Eco-Environmental Effects of Changes in Territorial Spatial Pattern and Their Driving Forces in Qinghai, China (1980–2020)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Firstly, I would like to thank you for your work in this field.
You did an excellent job!
I give a high comment on this manuscript.
For this current version, there are a few suggestions, not many, but essential.
For details, please see the followings:
1. Abstract lacks research context;
2. The abstract talks about the driving mechanisms of the evolution of ecological quality, but the title talks about the driving forces of changes in geographic spatial patterns;
3. The abstract ends without saying what problem we ended up solving with this article. What contribution has been made;
4. I suggest that you reorganize the logic in the introductory chapter；
5. Why does the last paragraph of the quote say that it is a study of the changing spatial and temporal pattern of China's national space, but the title says that it is a study of the changing spatial pattern of China's Qinghai region；
6. Introduction lacks research results, research conclusions, and research outlook；
7. Much of the data in the tables and figures comes from various references, but it appears that they are not marked up with reasonable citations;
i.e.
DOI:10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2018.01.011.
DOI:10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2018.01.011.
DOI:10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2021.06.010.
DOI:10.13249/j.cnki.sgs.2018.01.011.
Because of this article's large amount of data, I suggest you comb through this issue carefully.
8. On the 8th side of the layout almost all of the following is blank. Half of the bottom of the 10th side of the layout is blank. I suggest you re-organise the structure format to make it more readable;
9. The calculations for the data in Table 4 are heavily biased, and I suggest that you recalculate the data and make adjustments;
i.e.
[1] Line 269 says that the ecological land area in 2020 is 706463.65km2, but in the data of Table 4, the four data of ES (391414.40 of GES) + (28540.55 of FES) + (32700.94 of WES) + (233801.68 of OES) are calculated to be equal to 686457.57km2. The deviation is 20006.08km2
[2] the sum of the Scales for the 1980 segment of Table 4 adds up to 100.01%
[3] the sum of the Scales for the 2015 segment of Table 4 adds up to 99.99%
10. Why are the area of productive land and the area of living land compared with the data of 2020 using the data of 1980, but the area of ecological land is compared with the data of 2020 using the data of 2010, can it be changed to "but the area of ecological land decreased from 687965.40 square kilometres in 1980 to 686457.57 square kilometres in 2020. 686457.57 square kilometres in 2020.";
11. line 273 GES>OES>WES>FES>APS>RLS>IPS>RLS in RLS repeated, the order should be changed to GES>OES>WES>FES>APS>RLS>IPS>ULS;
12. It is recommended that the discussion and conclusion chapters be divided into two separate chapters.
Again, I have a highly comment on your contribution.
The upon revision recommendations are helping this manuscript be more readable for readers.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This article is promising. However, there are few observations that might make the text clearer and easier to follow. I have grouped them into A. Major Issues, and B. Minor Issues.
A. Major Issues
1. I believe a clear description of all the driving mechanisms alluded in the article might greatly improve the readability of the text (cf. R9-10). In short, how does each driving mechanism work in producing eco-environmental effects? The descriptions should be clear and precise. As I see it, the main promise to the reader is the following: "In this study, we used the factor and interaction detection modules of a geographic detector, to identify the influencing factors [drivers?] of different factors on the eco-environmental quality of the region and explain the mechanism of the ecological environment evolution and the role of human-natural coupling interaction[s] in Qinghai Province" (R188-192). This is an ambitious promise, which needs to be met consistently.
2. I had some difficulty following the terminology: For instance, what does "Territorial space is an important regional [?] space that factors into national survival [?] and socio-economic development" (R29-30). What is the relation between 'territorial' and 'regional' space? What does 'territorial spatial planning' mean? (In usual parlance, it is either 'spatial planning', i.e., encompassing both regional and urban/rural planning, or 'regional'/'urban' planning, or, if you prefer the British terminology, 'town and country planning'.
3. Where does the eco-environmental quality index of class i land use type (Ri) come from (R164-166)? A short explanation might prove helpful, as Ri is pivotal in the general eco-environmental quality index (R164-165).
4. Figure 7 is somewhat difficult to read. Factors are grouped, but mechanisms are hard to understand. In my opinion, Figure 7 is the main take-home message of the article, as it describes the mechanisms that shape territorial change. Hence, I would personally label every arrow with a short explanation, e.g., population density [arrow pointing towards] production space/living space/ecological space, with the arrow labeled "a [relative] increase/decrease of [...] in the convergence of production spaces". The idea behind such labels is helping the reader to get an intuitive feel for the calculations performed in the article.
B. Minor Issues
1. Some sentences are difficult to follow: e.g., "With the help of the macrocosm [?], systematicness [?], and integrity of the spatial division of production, life, and ecology [?], it [who?] is the bridge between the macro territorial spatial pattern and the micro land use" (R72-74).
2. Acronyms should be explained at their first appearance in the text (e.g., 'PLE' in R82).
3. I would personally use decimal separators when writing large numbers (e.g., '7,982.88' instead of '7982.88), because they help the reader grasp the numbers better.
4. Some legends are quite small, and difficult to read (e.g., Figure 1, 3, 4, and 5).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The subject of the paper is relevant for the journal.
The abstract summarises well the paper.
The references in the introduction are good, also pointing to the international situation.
The paper is well structured and the sections build well one on the other. The methods and the results are well explained and well visualised through figures and tables. The method is not original, but well applicable to the case study. The conclusions are somewhat surprising given the special location of the case study.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you very much for giving such excellent comments on this manuscript. We will continue to work hard in the academic road!!
Thanks again for your comment！
Best regards！
Xinyan Wu, Jinmei Ding, Bingjie Lu, Yuanyuan Wan, Linna Shi and Qi Wen
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I believe the corrections have greatly improved the clarity of the text. However, I have still noticed a few missing words within the text, so I would suggest a careful perusal of the entire article.
