Temporal and Spatial Difference Analysis and Impact Factors of Water Ecological Civilization Level: Evidence from Jiangxi Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article "Temporal and Spatial Difference Analysis and Impact Factors of Water Ecological Civilization Level: Evidence from Jiangxi Province, China", deals with water resources in Jangxi province, the authors highlight the problem of water for industry, the human consumption and society in general, spatially and temporally, showing the unequal distribution between the different areas studied.
The improvement in water quality from 2013 to 2020 is highlighted, lowering the economic cost of treating water pollution.
The article is interesting for publication, but needs to be improved.
Authors should remove references from the abstract.
The authors comment that the climate of the studied areas is subtropical monsoon, but they do not give data on rainfall, they also propose the sustainable use of water resources, but I do not see concrete proposals to balance precipitation with the amount of water used, however They make a good diagnosis of the situation, and propose the recovery of contaminated water.
I suggest the authors include a table with the rainfall of the locations used and their consumption, likewise I suggest investigating the bioclimatic aspects of the study areas, since these are interesting to control the unequal spatial distribution of the water used.
The references are correct, but few, they can include many more references.
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript. The responses to the Reviewers’ comments are described in our uploaded file letter.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
As per my view, manuscript is interesting and having good novelties to be considered for publication. But manuscript need some major corrections suggested below to improve the quality and representation.
State of the art is missing in the introduction and some of references need to be supported with literature.
Line no 52-58 need to be supported, how water quality impacting on construction of water ecological civilization (suggested one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352186421000535)
Line no 67-70: Text need to be supported with literature (Paddy Water Environ 17, 373–382 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10333-019-00732-3; Water Science and Technology Library, vol 96. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58051-3_22)
Line no 87, 104: authors used too many references to support the text, please avoid of using too much references and keep only recent one
Line no 113: section 3. Research Design and Methods ....should be "Material and Methods"
Line no 114: Research area should be study area
RMB should be calculated and represented in USD
Line no 197: "Research Results and Discussion " should be "Results and Discussion"
Statistics used need to be add in methodologies section with seperate headings
Line no 446: "4.2 Regression Results and Discussion"......should be "Regression analysis"
Conclusion should be concise and clear, kindly shift some of the sections of conclusion to above the conclusion section
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript. The responses to the Reviewers’ comments are described in our uploaded file letter.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The article is interesting and could make an important contribution to the field, but unfortunately in its current form the manuscript lacks research depth, visible by a focus on the case study rather than the research issue, proved by poor introduction and discussions. Thus, the manuscript requires a strong development of these sections. Moreover, the manuscript is poorly organized, and requires cleaning the text from paragraphs making no sense by mixing elements belonging to different sections. Detailed comments are provided for each section of manuscript.
The introduction is not organized properly, and the most important parts are obscured. The paragraph presenting the research goals (lines 60-65) makes no sense whatsoever; it gives the impression that the authors provide an absolutely unnecessary summary of their research; this summary belongs to the "Abstract", which is meant to summarize the research, and therefore there is no need to duplicate it elsewhere. The research goals are written in an unclear way, without any clear statement (e.g., "this study aims to.."); they should be rewritten clearly. Second, normally, in a scientific article the introduction analyzes the existing literature in order to identify their shortcomings (ambiguities, controversies, misconceptions or lacks), justifying the need for research, and emphasizing the novel and original elements of the current study. This is why it does not make sense having two separate sections, "Introduction" and "Literature Review". They should be merged. The merged section, called "Introduction", should end with the paragraph in lines 60-65, modified as suggested above. Third, the final paragraph of "Literature Review" (lines 109-112) makes no sense whatsoever; it gives the impression that the authors provide an absolutely unnecessary summary of their research; this summary belongs to the "Abstract", which is meant to summarize the research, and therefore there is no need to duplicate it elsewhere.
Figure 1 shows the inability of authors to write up research. This is an article for an international journal, and not a report for the national authorities. The authors should present a map showing the location of the study area in an international context, making visible the neighboring countries with their names, so that a Brazilian researcher could understand it too. China is not the only country in the world!
The most important section of a research article, the Discussions, is missing, and its lack masked by merging it with the "Results". The section is meant to emphasize the importance of research, justifying its publication. Normally, this section includes include (A) the significance of results - what do they say, in scientific terms; (B) the inner validation of results, against the study goals or hypotheses; (C) the external validation of results, against those of similar studies from other countries, identified in the literature; (D) the importance of results, meaning their contribution (conceptual or methodological) to the theoretical advancement of the field; (E) a summary of the study limitations and directions for overcoming them in the future research. Only the significance of results is presented. The "Discussions" should be developed to include the missing elements.
Conclusions are not sufficiently broad in scope, and lack research depth, pertaining only to the case study and being in fact just a summary of the main findings. Conclusions are meant to deliver a scientific message, far away beyond the case study, to the entire scientific community, making a clear contribution to the theoretical (conceptual or methodological) development of the field. Conclusions must be developed beyond the case study.
The abstract looks like a shopping list, focusing on the case study only, and not on the broader implications of research and only on what has been done, without the slightest indication on why it has been done, and what knowledge gap is actually being filled in. The abstract is supposed to deliver ideas, and not state the research steps in brief and provide useless figures instead of their significance. It needs to be rewritten entirely, and shift the focus from the case study to the research issue investigated in the study (temporal and spatial difference analysis and factors affecting water ecological civilization level).
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript. The responses to the Reviewers’ comments are described in our uploaded file letter.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Congratulations and all the best
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions，
In response to the reviewer’s comment, we revised the introduction in lines 69-76，112-114 as follows:
This study aims to analyze the impact factors of water ecological civilization, and enrich the theory of ecological civilization and improve the research content of sustainable development theory. It provides a new empirical basis for improving water ecological environment in China. As the water ecological environment has also deteriorated in some other developing countries, this study also aims to provide a reference for other developing countries similar to China to solve the problem of water pollution, alleviate the pollution-induced water shortage, and improve the water ecological civilization in the process of economic development.
Scholars mainly discuss the influencing factors of ecological civilization, water resource utilization efficiency, water pollution, water footprint and water resources carrying capacity [23-30].
Birawat, K.K.; Hymavathi, T.; Nachiyar, M.C.; Mayaja, N.A.; Srinivasa, C.V. Impact of urbanisation on lakes-a study of Bengaluru lakes through water quality index (WQI) and overall index of pollution (OIP). Environmental monitoring and assessment 2021, 193, 408.
Kamaran, D.H.; Rajaei, S.A.; Mansourian, H. The effects of urbanization on reduction of groundwater level and changes in vegetation and surface temperature in Iran's desert areas (case study: Yazd Province). International Journal of Environmental Research 2022, 16, 1-14.
Qiao, R.; Li, H.M.; Han, H. Spatio-Temporal coupling coordination analysis between urbanization and water resource carrying capacity of the provinces in the Yellow River Basin, China. Water 2021, 13, 376.
Mu, L.; Fang, L.; Dou, W.; Wang, C.; Yu, Y. Urbanization-induced spatio-temporal variation of water resources utilization in northwestern China: A spatial panel model based approach. Ecological Indicators 2021, 125, 107457.
Zhang, Y. China's green urbanization in the perspective of ecological civilization. Chinese Journal of Urban and Environmental Studies 2021, 9, 2150001.
Nouri, H.; Borujeni, S.C.; Hoekstra, A.Y. The blue water footprint of urban green spaces: An example for Adelaide, Australia. Landscape and Urban Planning 2019, 190, 103613.
Kan, D.; Huang, W. An empirical study of the impact of urbanization on industry water footprint in China. Sustainability 2020, 12, 2263.
Kan, D.; Huang, W. Empirical study of the impact of outward foreign direct investment on water footprint benefit in China. Sustainability 2019, 11, 4409.
Reviewer 3 Report
Although my previous comments were partially addressed and the manuscript was slightly improved, there are many important comments that were not addressed. I am reproducing them below and require the authors to address them or providing a sound justification for failing to do so.
1. The research goals are written in an unclear way, without any clear statement (e.g., "this study aims to.."); they should be rewritten clearly.
2. The most important section of a research article, the Discussions, is missing, and its lack masked by merging it with the "Results". The section is meant to emphasize the importance of research, justifying its publication. Normally, this section includes include (A) the significance of results - what do they say, in scientific terms; (B) the inner validation of results, against the study goals or hypotheses; (C) the external validation of results, against those of similar studies from other countries, identified in the literature; (D) the importance of results, meaning their contribution (conceptual or methodological) to the theoretical advancement of the field; (E) a summary of the study limitations and directions for overcoming them in the future research. Only the significance of results is presented. The "Discussions" should be developed to include the missing elements.
Additional comment: the authors did not develop all required section. I am asking for a separate "Discussions" section including the points not addressed - B, D, and E. D was insufficiently addressed, though a very short paragraph (lines 580-582), while it requires an extensive discussion. The paragraph in lines 633-644 does a better job, but is placed in the conclusions, and not in the discussions, where it should be.
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
