A New Trend in the Space–Time Distribution of Cultivated Land Occupation for Construction in China and the Impact of Population Urbanization

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors present a study of land development trends across the whole of China, using the statistics for conversion of agricultural lands to urban land uses. The manuscript is well-written and appropriately illustrated, tabulated and referenced. There were relatively few inconsistencies, mainly concerned with the use of numeric referencing versus the Harvard system of author and date. Specifically, the line 62 reference to Liu et al. should use the numeric reference 15. Likewise on line 119, Niu et al should reference number 27 (both the text and reference citation of these authors are in upper case text and should be reformatted as upper and lower case fonts). Beginning around line 217-218, the reference numbers seem to be off by one number. Berry & Marble should be number 46 but seems to have been cited as 47 on line 218. These numbers should be checked--the referencing from line 288 onwards seems to be correct. Wang et al, line 241, should be number 53; Elhorst, line 252, should be reference 55; and, LeSage & Pace, line 291, should be number 58. On line 453, Pandey & Seto should be reference number 34; Wang et al, line 502, should be 48; and Jiang et al, line 522-523, should be 60. The references are necessary and up-to-date. There is a minor inconsistency of usage on line 416 with a lower case "l" in log--prior usage had an upper case "L". The conclusions and recommendations in the paper are consistent with the data presented and the paper should have considerable relevance not only to China but many other countries as well. There were minor inconsistencies in usage in some lists, for example lines 86-89, where the formulation of the list was inconsistent, but these can be corrected in final page setting. The paper is recommended for publication.

Author Response

Response Letter for the Revised Version of Sustainability-589765

Manuscript ID: sustainability-589765

Title: A new trend in the space–time distribution of the cultivated land occupation for construction in China and the impact of population urbanization

Authors: Kai Li, Zhili Ma*, Jinjin Liu

 

Dear editors and reviewers,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to submit a revised draft of my manuscript to Sustainability. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers have dedicated to providing your valuable feedback on my manuscript. And all your concerns about this manuscript have been addressed carefully and seriously.

In particular, a pair of paragraphs have been added in the introduction to make the paper closely related to the aim of the journal, and the inappropriate reference format has been adjusted as the reviewer suggested. Our response words below are highlighted in red, with the corresponding page and line shown in blue.

We hope the revised manuscript will better suit Sustainability but are happy to consider further revisions, and we thank you for your continued interest in our research.

Sincerely Yours,

Kai Li, Zhili Ma, and Jinjin Liu

School of Management Science & Real Estate

Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

[email protected] (K.L.);

[email protected] (Z.L.);

[email protected] (J.J.)

 

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1:  There were relatively few inconsistencies, mainly concerned with the use of numeric referencing versus the Harvard system of author and date. Specifically, (1) the line 62 reference to Liu et al. should use the numeric reference 15. (2) Likewise, on line 119, Niu et al should reference number 27 (both the text and reference citation of these authors are in upper case text and should be reformatted as upper and lower case fonts). Beginning around line 217-218, the reference numbers seem to be off by one number. (3) Berry & Marble should be number 46 but seems to have been cited as 47 on line 218. These numbers should be checked--the referencing from line 288 onwards seems to be correct. (4) Wang et al, line 241, should be number 53; (5) Elhorst, line 252, should be reference 55; (6) and, LeSage & Pace, line 291, should be number 58. (7) On line 453, Pandey & Seto should be reference number 34; (8) Wang et al, line 502, should be 48; (9) and Jiang et al, line 522-523, should be 60. The references are necessary and up-to-date.

 

Response 1: Thank you for pointing out the problem of the reference format. We have added the missed numeric references as suggested and adjusted the rest of the references following the standard of MDPI. The inconsistencies in references mentioned are revised as follows.

The reference to Liu et al. has been adjusted with the numeric reference 15 and the revised sentence (page 2 line 61) is as follows:

“For example, Liu et al. (2005) argued that population urbanization, economic structures, and economic policies were crucial to land conversion during China's economic reform period (1990–2000) [15].”

(2) The reference to Niu et al. has been adjusted with the numeric reference 27 and both the text and reference citation of these authors have been revised, with the new sentence (page 4 line 123) following as:

“This study used the social combustion theory (SCT) proposed by Niu et al. (1993) [27] to present…”

(3) The reference to Berry & Marble has been adjusted with the numeric reference 46 and the revised sentence (page 8 line 221) is as follows:

“…one of the first-order contiguity weights proposed by Berry and Marble (1968) [46].”

(4) The reference to Wang et al. has been adjusted with the numeric reference 53 and the new sentence (page 8, line 245) is as follows:

“Therefore, the method of Wang et al. (2019) was adopted [53], …”

(5) The reference to Elhorst has been adjusted with the numeric reference 55 and the new sentence (page 9, line 256) is as follows:

“…, We followed the method of Elhorst (2010) [55] to select the …”

(6) The reference to LeSage & Pace has been adjusted with the numeric reference 58 and the new sentence (page 10, line 297) is as follows:

“The former is called a direct effect while the latter an indirect effect [58].”

(7) The reference to Pandey & Seto has been adjusted with the numeric reference 61 and the new sentence (page 18, line 457) is as follows:

“Consistent with Pandey and Seto (2015) [61], there has been …”

(8) The reference to Wang et al. has been adjusted with the numeric reference 64 and the new sentence (page 20, line 506) is as follows:

“…, which is consistent with the conclusions drawn by Wang et al. (2016) [64].”

(9) The reference to Jiang et al. has been adjusted with the numeric reference 67 and the new sentence (page 20, line 526) is as follows:

“…, are consistent with the conclusion drawn by Jiang et al. (2016) [67].”

 

Point 2:  There is a minor inconsistency of usage on line 416 with a lower case "l" in log--prior usage had an upper case "L". 

 

Response 2: Thank you for reminding this point and sorry for our carelessness. The correct spelling of this term should be “log-likelihood”, with a lower case “l”. We have revised the log--prior usage you mentioned on page 17 line 416 and checked the rest of this usage in this paper.

 

Point 3: The conclusions and recommendations in the paper are consistent with the data presented and the paper should have considerable relevance not only to China but many other countries as well.  

 

Response 3: Thank you for highlighting the influence of this paper’s conclusions and recommendations. To make them more influential and not be limited in China, we have adjusted some words in Section 4.3 (recommendations) and Section 5 (conclusions):

(1) the words “in China” on page 21 line 543 have been deleted (the revised sentence is “…, we put forward two suggestions on the issue of cultivated land occupation for construction (CLOC): …”);

(2) the words “China” on page 21 line 557 have been changed into “developing countries” (the revised sentence is “…an effective approach to ease the contradiction between cultivated land and construction land in developing countries.”);

(3) the words “in a country with rapid urbanization trends” have been added on page 21 line 585. (the revised sentence is “…resolving the contradiction between cultivated land and construction land in a country with rapid urbanization trends.”).

 

Point 4:  There were minor inconsistencies in usage in some lists, for example lines 86-89, where the formulation of the list was inconsistent, but these can be corrected in final page setting.

 

Response 4: Thank you for pointing out the inconsistencies about the list. We have changed the list with two issues (page 3 lines 88-90)instead of the original three issues (the issue (2) have been combined by the original issue (2) and (3)), which is consistent with “two issues” mentioned in conclusions (page 21 line 570) and our arrangement of sections in this paper (issue (1) and (2) correspond to Section 3.1 and 3.2, respectively). The revised list (page 3 lines 87-90) is as follows:

“Based on the aim of sustainable urbanization, this study focused on two major issues: (1) changes in the space–time distribution of the CLOC in 31 provinces in China from 2005 to 2016; (2) how did the driving factors affect the CLOC for both the local and neighboring provinces^[1], and how did these factors vary with the new changes in the distribution of the CLOC?”

 

Additional clarifications  

In addition to the above comments, some spelling and grammatical errors in the original manuscript have been corrected by a native English speaker through the MDPI’s language editing service (the language certification is shown in the attachment).

 

[1] In this paper, “local province” means one single province itself, and “neighbouring provinces” indicates other provinces that are geographically adjacent or economically associated to one province.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is well written, research objectives are clearly stated, methodology used is rigorous, and conclusions quite innovative.

Please note some minor issues:

the definition of "local provinces" and "neighbouring provinces" should be better explained; line 96: I would replace "Finally, there was a brief summary in Section 5" with "Finally, conclusions about the research's methods and outputs are set out in Section 5"; line 110: I would replace "which was calculated by the ratio of the CLOC area to the total cultivated land area" with "which was calculated by the ratio between the CLOC area and the total cultivated land area".

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper analyzes the spatial distribution of the cultivated land occupation for construction and the affecting factors in 31 provinces of China to 2005 and 2016. It uses different techniques to study the tendencies and the relations with adjacent provinces.

The main problem of the manuscript is that it should be better related to the scope of the journal, the sustainability. Although it is within the aim of the journal, it should be underline the importance of this analysis with the consequences for the sustainability of the country. Therefore, a pair of paragraphs is recommended in the introduction to highlight the necessity of this research.

Other minor points of the article are:

Line 55. The eastern regions which developed economically were believed to have higher land conversion rate. Were believed? Why? It is not sure this sentence?

Line 180. Which variables are defined? Xi or xi? According to Equation (1), it should be Xi. What is X with a line over it? The mean value? If so, indicate. All the variables must be described.

Line 259. Spatial Durbin model. Indicate that its abbreviation is SPM as the other models.

Figure 8. Please, include all the Moran scatter plots of the CLOC rate for all the years.

There is a continuous use of the form “we” in the paper. Although a pair of “we” can be accepted in a scientific journal, the use of passive form is preferable.

There are some grammar errors in the text, please correct it.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript has been improved conveniently and it can be published.