Spatial-Temporal Simulation of Carbon Storage Based on Land Use in Yangtze River Delta under SSP-RCP Scenarios
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The specific comment is in the attached file. However there is general comment that author should rewrite the whole manuscript especially the introduction and discussion section. Moreover, at some places it is very difficult to under the sentence's meaning.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
1) The provided data is not informative enough in the sampling information. The only thing we know is the source and classification of data. We need at least to know the sampling design, Is it a purposive design for land use effect mapping? Are those soil carbon datasets normally distributed? What is the number of samples or size of the dataset?
2) I am a bit confused about the validation process. There needs to be more information about the evaluation of the performance of the models. I would recommend using a tabular format to represent the model diagnostics in order to assess the performance of the model.
3) I missed the typical discussion format, as the authors just discussed the results in the discussion section. They have to cite previous studies to explain the results. They need to provide information about the reproducibility of the work and evaluate the results from other's work. I strongly missed a comprehensive literature review.
4) The authors must split the big complex and compound sentences. It became hard to grasp the idea many times. Please consider making more simple sentences for both knowledgeable and general readers.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript (land-2157219) tries to simulate and predict the patterns of future land use and carbon storage under different SSP-RCP scenarios of Yangtze River Delta, China by introducing weight matrices into the Markov model and combining the PLUS and InVEST models. Although it fits the aim and scope of this journal and the amount of the work is enough, its contribution to land use and land cover change modeling is not significant. Another serious concern is that some related latest studies have been neglected. Also, the current results of this study can hardly be reviewed because of those problems about data and methodology. Therefore, a Major Revision is required. More detailed comments and suggestions are presented as follows:
-1. The scientific question or research gap is missing in the Abstract. Similarly, the Introduction Section is a bit weak because the authors failed to raise an important scientific question or gap related to this study and beyond this study area. Therefore, potential readers can hardly identify the need that the authors should have to provide a new solution. What I learn from the introduction is that the authors apply a previous established model to a specific study area (Yangtze River Delta, China). Note that the Markov, the PLUS, and InVEST models are not new methods for future land use and land cover change prediction.
-2. In Line 79-83: the authors have mentioned that: "a new set of scenarios with a combination of Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) and Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) has been adopted after the launch of the 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) in 2015, and there are still few studies on land use prediction under the new scenarios, as it is difficult to set development trends based on previous experience". However, these statements are incorrect because a large number of previous studies have already done so (see below as examples).
Dynamic simulation of land use change and assessment of carbon storage based on climate change scenarios at the city level: A case study of Bortala, China. Ecological Indicators, 2022, 134: 108499.
Trade-Offs and Synergies of Multiple Ecosystem Services for Different Land Use Scenarios in the Yili River Valley, China. Sustainability. 2021; 13(3):1577.
-3. Did the authors draw the Figure 1 based on the standard maps in China? What is the Map Review (Inspection) Number?
-4. Line 113-116: 12 elements from meteorology, soil, socio-economics and transportation in view of the previous studies were taken as driving factors. Please provide adequate references to justify the selection of the driving factors.
-5. It seems that this manuscript did not consider the serious problem of the multicollinearity of different driving factors.
-6. The authors devote too much space to describing the background of the study area, which should be briefly mentioned in several simple sentences. In addition, the authors also need to look further into the latest research in this field. In fact, the literature review is far from enough. Especially, the more advanced patch-based CA model has been widely utilized by many cutting-edge research (see below). However, this well-accepted technique is not even mentioned in the manuscript.
Modeling urban land-use changes using a landscape-driven patch-based cellular automaton (LP-CA). Cities, 2023, 132: 103906.
The Literature Review section is meant to set the context for your research work and highlight how it contributes to the knowledge in this field and builds on previous similar studies.
-7. At the beginning of the Section 2, I also suggest the authors to provide a flowchart of the methodology part.
-8. Section 2.2, Table 1: the data description section failed to provide the specific details of the input data, such as the dates in acquiring them, and accuracies. Which year is used for future prediction? I suggest the authors to list all the information in this table. What is the spatial resolution of the simulated and predicted land use results? How to deal with all these data with different spatial resolution?
-9. In addition, why the GDP and population were selected as the driving factors? In the real world, GDP, population, and urban land use are highly correlated, and they will mutually influence each other.
-10. In Section 2.3.1. Improved Markov model, which part of the Markov model has been improved?
-11. Table 4: how to determine these weights of land use types in different scenarios?
-12. Table 5: it is obvious that the "carbon density" will change significantly year by year. Therefore, this factor should not be considered as unvarying during the modeling period.
-13. Line 201-202: the authors mentioned that: “carbon densities of land use types be obtained by combing previous researches [43-45]”. However, these three references are more than twenty years ago, and are not directly related to the Yangtze River Delta.
-14. The authors also need to improve the Conclusion Section by mentioning the main shortages of your work.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have revised the manuscript as per the comments suggested during the first revision. however, there are still minor revisions which should be looked at.
The introduction part still needs some scientific language editing, especially from lines 81-96.
Lines 116-124 shud be moved to under 2.3 Method. As first the description of the study area is needed followed by the flow chart and other details.
The author needs to clarify, how they have considered the weights for different variables (Table 4). Do they follow some specific procedure or from the previous literature? Kindly Justify.
Figure 8. Legends are written in the local language. Kindly change it to Standard English languages
Do the authors go for the validation of their results or have done sensitivity analysis?
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
I appreciate your hard work and quick revision. I believe, this work has been improved a lot and will add significance to the readers of Land!
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In this revision, the authors have adequately responded to the comments and suggestions of the reviewers. It is now acceptable for publication.
Author Response
Comments and Suggestions for Authors: In this revision, the authors have adequately responded to the comments and suggestions of the reviewers. It is now acceptable for publication.Response: We really appreciate for your carefulness and conscientiousness. Your suggestions are really valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. In addition, we also thank you for your positive comments on the revised manuscript, and we have again made some optimizations to the introduction and the English language in the whole text. We sincerely express our gratitude to you.
