Identification of Ecological Restoration Priority Areas Integrating Human Activity Intensity and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Protection of nature and the environment is an important issue, which is why I consider the topic discussed by the authors to be important. The authors undertook to designate areas with varying degrees of urgency for ecological restoration activities based on their own indicators. An important element of the assessment is to pay attention to the feasibility of the planned activities, which is not always taken into account in the studies. Therefore, I consider the submitted work worth publishing. However, I would like to submit the following comments to the submitted text.

Line 12: Instead „ Ecological restoration” I suggest “Nature conservation”, “environmental protection” or other more clear term. It would be more obvious and linguistically (in my opinion) better because in the first three lines ”ecological” is repeated four times.

Abstract: The aim of the study should be given in the abstract

Lines 92-93: I suggest clarifying that the given range of average annual values applies to different regions of the  Shaanxi Province and indicates (probably) significant differences between regions.

Lines 130-131: What does NDVIi mean in pixel i? Average value for a given pixel?

Line 181: “ecological experts' consultation” is an important source of environmental assessment, but as a method of the study it is insufficient for me. This method does not ensure comparability of results. This should be described in more detail.

Lines 185-189: It would be advisable to provide a range of values and points assigned to them from 0 to 10 and it should be better explained.

Lines 191-198: It is not clear why 10, 8 and 4 points were adopted for roads and not, for example, 10, 8 and 6 or 10, 8, 6 and 4 or 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2.

Lines 201-202: The reference to Duan and Luo [28] does not sufficiently explain why the value was adjusted downward by 8%.

Additionaly:

It would be advisable in the “Introduction” and “Discussion” to refer more broadly to the criteria for assessing the state of the environment used in other countries and planning methods used in other countries.

In the “Discussion”, it would be advisable to refer to the importance of the NDVI indice, which was taken into account in the “Methods” to assess the cover of the research area by vegetation, but there is no broader comment in the “Discussion” what determines the differentiation of this indice in the assessment of vegetation cover and how this differentiation may affect the results. Especially that individual regions in Shaanxi Province differ significantly in terms of climate.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript is written in correct language. I only suggest replacing the word "ecological" with another term where this word is repeated too often

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript.   Please find the detailed responses  in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear  editors

 

This paper establishes a framework method for determining priority ecological restoration areas, which has certain indicative significance for regional ecological restoration, but some problems need to be discussed.

 

1: Degraded ecological areas or areas with severe soil and water loss are usually identified as priority ecological restoration areas, and they are generally distributed in blocks within a region. There are no direct index parameters in this paper to quantify these two contents. Should they be considered in the multi-objective decision-making process?

 

2. In Formula 5, line 159, how to determine the weight value in the weighted linear combination method? The basis, method and specific value need to be supplemented

 

3: Only the intensity of human activities, distance and land type are considered in road ecological restoration. Do horizontal zonality factors and geomorphic factors need to be considered?

 

Based on the preceding problems, moderate change is recommended.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Dear editors

 

This paper establishes a framework method for determining priority ecological restoration areas, which has certain indicative significance for regional ecological restoration, but some problems need to be discussed.

 

1: Degraded ecological areas or areas with severe soil and water loss are usually identified as priority ecological restoration areas, and they are generally distributed in blocks within a region. There are no direct index parameters in this paper to quantify these two contents. Should they be considered in the multi-objective decision-making process?

 

2. In Formula 5, line 159, how to determine the weight value in the weighted linear combination method? The basis, method and specific value need to be supplemented

 

3: Only the intensity of human activities, distance and land type are considered in road ecological restoration. Do horizontal zonality factors and geomorphic factors need to be considered?

 

Based on the preceding problems, moderate change is recommended.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript.   Please find the detailed responses  in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this study, a methodological framework was constructed to identify the priority ecological restoration areas in the study area from the perspective of feasibility and human activity intensity. The methodological framework takes a good account of restoration feasibility, and the evaluation results provide a practical reference for further environment optimization. The overall logic is reasonable, and the writing flows smoothly. However, further clarification is needed regarding the following issues before it is considered for publication.

1.    The innovation of this study should be further clarified in the introduction

2.    The latitude and longitude grid in Figure 1 can replace the compass, please choose to reserve latitude and longitude or the compass.

3.    "ecological restoration priority areas" or "priority areas for ecosystem restoration" might be more appropriate than the "priority ecological restoration areas" throughout the manuscript.

4.    In part 2.5, “Based on the natural breakpoint method, the index was classified into five levels, very low, low, medium, high, and very high.”, what are these five levels?

5.    In part 3.3, what is the basis of decision strategy for PER areas? Is there any relevant literature supporting the classification?

6.    Relate the findings to existing literature on the region. Do results confirm or contrast with previous studies?

7.    Discuss the limitations of the current study and future work needed.

8.    Lack of discussion on the uncertainty of research results.

9.    Highlight the main strengths of your novel framework in the conclusion section.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

1.    This paper still has some grammar errors that need further revision and improvement.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript.   Please find the detailed responses  in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have sufficiently revised their manuscript and now it can be accepted for publication