 2022
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
11. Lines 33-36, what is the matrix you evaluated the mean, standard deviation and so on? Did you use the digital number/gray value? Otherwise, what are the units? Why do you think the fusion effect of 16mX16m fused image is better?
22. Line 60, there is no object in this sentence. Perhaps using “There are also satellite data produced in China”
33. Line 63, do you think “medium spatial resolution” makes sense? Instead of using “medium in spatial resolution”.
44. Lines 66-68, there is no verb in this sentence. Perhaps using “The GF-1/PMS panchromatic images have high spatial resolution…”
55. Line 100, I would recommend using “There is” instead of “There’s”.
66. Line 113, I would recommend adding the subject, for example, “we conducted the following…”
77. Line 149, the website did not work.
88. Line 161, what is the full name of FLAASH?
99. Line 172, which method are you used to resample?
110. Line 221, how many samples did you collect from each class/ground object?
111. Lines 240-243, how did you calculate smoothness and compactness?
112. Lines 286-287, what is the value of each class in different band? Is it average reflectance among all samples? I would recommend boxplot (to replace figure 3 or add as supplementary information) to show more information of samples.
113. Line 444, I would recommend adding the full name of UAV.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
We are very grateful to you for reviewing the manuscript (Manuscript ID: remotesensing-2107804, Title: Extraction of winter wheat planting area based on multi-scale fusion) so carefully. We have carefully considered the comments and suggestions and tried our best to improve the manuscript.
Responds to the reviewers' comments and suggestions:
- Lines 33-36, what is the matrix you the mean, standard deviation and so on? Did you use the digital number/gray value? Otherwise, what are the units? Why do you think the fusion effect of 16m×16m fused image is better?
Response: The double matrix (basic data type) is used to evaluate the mean, standard difference, etc. We used the digital number/gray value, no units. Compared with other scale fusion images, 16 m×16 m fusion image has better visual effect, higher mean value, standard deviation, average gradient and correlation coefficient, and contains more information.
- Line 60, there is no object in this sentence. Perhaps using “There are also satellite data produced in China”
Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing and it is rectified at Line 68 of the newly submitted manuscript.
- Line 63, do you think “medium spatial resolution” makes sense? Instead of using “medium in spatial resolution”.
Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing and it is rectified at Line 72 of the newly submitted manuscript.
4.Lines 66-68, there is no verb in this sentence. Perhaps using “The GF-1/PMS panchromatic images have high spatial resolution…”
Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing and it is rectified at Line 75 of the newly submitted manuscript.
5.Line 100, I would recommend using “There is” instead of “There’s”.
Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing and it is rectified at Line 112 of the newly submitted manuscript.
6.Line 113, I would recommend adding the subject, for example, “we conducted the following…”
Response: It is really a great suggestion and it is added at Lines 129-131 of the newly submitted manuscript.
7.Line 149, the website did not work.
Response: We are very sorry for our incorrect writing and it is rectified at Line 168 of the newly submitted manuscript.
- Line 161, what is the full name of FLAASH?
Response: FLAASH is the full name of the atmospheric correction model.
9.Line 172, which method are you used to resample?
Response: The Cubic Convolution method was used to resample.
10.Line 221, how many samples did you collect from each class/ground object?
Response: Water, buildings and roads, winter wheat and other vegetation samples were 100 each, and rape samples were 80.
11.Lines 240-243, how did you calculate smoothness and compactness?
Response: The relevant formulas are used for calculation, and the smoothness and compactness are displayed in the remote sensing processing software.
12.Lines 286-287, what is the value of each class in different band? Is it average reflectance among all samples? I would recommend boxplot (to replace figure 3 or add as supplementary information) to show more information of samples.
Response: It is really a great suggestion and the value of each class in different band is added at Lines 301-307 of the newly submitted manuscript. It is the average reflectance among all samples.
13.Line 444, I would recommend adding the full name of UAV.
Response: It is really a great suggestion and it is added at Line 485 of the newly submitted manuscript.
Author：Weiguo Li, Hong Zhang et.al
Time：25 December 2022
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript title: “Extraction of winter wheat planting area based on multi-scale fusion”. In the Jianghuai wheat production region of China, the farmland is densely covered with water network, the fields are broken, and the distribution is scattered. It’s of great importance to use remote sensing data to identify crop growth area. However, at present, it is difficult to accurately identify the wheat information of the field with a single medium and low resolution image. This research aims to improve the accuracy of the China's medium-spatial resolution image data (environment and disaster monitoring and forecasting satellite data, HJ-1/CCD) in extracting the large area of winter wheat planted. This research is very interesting and well written. I think it can be published in this journal after minor revision. Here only are some little suggestions for the author's:
1. In the first sentence of the abstract, it is suggested to adding that wheat plant area in this region is difficult to be accurately identified, so the authors carried out this study.
2. The authors mentioned that the growth stage of winter wheat of remote sensing image acquisition in the field was at jointing stage in the abstract section, however, the authors only indicated the image acquisition dates ( March 26 and 25 , 2021) in the materials and methods part, “jointing stage” was not mentioned in this section.
3. I suggest that the author adds a specific research hypothesis of this study in the last paragraph of the introduction section, and it is also suggested that the author writes the research content as 1)... 2)... 3)..., which is more clearly.
4. It is suggested the authors to supplement with more relevant research references or technical principles in the discussion section to explain why the fusion effect of 16 m×16 m fused image was better than that of 2 m×2 m, 8 m×8 m and 24 m×24 m fused image, and why the SFI achieved the best classification effect on FI16m fused image? What is the relevant mechanism?
Reviewer 2 Report
The purpose of this study is to improve the accuracy of the China's medium-spatial resolution image data (environment and disaster monitoring and forecasting satellite data, HJ-1/CCD) in extracting the large area of winter wheat planted.
(1) However, GS (Gram-Schmidt) fusion is a very mature image fusion method. The author applied it to winter wheat extraction in Jiangsu Province, China, but its innovation is obviously insufficient.
(2) As the authors mention, the GS (Gram-Schmidt) fusion method is a pixel-level image fusion method. This approach does not take into account changes in time steps. In the process of crop extraction, the growth trend of crop growth period changes very rapidly, so the extraction of crop planting areas often needs to fully consider the time series changes of multi-period remote sensing images.
(3) In this paper, the phenomenon of cloudy is very common in the study area, so there are few available remote sensing images. Therefore, the image fusion method in this paper is poor in practical application.
