Impact of Drought on Land Productivity and Degradation in the Brazilian Semiarid Region

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is overall very well written and provides relevant and innovative research. Nevertheless, I would suggest some substantial revisions before it gets published. In the following, I will provide detailed comments to improve the paper:

Lines 47-53: This is not the up date conceptualization of drought...please bring in more recent literature which highlights also the contribution of man-made droughts and not only socio-economic impacts.

Lines 130-136: It would be great if the objectives of this paper can be documented here in a cristal clear way. It is very well elaborated on what the research bases and what the gap is which is addressed, but still it is helpful to have either the specific objectives or research questions formulated in specific here.

Feedback to Figure 1:

Panel a - Legend is not informative...I think it would be better to just outline and label the administrative units in the map and avoid the color coding. The name is in the map and what do the abbreviations stand for in the legend? not clear.

Panel d - color of water does not match between legend and water body. please check.

Figure caption: I think B is C in your Figure and C is B in your Figure.

Line 229: Please add the scientific reference on which you base the similarity statistic.

Line 251: Please add Reference to R package stats

Figure 2:

According to Figure 5 and Figure 6, the SPEI is compared to TE-based LPD climate correction methods and not to the LPD approaches (which would mean that the arrow is wrong here in Figure 2 from SPEI out).

This Figure is very helpful. I think it would improve the reading and understanding of the whole paper if the research objectives could be related to these boxes here and key innovations be highlighted.

Line 295: what is meant here with "to the former"?

Table 3: According to the results of this table, I understand that the method of how to derive LPD has far more impact than rainfall regime on the detection of degraded land. Something which should in my view be stated also here.

Figure 5: Do these data relate to the TE method to derive LPD? ...or subsets thereof? What is the relation to the 3 methods you elaborated on above (TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT)? Please specify here.

Line 325: Can you please specify what you mean here with "approaches" exactly? I assume it is not TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT?

Figure 7: This figure does not speak to me I have to say. First, I do not see any difference between b and c which I should see according to the caption and I am not getting the message of this figure at all I have to say.
What I see if I interpret this is that for the drought severity between 0,5 and 0,7 you can find both degraded and non-degraded pixel in the same frequency...I assume this is not what you want to say and I misinterpret it, but please make it clear.

Line 348: "Findings imply that the integration of climate correction into the TE approach results in 348 a lower estimated percentage of degraded land compared to the non-corrected TE approach"...I assume there was no climate correction in the results of Figure 3? You mentioned above that "TE method offers three correction methods to minimize the 118 influence of climate on LPD" ...did the TE dataset in Figure 3a not consider any correction? Please make it clear also above in Figure 3.

Table 4: Why not first do this "ground validation" for the three methods/approaches (TE, JRC, FAO)? I think the impact is higher here and more relevant to decide which of them to use before climate correction, or not? And do you refer here to the Figure 5 with this comparison, correct? I suggest to refer to Figure 5 here.

Lines 371-374: This is not clear to me...see my comment in Figure 7.

I also wonder whether the title is the most appropriate for the content? The relation to drought is in my view not too well elaborated. I suggest to elaborate better role of comparing between the "climate correction" and drought.

Conclusion: I think this first part is not really needed for the conclusion...the idea is to just conclude the key take home messages - best in relation to the specific objectives or research questions to be stated above.

Author Response

Subject: Revised Manuscript Submission - land-2305748

Dear Reviewer 1,

We hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to submit the revised version of our manuscript, entitled "Impact of drought on land productivity and degradation in the Brazilian semiarid region" for consideration in Land. We appreciate the time and effort invested by the reviewers and the editor in evaluating our work, and we have carefully addressed each of their comments and suggestions. We believe these revisions have significantly improved the clarity and quality of our manuscript.

Below, I have outlined our point-by-point response to the referees' comments and detailed the revisions we have made in the manuscript:

Referee #1 [changes highlighted in cyan]:

1.1 Comment: Lines 47-53: This is not the update conceptualization of drought...please bring in more recent literature which highlights also the contribution of man-made droughts and not only socio-economic impacts. Lines 130-136: It would be great if the objectives of this paper can be documented here in a cristal clear way. It is very well elaborated on what the research bases and what the gap is which is addressed, but still it is helpful to have either the specific objectives or research questions formulated in specific here.

1.1 Response: We appreciate your feedback and suggestions regarding the inclusion of recent literature on man-made droughts and socio-economic impacts (lines 47-53), as well as the request to clarify our objectives. In response to your comments and those of Reviewer 3, we have revised lines 130-136 accordingly. Referee #3 raised a similar comment.

1.1 Revision: We have revised lines 52-55 to update the drought conceptualization in the BSR and lines 152-161 to clarify our objectives.

1.2 Comment: Feedback to Figure 1. Panel a - Legend is not informative...I think it would be better to just outline and label the administrative units in the map and avoid the color coding. The name is in the map and what do the abbreviations stand for in the legend? not clear. Panel d - color of water does not match between legend and water body. please check. Figure caption: I think B is C in your Figure and C is B in your Figure.

1.2 Response: Thank you for your valuable comments. We apply all suggestions.

1.2 Revision: see line 174 (i.e., the caption and Figure 1).

1.3 Comment: Line 229: Please add the scientific reference on which you base the similarity statistic. Line 251: Please add Reference to R package stats.

1.3 Response: We greatly appreciate your valuable feedback. Referee #3 raised a similar question. The proposed Similarity Statistic (S) is similar to the Accuracy metric, which originates from a Confusion Matrix typically used in binary classification tasks. However, in this step, we do not consider either of the two LDP datasets being compared as the ground truth. As a result, we suggest using the S statistic as an alternative in this study. Additionally, we have included a suitable reference for the R package stats.

1.3 Revision: see lines 253-256, and 278.  

1.4 Comment: Feedback to Figure 2. According to Figure 5 and Figure 6, the SPEI is compared to TE-based LPD climate correction methods and not to the LPD approaches (which would mean that the arrow is wrong here in Figure 2 from SPEI out). This Figure is very helpful. I think it would improve the reading and understanding of the whole paper if the research objectives could be related to these boxes here and key innovations be highlighted.

1.4 Response: Many thanks for your valuable suggestions. We have addressed all your recommendations.

1.4 Revision: see new Figure 2 in line 303.

1.5 Comment: Line 295: what is meant here with "to the former"? Table 3: According to the results of this table, I understand that the method of how to derive LPD has far more impact than rainfall regime on the detection of degraded land. Something which should in my view be stated also here.

1.5 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have incorporated a more detailed analysis of the results and improved the clarity of the wording in the paragraph to address your concerns.

1.5 Revision: see lines 336-343, and 348-351.

1.6 Comment: Figure 5: Do these data relate to the TE method to derive LPD? ...or subsets thereof? What is the relation to the 3 methods you elaborated on above (TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT)? Please specify here. Line 325: Can you please specify what you mean here with "approaches" exactly? I assume it is not TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT?

1.6 Response: We appreciate your feedback. The maps in Figure 5 originate from the climate adjustment applied to the TE map (Figure 3a), depending on the selected climate correction method (i.e., RUE-based LPD, RESTREND-based LPD, and WUE-based LPD). We have enhanced the description to provide greater clarity on this matter.  

1.6 Revision: see lines 336-342.

1.7 Comment: Figure 7: This figure does not speak to me I have to say. First, I do not see any difference between b and c which I should see according to the caption and I am not getting the message of this figure at all I have to say. What I see if I interpret this is that for the drought severity between 0,5 and 0,7 you can find both degraded and non-degraded pixel in the same frequency...I assume this is not what you want to say and I misinterpret it, but please make it clear.

1.7 Response: We would like to express our gratitude for your valuable feedback. To enhance our analysis, we applied the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test and discovered a significant difference in drought severity between degraded land and non-degraded land groups for both RUE-based LPD and WUE-based LPD at a significance level of 0.05. However, we did not find any significant difference for RESTREND-based LPD. As a result, we have updated our write-ups to ensure greater clarity.

1.7 Revision: see lines 354-358, 386-388, and 389-399.

1.8 Comment: Line 348: "Findings imply that the integration of climate correction into the TE approach results in a lower estimated percentage of degraded land compared to the non-corrected TE approach"...I assume there was no climate correction in the results of Figure 3? You mentioned above that "TE method offers three correction methods to minimize the influence of climate on LPD" ...did the TE dataset in Figure 3a not consider any correction? Please make it clear also above in Figure 3.

1.8 Response: Thank you for providing your suggestions. Your understanding is correct. For clarity, we have made some modifications to this section to enhance comprehension. 

1.8 Revision: see lines 403-404, and 407-41.

1.9 Comment: Table 4: Why not first do this "ground validation" for the three methods/approaches (TE, JRC, FAO)? I think the impact is higher here and more relevant to decide which of them to use before climate correction, or not? And do you refer here to the Figure 5 with this comparison, correct? I suggest to refer to Figure 5 here.

1.9 Response: Your suggestions are highly appreciated, and we have implemented them to enhance the quality of this part of our article. Specifically, in response to your feedback, we have improved the narrative in section 3.3 and conducted more robust statistical analysis by evaluating all the approaches recommended by the UNCD against in situ data. Furthermore, we have clarified in the text that for the analysis of Figure 5, we have used the binary maps for TE, JRC-LPD, FAO-WOCAT, RUE-based LPD, RESTREND-based LPD, and WUE-based LPD, as presented in Figures 4 and 6.

1.9 Revision: see lines 282-302, and 419-437.

1.10 Comment: Lines 371-374: This is not clear to me...see my comment in Figure 7.

1.10 Response: We would like to express our gratitude for your comment. As per your suggestion, we have made the necessary improvements to this paragraph, which now aligns with our objectives (see introduction). Furthermore, we have also provided additional details on the results displayed in Figure 7. 

1.10 Revision: see lines 440-443.

1.11 Comment: I also wonder whether the title is the most appropriate for the content? The relation to drought is in my view not too well elaborated. I suggest to elaborate better role of comparing between the "climate correction" and drought. Conclusion: I think this first part is not really needed for the conclusion...the idea is to just conclude the key take home messages - best in relation to the specific objectives or research questions to be stated above.

1.11 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. Based on your suggestions, we have enhanced the coherence of the manuscript and concentrated on elucidating the connection between the detectability of land degradation via UNCCD-recommend approaches, rainfall patterns, and the severity of prolonged droughts in the BSR. We hope to meet your expectations.

1.11 Revision: see text highlighted in cyan.

…

Referee #2 [changes highlighted in grey]:

2.1 Comment: In the Introduction, similar to one paragraph on page 3 related to JRC (Europe) approach, it would be worthy to add analogous paragraphs for North America (especially USA) and Asia (China and/or Japan).

2.1 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. In response to your comment, we have revised the Introduction section to incorporate two relevant references related to the similar approaches used in North America and Asia. We believe that these additions provide a more balanced and global perspective on land productivity and degradation assessment methods.

2.1 Revision: see lines 142-145.

2.2 Comment: The study area is well described. I only suggest mentioning in the first sentence that study area a is in northeast Brazil (maybe a map of Brazil with a shaded study area). Evidence of collected data sets is correct.

2.2 Response: Thanks for your valuable suggestions. We added a mention that the study area is in the northeast of Brazil in the first sentence and included a map of Brazil with the study area shaded for better visualization.

2.2 Revision: see lines 163, 164, and 174 (Figure 1).

2.3 Comment: In subsection 2.3. (Methodology), page 6, provide an explanation why data after 2015 are not used (not available or other reasons?).

2.3 Response: We're grateful for your helpful suggestions and have applied them accordingly. We used 2015 as the ending year since the PET dataset lacks records beyond that year.

2.3 Revision: see lines 224-228.

2.4 Comment: Fig. 2. improve the quality of maps and make texts clearer for easy reading. Reorganize text after Fig. 6. Move text from the Results section to the beginning of the next section (Discussion). 

2.4 Response: We appreciate your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have enhanced the quality of maps in Fig. 2 and made the texts clearer for easy reading. Additionally, we have reorganized the text after Fig. 6 and moved the specified text from the Results section to the beginning of the Discussion section.

2.4 Revision: see new Figure 2 in line 303, and writeups in lines 464-466.

2.5 Comment: Early state in conclusions what is research agenda for the future is.

2.5 Response: Thank you for recommendation. We have included our research agenda for future studies.

2.5 Revision: see lines 542-545.

...

Referee #3 [changes highlighted in yellow]:

3.1 Comment: Abstract. Line 20: Please change from “Brazilian semiarid (BSR) region” to “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)”.

3.1 Response: Thank you. The change was applied.

3.1 Revision: see line 21.

3.2 Comment: Introduction. Line 38: Please add some examples of affected regions in order the improve the sentence in “severity of droughts in some regions[3].”.  Include Brazil as a main example before [3]; Line 40: Please replace “ semiarid region of Brazil” with “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)” to be consistent with Abstract section; Line 42: Please add “region, placed in the northeastern Brazil,” after “economically and socially disadvantaged” to give more context about the study area; Lines 54-55: Please indicate what kind of measurements in “well-distributed ground-based measurements”. Do you refer to precipitation measurement?. Consider also to change the expression to “well-distributed ground-based monitoring stations”; Line 62: Please complete the idea in “consequences for food security and ecosystems[20,21].”. Do you refer to ecosystems processes, for example?; Lines 79-80: Please consider rephrasing the first sentence. I suggest the following: “In the case of trends of land productivity, the UNCCD recommends three approaches based on NDVI at the pixel level for assessing it based on the Land Productivity Dynamics (LPD) approach.” Line 80: Please indicate what is Trend. Earth in the context of LPD (For example, a free and open-source tool to understand land change produced as part of the project “Enabling the use of global data sources to assess and monitor land degradation at multiple scales”, funded by the Global Environment Facility). Lines 130-137: Please improve this section to better support the hypothesis. Include references and provide more details about the statements used to justify the proposed study. For example, support the statement “delayed response of vegetation to drought”. Also support SPEI-vegetation relationship assumption.

3.2 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. We have carefully considered each of your comments.

3.2 Revision: see lines 43-44, 46, 47-48, 61-62, 70-71, 87-93, 144-148, 146-150, and 152-161.

3.3 Comment: Study Area. Line 140: Please change “The study area is in” to “The study area corresponds to” or “The study area is placed in…”

3.3 Response: Thanks for the suggestion. In response to your comment and Reviewer 2's comment, we have changed this part of the sentence.

3.3 Revision: see lines 163 and 164.

3.4 Comment: Methodology. Line 217: Please change “using a categorical statistic to quantify…” to “using a categorical statistic (see below) to quantify…”. Lines 225-230: The proposed Similarity Statistics (S) is equivalent to the well-known Accuracy metric derived from a Confusion Matrix conventionally used for binary classification tasks. Please indicate this in the text as it is not clear why propose a new name (Similarity Statistics) for a standard statistic.  Please improve this section in accordance to above mentioned comment.

3.4 Response: Your meaningful feedback is much appreciated, and we've acted on all the suggestions provided. Referee #1 raised a similar suggestion. The proposed Similarity Statistic (S) is like the widely recognized Accuracy metric. However, in this step, we do not consider either of the two LDP datasets being compared as the ground truth.

3.4 Revision: see lines 238-239, and 253-256.

3.5 Comment: Results. Lines 301-304: Please explain, based on Table 3 results, why differences in the Similarity Statistic (S) indicate climate differences as no statistical test output is provided, considering that pixels used for the intercomparison were obtained from random sampling and that could affect the differences in S and not necessarily the climate regime. Lines 341-342: Figure 7 needs to be presented in the text before appearance. Lines 367-369: Table 4 must be presented in the text before appearance. Additionally, Table’s title must indicate which metric is presented. Does values corresponds to Similarity Statistics (S)?. Please clarify.

3.5 Response: Thanks for your feedback. In this version, we used the Kruskal-Wallis test to check for statistical differences in similarity related to precipitation regime and LPD dataset. We didn't find any significant difference across the three precipitation levels (Low, Moderate, High) and the three LPD methods (TE, JRC-LPD, FAO-WOCAT) at a 0.05 significance level. So, we've updated the paragraph to reflect this better.    

3.5 Revision: see lines 345-347.

3.6 Comment: Discussion. Lines 412-419: It is necessary, before state that “the RESTREND approach is deemed to be the most suitable method in reflecting the reality of land degradation in the Brazilian Sertão region.”, give space to consider some limitation of the method, for example, those limitations that support the adoption of some variants of the RESTREND method, like Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend Analysis (TSS-RESTREND). Please consider advantages/disadvantages based on other studies before any conclusion.

3.6 Response: Thank you for your input. We have pointed out the accuracy limitations of the RESTREND method and suggested exploring alternative approaches such as TSS-RESTREND in future work.

3.6 Revision: see lines 487-493.

3.7 Comment: References. Line 475: Please fix format of reference number 8 to be consistent with the rest items of the reference list.

3.7 Response: Thank you for the suggestions. We fix that reference.

3.7 Revision: see lines 585-586.

...

In addition to addressing the referees' comments, we have also carefully proofread the manuscript and made minor editorial changes to improve clarity and readability. We have marked these changes in the revised manuscript using text highlighted in cyan (Referee #1), grey (Referee #2) and yellow (Referee #3) to facilitate our review.

We believe that our manuscript, with the incorporated revisions, now presents a compelling and scientifically sound study that will be of interest to the readership of Land. We appreciate your consideration of our work and look forward to hearing your decision.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or require additional information.

Sincerely,

Franklin Paredes (Corresponding author)

fparedes@unellez.edu.ve/franklinparedes75@gmail.com

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have reviewed the manuscript, and I appreciate the effort the authors made. The subject is interesting and the final aim of the contribution is clear. The paper is well-written and well-structured enough. Overall, I am sure that the paper has enough merits for the broader scientific community interested in droughts phenomena.   

1.     Minor revisions are required:

n     1. In the Introduction, similar to one paragraph on page 3 related to JRC (Europe) approach, it would be worthy to add analogous paragraphs for North America (especially USA) and Asia (China and/or Japan).

2.     2. The study area is well described. I only suggest mentioning in the first sentence that study area a is in northwest Brazil (maybe a map of Brazil with a shaded study area). Evidence of collected data sets is correct.

3.      3. In subsection 2.3. (Methodology), page 6, provide an explanation why data after 2015 are not used (not available or other reasons?).

4.      4. Fig. 2. improve the quality of maps and make texts more clear for easy reading.

5.      5. Reorganize text after Fig. 6. Move text from the Results section to the beginning of the next section (Discussion).  

6.     6. learly state in conclusions what is research agenda for the future is.

Author Response

Subject: Revised Manuscript Submission - land-2305748

Dear Reviewer 2,

We hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to submit the revised version of our manuscript, entitled "Impact of drought on land productivity and degradation in the Brazilian semiarid region" for consideration in Land. We appreciate the time and effort invested by the reviewers and the editor in evaluating our work, and we have carefully addressed each of their comments and suggestions. We believe these revisions have significantly improved the clarity and quality of our manuscript.

Below, I have outlined our point-by-point response to the referees' comments and detailed the revisions we have made in the manuscript:

Referee #1 [changes highlighted in cyan]:

1.1 Comment: Lines 47-53: This is not the update conceptualization of drought...please bring in more recent literature which highlights also the contribution of man-made droughts and not only socio-economic impacts. Lines 130-136: It would be great if the objectives of this paper can be documented here in a cristal clear way. It is very well elaborated on what the research bases and what the gap is which is addressed, but still it is helpful to have either the specific objectives or research questions formulated in specific here.

1.1 Response: We appreciate your feedback and suggestions regarding the inclusion of recent literature on man-made droughts and socio-economic impacts (lines 47-53), as well as the request to clarify our objectives. In response to your comments and those of Reviewer 3, we have revised lines 130-136 accordingly. Referee #3 raised a similar comment.

1.1 Revision: We have revised lines 52-55 to update the drought conceptualization in the BSR and lines 152-161 to clarify our objectives.

1.2 Comment: Feedback to Figure 1. Panel a - Legend is not informative...I think it would be better to just outline and label the administrative units in the map and avoid the color coding. The name is in the map and what do the abbreviations stand for in the legend? not clear. Panel d - color of water does not match between legend and water body. please check. Figure caption: I think B is C in your Figure and C is B in your Figure.

1.2 Response: Thank you for your valuable comments. We apply all suggestions.

1.2 Revision: see line 174 (i.e., the caption and Figure 1).

1.3 Comment: Line 229: Please add the scientific reference on which you base the similarity statistic. Line 251: Please add Reference to R package stats.

1.3 Response: We greatly appreciate your valuable feedback. Referee #3 raised a similar question. The proposed Similarity Statistic (S) is similar to the Accuracy metric, which originates from a Confusion Matrix typically used in binary classification tasks. However, in this step, we do not consider either of the two LDP datasets being compared as the ground truth. As a result, we suggest using the S statistic as an alternative in this study. Additionally, we have included a suitable reference for the R package stats.

1.3 Revision: see lines 253-256, and 278.  

1.4 Comment: Feedback to Figure 2. According to Figure 5 and Figure 6, the SPEI is compared to TE-based LPD climate correction methods and not to the LPD approaches (which would mean that the arrow is wrong here in Figure 2 from SPEI out). This Figure is very helpful. I think it would improve the reading and understanding of the whole paper if the research objectives could be related to these boxes here and key innovations be highlighted.

1.4 Response: Many thanks for your valuable suggestions. We have addressed all your recommendations.

1.4 Revision: see new Figure 2 in line 303.

1.5 Comment: Line 295: what is meant here with "to the former"? Table 3: According to the results of this table, I understand that the method of how to derive LPD has far more impact than rainfall regime on the detection of degraded land. Something which should in my view be stated also here.

1.5 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have incorporated a more detailed analysis of the results and improved the clarity of the wording in the paragraph to address your concerns.

1.5 Revision: see lines 336-343, and 348-351.

1.6 Comment: Figure 5: Do these data relate to the TE method to derive LPD? ...or subsets thereof? What is the relation to the 3 methods you elaborated on above (TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT)? Please specify here. Line 325: Can you please specify what you mean here with "approaches" exactly? I assume it is not TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT?

1.6 Response: We appreciate your feedback. The maps in Figure 5 originate from the climate adjustment applied to the TE map (Figure 3a), depending on the selected climate correction method (i.e., RUE-based LPD, RESTREND-based LPD, and WUE-based LPD). We have enhanced the description to provide greater clarity on this matter.  

1.6 Revision: see lines 336-342.

1.7 Comment: Figure 7: This figure does not speak to me I have to say. First, I do not see any difference between b and c which I should see according to the caption and I am not getting the message of this figure at all I have to say. What I see if I interpret this is that for the drought severity between 0,5 and 0,7 you can find both degraded and non-degraded pixel in the same frequency...I assume this is not what you want to say and I misinterpret it, but please make it clear.

1.7 Response: We would like to express our gratitude for your valuable feedback. To enhance our analysis, we applied the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test and discovered a significant difference in drought severity between degraded land and non-degraded land groups for both RUE-based LPD and WUE-based LPD at a significance level of 0.05. However, we did not find any significant difference for RESTREND-based LPD. As a result, we have updated our write-ups to ensure greater clarity.

1.7 Revision: see lines 354-358, 386-388, and 389-399.

1.8 Comment: Line 348: "Findings imply that the integration of climate correction into the TE approach results in a lower estimated percentage of degraded land compared to the non-corrected TE approach"...I assume there was no climate correction in the results of Figure 3? You mentioned above that "TE method offers three correction methods to minimize the influence of climate on LPD" ...did the TE dataset in Figure 3a not consider any correction? Please make it clear also above in Figure 3.

1.8 Response: Thank you for providing your suggestions. Your understanding is correct. For clarity, we have made some modifications to this section to enhance comprehension. 

1.8 Revision: see lines 403-404, and 407-41.

1.9 Comment: Table 4: Why not first do this "ground validation" for the three methods/approaches (TE, JRC, FAO)? I think the impact is higher here and more relevant to decide which of them to use before climate correction, or not? And do you refer here to the Figure 5 with this comparison, correct? I suggest to refer to Figure 5 here.

1.9 Response: Your suggestions are highly appreciated, and we have implemented them to enhance the quality of this part of our article. Specifically, in response to your feedback, we have improved the narrative in section 3.3 and conducted more robust statistical analysis by evaluating all the approaches recommended by the UNCD against in situ data. Furthermore, we have clarified in the text that for the analysis of Figure 5, we have used the binary maps for TE, JRC-LPD, FAO-WOCAT, RUE-based LPD, RESTREND-based LPD, and WUE-based LPD, as presented in Figures 4 and 6.

1.9 Revision: see lines 282-302, and 419-437.

1.10 Comment: Lines 371-374: This is not clear to me...see my comment in Figure 7.

1.10 Response: We would like to express our gratitude for your comment. As per your suggestion, we have made the necessary improvements to this paragraph, which now aligns with our objectives (see introduction). Furthermore, we have also provided additional details on the results displayed in Figure 7. 

1.10 Revision: see lines 440-443.

1.11 Comment: I also wonder whether the title is the most appropriate for the content? The relation to drought is in my view not too well elaborated. I suggest to elaborate better role of comparing between the "climate correction" and drought. Conclusion: I think this first part is not really needed for the conclusion...the idea is to just conclude the key take home messages - best in relation to the specific objectives or research questions to be stated above.

1.11 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. Based on your suggestions, we have enhanced the coherence of the manuscript and concentrated on elucidating the connection between the detectability of land degradation via UNCCD-recommend approaches, rainfall patterns, and the severity of prolonged droughts in the BSR. We hope to meet your expectations.

1.11 Revision: see text highlighted in cyan.

…

Referee #2 [changes highlighted in grey]:

2.1 Comment: In the Introduction, similar to one paragraph on page 3 related to JRC (Europe) approach, it would be worthy to add analogous paragraphs for North America (especially USA) and Asia (China and/or Japan).

2.1 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. In response to your comment, we have revised the Introduction section to incorporate two relevant references related to the similar approaches used in North America and Asia. We believe that these additions provide a more balanced and global perspective on land productivity and degradation assessment methods.

2.1 Revision: see lines 142-145.

2.2 Comment: The study area is well described. I only suggest mentioning in the first sentence that study area a is in northeast Brazil (maybe a map of Brazil with a shaded study area). Evidence of collected data sets is correct.

2.2 Response: Thanks for your valuable suggestions. We added a mention that the study area is in the northeast of Brazil in the first sentence and included a map of Brazil with the study area shaded for better visualization.

2.2 Revision: see lines 163, 164, and 174 (Figure 1).

2.3 Comment: In subsection 2.3. (Methodology), page 6, provide an explanation why data after 2015 are not used (not available or other reasons?).

2.3 Response: We're grateful for your helpful suggestions and have applied them accordingly. We used 2015 as the ending year since the PET dataset lacks records beyond that year.

2.3 Revision: see lines 224-228.

2.4 Comment: Fig. 2. improve the quality of maps and make texts clearer for easy reading. Reorganize text after Fig. 6. Move text from the Results section to the beginning of the next section (Discussion). 

2.4 Response: We appreciate your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have enhanced the quality of maps in Fig. 2 and made the texts clearer for easy reading. Additionally, we have reorganized the text after Fig. 6 and moved the specified text from the Results section to the beginning of the Discussion section.

2.4 Revision: see new Figure 2 in line 303, and writeups in lines 464-466.

2.5 Comment: Early state in conclusions what is research agenda for the future is.

2.5 Response: Thank you for recommendation. We have included our research agenda for future studies.

2.5 Revision: see lines 542-545.

...

Referee #3 [changes highlighted in yellow]:

3.1 Comment: Abstract. Line 20: Please change from “Brazilian semiarid (BSR) region” to “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)”.

3.1 Response: Thank you. The change was applied.

3.1 Revision: see line 21.

3.2 Comment: Introduction. Line 38: Please add some examples of affected regions in order the improve the sentence in “severity of droughts in some regions[3].”.  Include Brazil as a main example before [3]; Line 40: Please replace “ semiarid region of Brazil” with “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)” to be consistent with Abstract section; Line 42: Please add “region, placed in the northeastern Brazil,” after “economically and socially disadvantaged” to give more context about the study area; Lines 54-55: Please indicate what kind of measurements in “well-distributed ground-based measurements”. Do you refer to precipitation measurement?. Consider also to change the expression to “well-distributed ground-based monitoring stations”; Line 62: Please complete the idea in “consequences for food security and ecosystems[20,21].”. Do you refer to ecosystems processes, for example?; Lines 79-80: Please consider rephrasing the first sentence. I suggest the following: “In the case of trends of land productivity, the UNCCD recommends three approaches based on NDVI at the pixel level for assessing it based on the Land Productivity Dynamics (LPD) approach.” Line 80: Please indicate what is Trend. Earth in the context of LPD (For example, a free and open-source tool to understand land change produced as part of the project “Enabling the use of global data sources to assess and monitor land degradation at multiple scales”, funded by the Global Environment Facility). Lines 130-137: Please improve this section to better support the hypothesis. Include references and provide more details about the statements used to justify the proposed study. For example, support the statement “delayed response of vegetation to drought”. Also support SPEI-vegetation relationship assumption.

3.2 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. We have carefully considered each of your comments.

3.2 Revision: see lines 43-44, 46, 47-48, 61-62, 70-71, 87-93, 144-148, 146-150, and 152-161.

3.3 Comment: Study Area. Line 140: Please change “The study area is in” to “The study area corresponds to” or “The study area is placed in…”

3.3 Response: Thanks for the suggestion. In response to your comment and Reviewer 2's comment, we have changed this part of the sentence.

3.3 Revision: see lines 163 and 164.

3.4 Comment: Methodology. Line 217: Please change “using a categorical statistic to quantify…” to “using a categorical statistic (see below) to quantify…”. Lines 225-230: The proposed Similarity Statistics (S) is equivalent to the well-known Accuracy metric derived from a Confusion Matrix conventionally used for binary classification tasks. Please indicate this in the text as it is not clear why propose a new name (Similarity Statistics) for a standard statistic.  Please improve this section in accordance to above mentioned comment.

3.4 Response: Your meaningful feedback is much appreciated, and we've acted on all the suggestions provided. Referee #1 raised a similar suggestion. The proposed Similarity Statistic (S) is like the widely recognized Accuracy metric. However, in this step, we do not consider either of the two LDP datasets being compared as the ground truth.

3.4 Revision: see lines 238-239, and 253-256.

3.5 Comment: Results. Lines 301-304: Please explain, based on Table 3 results, why differences in the Similarity Statistic (S) indicate climate differences as no statistical test output is provided, considering that pixels used for the intercomparison were obtained from random sampling and that could affect the differences in S and not necessarily the climate regime. Lines 341-342: Figure 7 needs to be presented in the text before appearance. Lines 367-369: Table 4 must be presented in the text before appearance. Additionally, Table’s title must indicate which metric is presented. Does values corresponds to Similarity Statistics (S)?. Please clarify.

3.5 Response: Thanks for your feedback. In this version, we used the Kruskal-Wallis test to check for statistical differences in similarity related to precipitation regime and LPD dataset. We didn't find any significant difference across the three precipitation levels (Low, Moderate, High) and the three LPD methods (TE, JRC-LPD, FAO-WOCAT) at a 0.05 significance level. So, we've updated the paragraph to reflect this better.    

3.5 Revision: see lines 345-347.

3.6 Comment: Discussion. Lines 412-419: It is necessary, before state that “the RESTREND approach is deemed to be the most suitable method in reflecting the reality of land degradation in the Brazilian Sertão region.”, give space to consider some limitation of the method, for example, those limitations that support the adoption of some variants of the RESTREND method, like Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend Analysis (TSS-RESTREND). Please consider advantages/disadvantages based on other studies before any conclusion.

3.6 Response: Thank you for your input. We have pointed out the accuracy limitations of the RESTREND method and suggested exploring alternative approaches such as TSS-RESTREND in future work.

3.6 Revision: see lines 487-493.

3.7 Comment: References. Line 475: Please fix format of reference number 8 to be consistent with the rest items of the reference list.

3.7 Response: Thank you for the suggestions. We fix that reference.

3.7 Revision: see lines 585-586.

...

In addition to addressing the referees' comments, we have also carefully proofread the manuscript and made minor editorial changes to improve clarity and readability. We have marked these changes in the revised manuscript using text highlighted in cyan (Referee #1), grey (Referee #2) and yellow (Referee #3) to facilitate our review.

We believe that our manuscript, with the incorporated revisions, now presents a compelling and scientifically sound study that will be of interest to the readership of Land. We appreciate your consideration of our work and look forward to hearing your decision.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or require additional information.

Sincerely,

Franklin Paredes (Corresponding author)

fparedes@unellez.edu.ve/franklinparedes75@gmail.com

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Title:  Impact of drought on land productivity and degradation in the Brazilian semiarid region

 

 

 

General comments

 

The authors present a work titled  "Impact of drought on land productivity and degradation in the Brazilian semiarid region".

 

The aim of the study is to investigate the reliability of the three land productivity dynamic (LPD) approaches recommended by the UNCCD and climate correction methods in the Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)  by evaluating the relationship between the detectability of land degradation using the UNCCD-recommended LPD approaches and long-term drought severity.

 

The manuscript describes adequately the objective and methodology adopted to assess its main purpose. Data sources and main analytical techniques are sufficiently described. Minor aspects are mentioned in detailed comments to improve the quality of the manuscript. Some major aspects to be addressed by the authors include:  a) Improve study justification at the end of the Introduction section, b) The Flowchar in Figure 2 must be improved in order to better understand the sequence of stages adopted (include stage numbers or arrange the figures using a top-down sequence).

 

Finally, authors must discuss the advantages/disadvantages of chosen techniques, mainly comparing RESTREND with some new versions of the technique, like Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend Analysis (TSS-RESTREND) in the context of the proposed work and related studies in semiarid regions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detailed comments

 

 

Abstract:

 

Line 20: Please change from “Brazilian semiarid (BSR) region” to  “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)”.

 

 

1.       Introduction

 

Line 38: Please add some examples of affected regions in order the improve the sentence in “severity of droughts in some regions[3].”.  Include Brazil as a main example before [3].

 

Line 40: Please replace “ semiarid region of Brazil” with “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)” to be consistent with Abstract section.

 

Line 42: Please add “region, placed in the northeastern Brazil,” after “economically and socially disadvantaged” to give more context about the study area.

 

Lines 54-55: Please indicate what kind of measurements in “well-distributed ground-based measurements”. Do you refer to precipitation measurement?. Consider also to change the expression to “well-distributed ground-based monitoring stations”.

 

Line 62: Please complete the idea in “consequences for food security and ecosystems[20,21].”. Do you refer to ecosystems processes, for example?

 

Lines 79-80: Please consider rephrasing the first sentence. I suggest the following:

 

“In the case of trends of land productivity, the UNCCD recommends three approaches based on NDVI at the pixel level for assessing it based on the Land Productivity Dynamics (LPD) approach.”

 

Line 80: Please indicate what is Trend. Earth in the context of LPD (For example, a free and open source tool to understand land change produced as part of the project “Enabling the use of global data sources to assess and monitor land degradation at multiple scales”, funded by the Global Environment Facility).

 

Lines 130-137: Please improve this section to better support the hypothesis. Include references and provide more details about the statements used to justify the proposed study. For example, support the statement “delayed response of vegetation to drought”. Also support SPEI-vegetation relationship asumption.

 

 

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Area

 

Line 140: PLease change “The study area is in” to “The study area corresponds to” or “The study area is placed  in… “

 

 

2.3. Methodology

 

2.3.1. Intercomparison of LPD approaches without climate correction.

Line 217: Please change “using a categorical statistic to quantify…” to “using a categorical statistic (see below) to quantify…”

 

Lines 225-230: The proposed Similarity Statistics (S) is equivalent to the well-known Accuracy metric derived from a Confusion Matrix conventionally used for binary classification tasks. Please indicate this in the text as it  is not clear why propose a new name (Similarity Statistics) for an standard statistics.  Please improve this section in accordance to above mentioned comment.

 

 

3. Results

3.1. Intercomparison between LPD from the TE, JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT approaches

 

Lines 301-304: Please explain, based on Table 3 results, why differences in the Similarity Statistic (S) indicate climate differences as no statistical test output is provided, considering that pixels used for the intercomparison were obtained from random sampling and that could affect the differences in S and not necessarily the climate regime.

 

Lines 341-342: Figure 7 needs to be presented in the text before appearance.

 

Lines 367-369: Table 4 must be presented in the text before appearance. Additionally, Table’s title must indicate which metric is presented. Does values corresponds to Similarity Statistics (S)?. Please clarify.

 

4. Discussion

 

Lines 412-419: It is necessary, before state that “the RESTREND approach is deemed to be the most suitable method in reflecting the reality of land degradation in the Brazilian Sertão region.”, give space to consider some limitation of the method, for example, those limitations that support the adoption of some variants of the RESTREND method, like Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend Analysis (TSS-RESTREND). Please consider advantages/disadvantages based on other studies before any conclusion.

 

References:

 

Line 475: Please fix format of reference number 8 to be consistent with the rest items of the reference list.

Author Response

Subject: Revised Manuscript Submission - land-2305748

Dear Reviewer 3,

We hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to submit the revised version of our manuscript, entitled "Impact of drought on land productivity and degradation in the Brazilian semiarid region" for consideration in Land. We appreciate the time and effort invested by the reviewers and the editor in evaluating our work, and we have carefully addressed each of their comments and suggestions. We believe these revisions have significantly improved the clarity and quality of our manuscript.

Below, I have outlined our point-by-point response to the referees' comments and detailed the revisions we have made in the manuscript:

Referee #1 [changes highlighted in cyan]:

1.1 Comment: Lines 47-53: This is not the update conceptualization of drought...please bring in more recent literature which highlights also the contribution of man-made droughts and not only socio-economic impacts. Lines 130-136: It would be great if the objectives of this paper can be documented here in a cristal clear way. It is very well elaborated on what the research bases and what the gap is which is addressed, but still it is helpful to have either the specific objectives or research questions formulated in specific here.

1.1 Response: We appreciate your feedback and suggestions regarding the inclusion of recent literature on man-made droughts and socio-economic impacts (lines 47-53), as well as the request to clarify our objectives. In response to your comments and those of Reviewer 3, we have revised lines 130-136 accordingly. Referee #3 raised a similar comment.

1.1 Revision: We have revised lines 52-55 to update the drought conceptualization in the BSR and lines 152-161 to clarify our objectives.

1.2 Comment: Feedback to Figure 1. Panel a - Legend is not informative...I think it would be better to just outline and label the administrative units in the map and avoid the color coding. The name is in the map and what do the abbreviations stand for in the legend? not clear. Panel d - color of water does not match between legend and water body. please check. Figure caption: I think B is C in your Figure and C is B in your Figure.

1.2 Response: Thank you for your valuable comments. We apply all suggestions.

1.2 Revision: see line 174 (i.e., the caption and Figure 1).

1.3 Comment: Line 229: Please add the scientific reference on which you base the similarity statistic. Line 251: Please add Reference to R package stats.

1.3 Response: We greatly appreciate your valuable feedback. Referee #3 raised a similar question. The proposed Similarity Statistic (S) is similar to the Accuracy metric, which originates from a Confusion Matrix typically used in binary classification tasks. However, in this step, we do not consider either of the two LDP datasets being compared as the ground truth. As a result, we suggest using the S statistic as an alternative in this study. Additionally, we have included a suitable reference for the R package stats.

1.3 Revision: see lines 253-256, and 278.  

1.4 Comment: Feedback to Figure 2. According to Figure 5 and Figure 6, the SPEI is compared to TE-based LPD climate correction methods and not to the LPD approaches (which would mean that the arrow is wrong here in Figure 2 from SPEI out). This Figure is very helpful. I think it would improve the reading and understanding of the whole paper if the research objectives could be related to these boxes here and key innovations be highlighted.

1.4 Response: Many thanks for your valuable suggestions. We have addressed all your recommendations.

1.4 Revision: see new Figure 2 in line 303.

1.5 Comment: Line 295: what is meant here with "to the former"? Table 3: According to the results of this table, I understand that the method of how to derive LPD has far more impact than rainfall regime on the detection of degraded land. Something which should in my view be stated also here.

1.5 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have incorporated a more detailed analysis of the results and improved the clarity of the wording in the paragraph to address your concerns.

1.5 Revision: see lines 336-343, and 348-351.

1.6 Comment: Figure 5: Do these data relate to the TE method to derive LPD? ...or subsets thereof? What is the relation to the 3 methods you elaborated on above (TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT)? Please specify here. Line 325: Can you please specify what you mean here with "approaches" exactly? I assume it is not TE; JRC-LPD, and FAO-WOCAT?

1.6 Response: We appreciate your feedback. The maps in Figure 5 originate from the climate adjustment applied to the TE map (Figure 3a), depending on the selected climate correction method (i.e., RUE-based LPD, RESTREND-based LPD, and WUE-based LPD). We have enhanced the description to provide greater clarity on this matter.  

1.6 Revision: see lines 336-342.

1.7 Comment: Figure 7: This figure does not speak to me I have to say. First, I do not see any difference between b and c which I should see according to the caption and I am not getting the message of this figure at all I have to say. What I see if I interpret this is that for the drought severity between 0,5 and 0,7 you can find both degraded and non-degraded pixel in the same frequency...I assume this is not what you want to say and I misinterpret it, but please make it clear.

1.7 Response: We would like to express our gratitude for your valuable feedback. To enhance our analysis, we applied the Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test and discovered a significant difference in drought severity between degraded land and non-degraded land groups for both RUE-based LPD and WUE-based LPD at a significance level of 0.05. However, we did not find any significant difference for RESTREND-based LPD. As a result, we have updated our write-ups to ensure greater clarity.

1.7 Revision: see lines 354-358, 386-388, and 389-399.

1.8 Comment: Line 348: "Findings imply that the integration of climate correction into the TE approach results in a lower estimated percentage of degraded land compared to the non-corrected TE approach"...I assume there was no climate correction in the results of Figure 3? You mentioned above that "TE method offers three correction methods to minimize the influence of climate on LPD" ...did the TE dataset in Figure 3a not consider any correction? Please make it clear also above in Figure 3.

1.8 Response: Thank you for providing your suggestions. Your understanding is correct. For clarity, we have made some modifications to this section to enhance comprehension. 

1.8 Revision: see lines 403-404, and 407-41.

1.9 Comment: Table 4: Why not first do this "ground validation" for the three methods/approaches (TE, JRC, FAO)? I think the impact is higher here and more relevant to decide which of them to use before climate correction, or not? And do you refer here to the Figure 5 with this comparison, correct? I suggest to refer to Figure 5 here.

1.9 Response: Your suggestions are highly appreciated, and we have implemented them to enhance the quality of this part of our article. Specifically, in response to your feedback, we have improved the narrative in section 3.3 and conducted more robust statistical analysis by evaluating all the approaches recommended by the UNCD against in situ data. Furthermore, we have clarified in the text that for the analysis of Figure 5, we have used the binary maps for TE, JRC-LPD, FAO-WOCAT, RUE-based LPD, RESTREND-based LPD, and WUE-based LPD, as presented in Figures 4 and 6.

1.9 Revision: see lines 282-302, and 419-437.

1.10 Comment: Lines 371-374: This is not clear to me...see my comment in Figure 7.

1.10 Response: We would like to express our gratitude for your comment. As per your suggestion, we have made the necessary improvements to this paragraph, which now aligns with our objectives (see introduction). Furthermore, we have also provided additional details on the results displayed in Figure 7. 

1.10 Revision: see lines 440-443.

1.11 Comment: I also wonder whether the title is the most appropriate for the content? The relation to drought is in my view not too well elaborated. I suggest to elaborate better role of comparing between the "climate correction" and drought. Conclusion: I think this first part is not really needed for the conclusion...the idea is to just conclude the key take home messages - best in relation to the specific objectives or research questions to be stated above.

1.11 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. Based on your suggestions, we have enhanced the coherence of the manuscript and concentrated on elucidating the connection between the detectability of land degradation via UNCCD-recommend approaches, rainfall patterns, and the severity of prolonged droughts in the BSR. We hope to meet your expectations.

1.11 Revision: see text highlighted in cyan.

…

Referee #2 [changes highlighted in grey]:

2.1 Comment: In the Introduction, similar to one paragraph on page 3 related to JRC (Europe) approach, it would be worthy to add analogous paragraphs for North America (especially USA) and Asia (China and/or Japan).

2.1 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. In response to your comment, we have revised the Introduction section to incorporate two relevant references related to the similar approaches used in North America and Asia. We believe that these additions provide a more balanced and global perspective on land productivity and degradation assessment methods.

2.1 Revision: see lines 142-145.

2.2 Comment: The study area is well described. I only suggest mentioning in the first sentence that study area a is in northeast Brazil (maybe a map of Brazil with a shaded study area). Evidence of collected data sets is correct.

2.2 Response: Thanks for your valuable suggestions. We added a mention that the study area is in the northeast of Brazil in the first sentence and included a map of Brazil with the study area shaded for better visualization.

2.2 Revision: see lines 163, 164, and 174 (Figure 1).

2.3 Comment: In subsection 2.3. (Methodology), page 6, provide an explanation why data after 2015 are not used (not available or other reasons?).

2.3 Response: We're grateful for your helpful suggestions and have applied them accordingly. We used 2015 as the ending year since the PET dataset lacks records beyond that year.

2.3 Revision: see lines 224-228.

2.4 Comment: Fig. 2. improve the quality of maps and make texts clearer for easy reading. Reorganize text after Fig. 6. Move text from the Results section to the beginning of the next section (Discussion). 

2.4 Response: We appreciate your valuable feedback and suggestions. We have enhanced the quality of maps in Fig. 2 and made the texts clearer for easy reading. Additionally, we have reorganized the text after Fig. 6 and moved the specified text from the Results section to the beginning of the Discussion section.

2.4 Revision: see new Figure 2 in line 303, and writeups in lines 464-466.

2.5 Comment: Early state in conclusions what is research agenda for the future is.

2.5 Response: Thank you for recommendation. We have included our research agenda for future studies.

2.5 Revision: see lines 542-545.

...

Referee #3 [changes highlighted in yellow]:

3.1 Comment: Abstract. Line 20: Please change from “Brazilian semiarid (BSR) region” to “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)”.

3.1 Response: Thank you. The change was applied.

3.1 Revision: see line 21.

3.2 Comment: Introduction. Line 38: Please add some examples of affected regions in order the improve the sentence in “severity of droughts in some regions[3].”.  Include Brazil as a main example before [3]; Line 40: Please replace “ semiarid region of Brazil” with “Brazilian Semiarid Region (BSR)” to be consistent with Abstract section; Line 42: Please add “region, placed in the northeastern Brazil,” after “economically and socially disadvantaged” to give more context about the study area; Lines 54-55: Please indicate what kind of measurements in “well-distributed ground-based measurements”. Do you refer to precipitation measurement?. Consider also to change the expression to “well-distributed ground-based monitoring stations”; Line 62: Please complete the idea in “consequences for food security and ecosystems[20,21].”. Do you refer to ecosystems processes, for example?; Lines 79-80: Please consider rephrasing the first sentence. I suggest the following: “In the case of trends of land productivity, the UNCCD recommends three approaches based on NDVI at the pixel level for assessing it based on the Land Productivity Dynamics (LPD) approach.” Line 80: Please indicate what is Trend. Earth in the context of LPD (For example, a free and open-source tool to understand land change produced as part of the project “Enabling the use of global data sources to assess and monitor land degradation at multiple scales”, funded by the Global Environment Facility). Lines 130-137: Please improve this section to better support the hypothesis. Include references and provide more details about the statements used to justify the proposed study. For example, support the statement “delayed response of vegetation to drought”. Also support SPEI-vegetation relationship assumption.

3.2 Response: Thank you for your valuable feedback. We have carefully considered each of your comments.

3.2 Revision: see lines 43-44, 46, 47-48, 61-62, 70-71, 87-93, 144-148, 146-150, and 152-161.

3.3 Comment: Study Area. Line 140: Please change “The study area is in” to “The study area corresponds to” or “The study area is placed in…”

3.3 Response: Thanks for the suggestion. In response to your comment and Reviewer 2's comment, we have changed this part of the sentence.

3.3 Revision: see lines 163 and 164.

3.4 Comment: Methodology. Line 217: Please change “using a categorical statistic to quantify…” to “using a categorical statistic (see below) to quantify…”. Lines 225-230: The proposed Similarity Statistics (S) is equivalent to the well-known Accuracy metric derived from a Confusion Matrix conventionally used for binary classification tasks. Please indicate this in the text as it is not clear why propose a new name (Similarity Statistics) for a standard statistic.  Please improve this section in accordance to above mentioned comment.

3.4 Response: Your meaningful feedback is much appreciated, and we've acted on all the suggestions provided. Referee #1 raised a similar suggestion. The proposed Similarity Statistic (S) is like the widely recognized Accuracy metric. However, in this step, we do not consider either of the two LDP datasets being compared as the ground truth.

3.4 Revision: see lines 238-239, and 253-256.

3.5 Comment: Results. Lines 301-304: Please explain, based on Table 3 results, why differences in the Similarity Statistic (S) indicate climate differences as no statistical test output is provided, considering that pixels used for the intercomparison were obtained from random sampling and that could affect the differences in S and not necessarily the climate regime. Lines 341-342: Figure 7 needs to be presented in the text before appearance. Lines 367-369: Table 4 must be presented in the text before appearance. Additionally, Table’s title must indicate which metric is presented. Does values corresponds to Similarity Statistics (S)?. Please clarify.

3.5 Response: Thanks for your feedback. In this version, we used the Kruskal-Wallis test to check for statistical differences in similarity related to precipitation regime and LPD dataset. We didn't find any significant difference across the three precipitation levels (Low, Moderate, High) and the three LPD methods (TE, JRC-LPD, FAO-WOCAT) at a 0.05 significance level. So, we've updated the paragraph to reflect this better.    

3.5 Revision: see lines 345-347.

3.6 Comment: Discussion. Lines 412-419: It is necessary, before state that “the RESTREND approach is deemed to be the most suitable method in reflecting the reality of land degradation in the Brazilian Sertão region.”, give space to consider some limitation of the method, for example, those limitations that support the adoption of some variants of the RESTREND method, like Time Series Segmentation and Residual Trend Analysis (TSS-RESTREND). Please consider advantages/disadvantages based on other studies before any conclusion.

3.6 Response: Thank you for your input. We have pointed out the accuracy limitations of the RESTREND method and suggested exploring alternative approaches such as TSS-RESTREND in future work.

3.6 Revision: see lines 487-493.

3.7 Comment: References. Line 475: Please fix format of reference number 8 to be consistent with the rest items of the reference list.

3.7 Response: Thank you for the suggestions. We fix that reference.

3.7 Revision: see lines 585-586.

...

In addition to addressing the referees' comments, we have also carefully proofread the manuscript and made minor editorial changes to improve clarity and readability. We have marked these changes in the revised manuscript using text highlighted in cyan (Referee #1), grey (Referee #2) and yellow (Referee #3) to facilitate our review.

We believe that our manuscript, with the incorporated revisions, now presents a compelling and scientifically sound study that will be of interest to the readership of Land. We appreciate your consideration of our work and look forward to hearing your decision.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or require additional information.

Sincerely,

Franklin Paredes (Corresponding author)

fparedes@unellez.edu.ve/franklinparedes75@gmail.com

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of the comments have been addressed. I am still convinced that Figure 7 is not very informative and could be deleted, that the end of the introduction should specify very concretely the research objectives as introduced in the Figure 2 and the Conclusions are a bit long. But I understand that these are not decisive revisions for publication.

Author Response

Subject: Revised Manuscript Submission - land-2305748 [Round# 2]

Dear Referee #1,

Thank you for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We appreciate the time and effort you have put into reviewing our manuscript.

Comments and Suggestions for Authors: Most of the comments have been addressed. I am still convinced that Figure 7 is not very informative and could be deleted, that the end of the introduction should specify very concretely the research objectives as introduced in the Figure 2 and the Conclusions are a bit long. But I understand that these are not decisive revisions for publication.

In response to your comments, we have made the following revisions (changes highlighted in yellow):

Figure 7: We understand your concern that Figure 7 may not be very informative. After careful consideration, we have decided to remove Figure 7 from the manuscript. We believe that the remaining figures and tables provide sufficient information to support our findings.

Introduction - Research Objectives: We agree that specifying the research objectives more concretely would improve the clarity of the manuscript. We have revised the end of the introduction to provide a more detailed outline of the research objectives, which directly corresponds to the information presented in Figure 2.

Conclusions: Taking into account your observation that the conclusions are a bit long, we have made an effort to restructure this section. We have condensed the conclusions, focusing on the most crucial findings and implications of our study, while still providing a comprehensive summary of our work.

We hope that these revisions address your concerns, and we believe that these changes have improved the overall quality of the manuscript. We are grateful for your insightful comments and look forward to the possibility of our article being published in the Land journal.

Sincerely,

Franklin Paredes (Corresponding author)

fparedes@unellez.edu.ve/franklinparedes75@gmail.com

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf