Evidence of Similarities in Ecosystem Service Flow across the Rural-Urban Spectrum

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents the investigation of ecosystem service use and flow across the rural-urban spectrum. The topic of the article is interesting and the research is well-conceived, but the presentation of the research needs to be refined to correspond to the original scientific paper.

1. For a start, it is necessary to use a passive voice in the text. First-person writing is not in the spirit of writing scientific papers.
2. The main hypothesis and supporting goals should be clearly stated in the introduction, which are later commented on in the conclusion: Is the hypothesis accepted or rejected and are the goals achieved or not?
3. The methodology you propose should be, with some modifications, globally applicable. So, the second chapter should present the original methodology that you validate in the chosen area. The selected research area as well as the description of the group of respondents should be moved to the third chapter (Results). In this chapter, it is necessary to state how the presented methodology can be modified to be globally applicable.
4. When enumerating multiple citations for a single thought / sentence, [31-34] is used instead of [31, 32, 33, 34].
5. In the discussion, it is necessary to state how the proposed methodology provides global applicability.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors

Let me congratulate you on this exciting piece of research. I hope my comments will permit you to address some minor concerns and improve the overall quality of the manuscript.

Abstract

Clear and succinct.

Introduction

It provides a good overview of the problem under investigation. The divide between urban and rural is well explained; however, the authors lack in defining and expanding what ES is about and what parameters are essential to understand rural and urban wellbeing. Also, there is a need to develop more on the literature about ecosystem services.

Methods

Very detailed and precise. One unclear aspect is related to how the participants were recruited and what sort of criteria were used. As well, the recruitment techniques used would be beneficial to know.

Results

This section is well organised, and the results are presented clearly.

Discussion

The authors provide a good summary of the key findings of this research. One aspect that would be interesting to know is related to the study's limitations and what could be the next steps.

Conclusion

Clear and concise. The author could spell out the significant contributions of this study to the discipline.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Welivita and colleagues have evaluated similarities in ecosystem service flow across the rural-urban spectrum in Hyderabad, India. They surveyed 3010 households across sites using a random sampling method, stratified across rural, peri-urban and urban areas. 

They found no statistical differences in the levels of direct or indirect use of an ecosystem, the distance to the ecosystem, nor the quantities of ecosystem services used between rural and urban residents. The results provide an advance in current knowledge as well as interest to the readers of this journal. Overall, this is a well-written paper however the introduction must be improved. The introduction does not provide sufficient background (You have included only 8 citations!). Please rewrite the introduction (e.g. use the reverse-triangle method), include relevant references as well as include the research gap. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has been improved.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for approving the manuscript