Spatial Distribution of Local Forest Products at the End of the 19th Century: A Case Study of Former Villages in Iwate Prefecture
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is interesting to read as it gives some speciality of a region. I find some weakness that should be improved to make it scientifically sound and increase the readability.
I find that you have missed the Methods Section. YOu have well explained the study area, but how you did is missing. I suggest to add them more precisely.
There is no Discussion and no Discussion section. Please add similar practices worldwide with relevant literature and discuss them in line with your work. What are the typicality of your study area other than in the world.
Many literature you cited are in Japanese language. Its fine but add more with English literature covering a wide range of geographic region as I suggest you to add discussion where you can bring a bunch of English literature. It will add readability of the paper as well.
Some minor comments and a few majors are provided in-line in the attachement.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful advice.
Point 1: I find that you have missed the Methods Section. You have well explained the study area, but how you did is missing. I suggest to add them more precisely.
Response 1: We moved some sentences from Result section to Method part. And we added description as follows;
As for assessment of methodology, strengths of this method are to visualize a huge amount of complex data in single map. Furthermore, we can treat more finely spatial data than that based on modern municipalities' boundaries, whose total is 33 in Iwate, today. Also, since different types of maps can be easily laid each other, the mutual relationships between various attribute data would be understood intuitively. On the contrast, the weaknesses are that this method and data do not treat chronologically but only one-period data. In addition, the minuteness or roughness in the description of topography are not evaluable. That is why it was not sure how the editors researched each historical villages' products.
Point 2: There is no Discussion and no Discussion section. Please add similar practices worldwide with relevant literature and discuss them in line with your work. What are the typicality of your study area other than in the world.
Response 2: We added the part.
A few foreign researches are reviewed for discussion. Szabo et. al. [28] have projected LONGWOOOD geodatabase, which include all available land use and forestry data from 11th century to 20th. Their subject area is Moravia, which expands 27,000square kilometer, in Czech Republic. They defined the area unit "township", and gave the chorological forestry information for every township whose number is as much as 3,567 polygons. They input elevation, forest physiognomy, species, and forest management. The character of this database is to hold very long-time and huge amount of forestry data, and include various attribute data related to other subsistence, i. e. litter raking, hay cutting and woodland pasture etc. Szabo et. al. referred that the LONGWOOD would make it possible to develop wide variety of study on forest management or land use, and so on. Since Szabo et. Al’s study site of Moravia is similar both spatial scale and climatic condition to Iwate prefecture, the same species are observed in both studies. But our study is much rougher in polygon, and could acquire only one-period data in the past. Szabo et. al. say “There is a trade-off between spatial precision and data quantity”, in our study boundary of each historical village were defined carefully, but forest products were input by dichotomy, presence or absence.
Thompson et. al. [29] elucidate relationship between forest vegetation on 17th century and today's forest in the case of northeastern United State which expands 43 million hectares. They gather pre-colonial forest information and combined these data to modern forest inventory census. They set the research questions such as forest compositional change, geography of change, and relationship between change and its cause. The chestnut is seen both pre-colonial period and today, different composition of forest tree species are seen in different costumes of past clearcutting for agricultural land use. They also say that late-successional species decrease, on the other hand, early- and mid-successional species are more observed today. The study area is relatively large regional scale, combined two periods data together with numerical treatment. Though, our study was much smaller area and not combined to modern forest information, the number of villages in the Topography is over 600, it would make statistical test possible. In the view of succession of forest species, the trend in Japan would be opposite of northeastern US. Here it would be seen more and more late-successional species in the forest in general and early- and mid-successional species would be relatively fewer in nation-wide.
Point 3: Many literature you cited are in Japanese language. Its fine but add more with English literature covering a wide range of geographic region as I suggest you to add discussion where you can bring a bunch of English literature. It will add readability of the paper as well.
Response 3: We added two literature in Reference section.
- Szabo, P.; Suchankova, S.; Krizova,L.; Kotacka, M.; Kvardova, M.; Macek, M. Mullerova, J.; Brazdil, R. More than trees: The challenges of creating a geodatabase to capture the complexity of forest history. Historical methods 2018, 51(3), 175-189. (https://doi.org/10.1080/01615440.2018.1444523)
- Thompson, J. R.; Carpenter, D. N.; Cogbill, C. V.; Foster, D. R. Four Centuries of Change in Northeastern United States Forests. PLoS ONE 2013, 8(9), 1-16. (https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0072540)
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an interesting, well-grounded study. It is certainly worth publishing. The combination of historical sources and GIS methods provides a valuable approach to understanding diverse livelihoods in a variable setting. It needs greater detail on the methodology, including an assessment of strengths and weaknesses. While the language is fairly good, there are numerous places where correction of language or punctuation is required.
Author Response
Thank you for your helpful advice.
Point 1: It needs greater detail on the methodology, including an assessment of strengths and weaknesses.
Response 1: We moved some sentences to the Method part on advice of the Reviewer 1.
And we added a paragraph as below;
As for assessment of methodology, strengths of this method are to visualize a huge amount of complex data in single map. Furthermore, we can treat more finely spatial data than that based on modern municipalities' boundaries, whose total is 33 in Iwate. Also, since different types of maps can be easily laid each other, the mutual relationships between various attribute data would be understood intuitively. On the contrast, the weaknesses are that this method and data dose not treat chronologically but only one-time data. In addition, the minuteness or roughness in the description of topography are not evaluable. That is why it was not sure how the editors researched each historical villages' products.
Point 2: While the language is fairly good, there are numerous places where correction of language or punctuation is required.
Response 2: Sorry, I did not have enough time to proof my English this time.
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Although my field of expertise is forest economics, which means I’m neither a historian or a GIS-expert, I find this paper very interesting.
However, the aim is rather weak: “to clarify how forest products were used in the Iwate Prefecture…”.
Also, on row 45 the paper refers to “people” as “In Japan, people are struggling…”. This is imprecise, please clarify the sentence.
Table 1 is messy, with the line breaks in the legend being awful. Please correct, for instance by reducing font.
Figure 6: The time-period must be clarified.
Minor items:
Line 104: Should be“…boundary data in the form of a Shapefile.” Words to be added in italics.
Line 120: Should be: “The majority of the prefecture is mountainous.”
Line 120-121: Rewrite sentence to: Altitudes vary from sea level to the highest peak, Mt. Iwate-san, which reaches about 2,000 meters.
While not being a native English speaker myself, I can see that the text would benefit from a professional English proofreading.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Thank you for your helpful advice.
Point 1: However, the aim is rather weak: “to clarify how forest products were used in the Iwate Prefecture…”.
Response 1: We added these sentences: Past utilization of the forests and fields would partly or greatly affect to the present forest physiognomy. If we tried to comprehend local forests, we would better understand how they had been used in the past.
Point 2: Also, on row 45 the paper refers to “people” as “In Japan, people are struggling…”. This is imprecise, please clarify the sentence.
Response 2: We rewrote to “some researchers, statemen, entrepreneurs, and others”
Point 3: Table 1 is messy, with the line breaks in the legend being awful. Please correct, for instance by reducing font.
Response 3: Do you mean Figure 1? We simplified figure 1, and made another new table which includes the scientific name of botany. The reviewer 1 gave me same advice.
Point 4: Figure 6: The time-period must be clarified.
Response 4: We added “from 1970’s to 1980’s” because the topography edited then.
Minor items:
Point5: Line 104: Should be“…boundary data in the form of a Shapefile.” Words to be added in italics.
Response 5: Thank you for your advice, but I adopted the plan of the reviewer 1.
Point6: Line 120: Should be: “The majority of the prefecture is mountainous.”
Response 6: Thank you for your advice, but I adopted the plan of the reviewer 1” A majority …”.
Point 7: Line 120-121: Rewrite sentence to: Altitudes vary from sea level to the highest peak, Mt. Iwate-san, which reaches about 2,000 meters.
Response 7: I replaced to your plan. Thank you.
Point 8: While not being a native English speaker myself, I can see that the text would benefit from a professional English proofreading.
Response 8: Sorry, I did not have enough time to proof my English this time.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors of this paper have considered the comments that were made in the earlier version. However, I see still some iregularities. I have provided some inline comments in the attached manuscript.
I feel that authors missed their attention to English editorial part as well as the flow of the text when moving the text up and down.
Overall, I recommend to publish after minor (editorial and structural) revisions.
Thanks.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Tank you for your review.
Line 11: I would prefer to write simply "Introduction".
Response: We changed these words to "Introduction" with highlight.
Line 45: Please be more precise. "some researchers"? others? what kind of entrepreneur?
Response: "Researchers" means economists, like Samuta, Yokemoto, Fujiyama, and so on. Entrepreneur means local ventures which locate in remote villages in Japan. We change "statesmen" to "writers", because we cannot find appropriate evidence of them. Statesmen or stateswomen often comment to the revitalization of local community in the media, but their books or reports suitable for this paper are not found. These sentences were highlighted.
Line 71: This goes to result section. Not in the Introduction section.
Response: We moved this sentence to the result section with highlight.
Line 74: explore or assess would be much better.
Response: We changed ""clarify" to "explore" with highlight.
Line 75: Please rewrite the sentence more clearly. In addition, in the Introduction section you can make with more generic way by saying historical use practices of forest products in northern Japan. The site specification is in the Methods section as a sample site.
Response: We remove this sentence. Then added historical use practices of forest products in northern Japan.Then we added the paragraph to the end of "2.2. Historical background of Study Area" with highlight.
Line 78: Simply "Methods".
Response: We changed these words to "Methods" with highlight.
Line 85: It did not make any sense. Start with new sentences introducing you research area.
Response: We removed this sentence. And we moved the "study area" and " historical background of the study area" ahead.
Line 85: remove "see".
Response: We removed "see". Then inserted these parentheses into the next paragraph with highlight.
Line 121: word order.
Response: We rewrote to "the description in the topography" with highlight.
Line 157: It is much better if you start your Methods section with this "Study area".
Response: We started "Methods" section with "2.1. Study area", then we put "2.2. Historical background of study area".
Line 262: Check the order of the figures you refer
Response: We checked the order of figures and tables and their number again.
Others
Line 302-306: We moved the caption of figure 4.
Line 327: We correct the number of species and figure 4.
Line 370: The poor peasant not “lent” but “borrowed” horses from the major land owner. Because some peasants did not have their horses. This is my mistake.
Line 441: We corrected the number of species ”11.”
Line 445-451: We matched the word order of two types of forest (red pine and broad-leaved secondary) with the above-mentioned sentence.
Line 451: Not et Al. but et al.
Line 524: Szabo et. al. wrote “utilised”. So, we closely followed the original.
Line 525-534: We added some literature.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
