The Impact of Rural Location on Farmers’ Livelihood in the Loess Plateau: Local, Urban–Rural, and Interconnected Multi-Spatial Perspective Research
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The history of humanity is the history of the struggle against poverty, and a focus on sustainable farmer livelihoods is essential to achieving sustainable development. In this sense, the author's topic has a certain significance. However, the whole research lacks problem awareness and theoretical analysis is weak, which is difficult to reach the level of publication. Specific suggestions are as follows:
(1) The key scientific questions and marginal contributions to be addressed by the research are not clear. The so-called innovation point or the so-called problem to be solved by the author is to show the distribution of farmers' livelihood index in space, which has actually been a large number of studies in the academic circle. At the same time, the spatial distribution of the livelihood index is just a phenomenon, which does not involve pain points in the real world, that is, the whole study lacks problem awareness. It is an objective fact that there are differences in the spatial livelihood index, which does not need to be done by the author. Therefore, the author's so-called marginal contribution does not hold water with me.
(2) The research lacks in-depth theoretical analysis framework, and the selection of indicators and methods lacks theoretical basis and persuasiveness. At the same time, the author's research lacks a reference frame. Since there is no reference frame after obtaining the livelihood index, it is impossible to simply tell the score level.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Line 56: Too early in the manuscript to claim that the implications of the study are significant.
Line 79: It is not clear why this theoretical line of “stability” is resprouting, after it was replaced with the concept of resilience. Please revise the literature on both concepts and, based on this revision, decide which one is more appropriate.
Line 84: Here, it seems to be referring to livelihood stability as having advantages as a concept. Then, on line 85, it refers to “locational advantages”. This is, at the very least, a confusing transition. Please revise.
Line 146: How were residents chosen randomly? Is there a village member list to choose from it by using random numbers? Or were villagers chosen via convenience sampling?
Section 2.2: This framework should be part of the introduction, not of the materials and methods section.
Lines 180-181: Is this a result from your research? Too early in the manuscript to be reporting results.
Line 216: Check the definition of deconstruction. You cannot deconstruct into another single concept.
Section 3.1: Why is the last process explained in the methodology the first to be reported in the results section?
Line 280: There is no evidence presented of improvement (as change).
Line 333: Unclear: “around the country town”.
Lines 343 and 442: Unclear: “country seat” (in this context).
Table 6: columns should be the rows (please transpose the table). Please include a general label for these: elevation, slope, etc., on top of the column.
Discussion section: This section should compare the results of the present research with those of previous studies. At the moment, it is more of a conclusions section than a proper discussion.
Line 406: Livelihoods is a concept, not a method.
Lines 521-522. The conclusions section should not have references. This comparing and validation should be done, but it was not. Please include this in the discussion section.
Line 527: With studies like this one, we can at best reach middle range theories, not “universal laws”.
Line 528: unclear: “livelihood research system”.
OK
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I carefully read the revised draft of the author, and it is a pity that the problem I raised has not been essentially solved. The author's so-called marginal contribution still does not convince me. I do not believe that the author can search the magazine of land use policy. There are definitely a large number of researches on similar topics, which also use quantitative and qualitative methods.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have successfully addressed most points, except 2, 4 and 14
Point 2: The authors did not adequately revise the literature on livelihood resilience ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=es&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22livelihood+resilience%22&btnG= ) and stability ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=%22livelihood+stability%22&hl=es&as_sdt=0,5 ).
Point 4: Incorrect use of the concept of “random”. It is not the same as convenience sampling, as the explained process implies.
Point 14: The new sentence proposed is awkward: “… an effective concept of connecting rural residents…”
English is OK
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
