Assessment of Ecosystem Service Value and Its Differences in the Yellow River Basin and Yangtze River Basin
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this study the author's used basic data and ecological function models in order to evaluate the value of ecosystem services in terms of provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services for the period 2015 to 2018. An analysis also conducted in combination with economic indicators. The study area was the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin in China.
The results showed that the total annual ecosystem value of the Yangtze River Basin was more than three times that of the Yellow River Basin. The two basins presented similar spatial distributions of the ecosystem services and great differences in the ecosystem patterns. The grassland accounted for 45% of land use in the Yellow River Basin, while forest accounted for 39% of land use in the Yangtze River Basin. Furthermore, the ecosystem services value of most counties in both basins was higher than their GDP.
I liked the work. It's an excellent ecological study very well structured with a justification of the results. The authors did not only stand on technical analysis but also used indicators to support their results and to draw useful conclusions. The results of this study can be used for the spatial planning and high-quality development paths of basins in other areas.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewers:
Thank you very much for pointing out the problems in my manuscript, I have considered every comment seriously and discussed with other co-authors, and finally finished the modifications in text correspondingly. Hope that the modified manuscript will be appropriate to be published and if there are still some problems, please tell me timely, thank you again! My responses are listed below:
Reviewer 1:
In this study the author's used basic data and ecological function models in order to evaluate the value of ecosystem services in terms of provisioning services, regulating services, and cultural services for the period 2015 to 2018. An analysis also conducted in combination with economic indicators. The study area was the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin in China.
The results showed that the total annual ecosystem value of the Yangtze River Basin was more than three times that of the Yellow River Basin. The two basins presented similar spatial distributions of the ecosystem services and great differences in the ecosystem patterns. The grassland accounted for 45% of land use in the Yellow River Basin, while forest accounted for 39% of land use in the Yangtze River Basin. Furthermore, the ecosystem services value of most counties in both basins was higher than their GDP.
I liked the work. It's an excellent ecological study very well structured with a justification of the results. The authors did not only stand on technical analysis but also used indicators to support their results and to draw useful conclusions. The results of this study can be used for the spatial planning and high-quality development paths of basins in other areas.
Response: Thank you for your appreciation of this research, and we hope that the results can be helpful to other similar studies, thank you very much again.
Reviewer 2 Report
The article provides a methodology for ecosystem valuation. In this sense, the summary and the introduction should mention this contribution in greater depth.
The article makes certain statements that are not supported by references. See for example: line 165-166: “The economic level of the Yangtze River Basin has been significantly higher than that of the Yellow River Basin, especially in the past ten years.”
How are they treated and where are they obtained from?
Apart from Figure 4, the authors should incorporate the descriptive statistics of the variables used. The justification of the prices and the breakdown in tables of the valuation. This would lead to a better understanding of the proposal made.
In some section of the paper, the advantages and disadvantages of applying the proposed methodology in comparison to other valuation techniques should be discussed.
The discussion does not present a comparison with other papers that analyze valuations of ecosystems and their services. A further discussion with previous work should be included.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewers:
Thank you very much for pointing out the problems in my manuscript, I have considered every comment seriously and discussed with other co-authors, and finally finished the modifications in text correspondingly. Hope that the modified manuscript will be appropriate to be published and if there are still some problems, please tell me timely, thank you again! My responses are listed below:
Reviewer 2:
- The article provides a methodology for ecosystem valuation. In this sense, the summary and the introduction should mention this contribution in greater depth.
Response: Thank you for your advice. After discussing with the co-authors, we decided to add relevant descriptions “The research provides a methodology for evaluating ecosystem valuation” (line 29) to the abstract. Since the meaning of the research method has been described in the last paragraph of the introduction, no new additions have been made. Hope this modification can meet your requirements, thank you again.
- The article makes certain statements that are not supported by references. See for example: line 165-166: “The economic level of the Yangtze River Basin has been significantly higher than that of the Yellow River Basin, especially in the past ten years.”
How are they treated and where are they obtained from?
Response: Thank you for your reminding and we have realized the irrationality of this statement, so we have deleted this sentence.
- Apart from Figure 4, the authors should incorporate the descriptive statistics of the variables used. The justification of the prices and the breakdown in tables of the valuation. This would lead to a better understanding of the proposal made.
Response: Thank you for your advice. We have added the aggregated descriptive statistics of the variables used in line 338 – 342, which is “The total ecosystem service values of the Yangtze River Basin from 2015 to 2018 (which is 21.3 trillion CNY, 23.0 trillion CNY, 24.5 trillion CNY and 25.7 trillion CNY) are higher than those of the Yellow River Basin (which is 6.6 trillion CNY, 7.2 trillion CNY, 7.4 trillion CNY and 8.5 trillion CNY), and the regulating service value is significantly higher than that of the Yellow River Basin, producing 15.7 trillion CNY and 5.8 trillion CNY, respectively, in 2018.”
The justification of the prices and the breakdown of the valuations are added to the end of each method description in the section 2.2.
- In some section of the paper, the advantages and disadvantages of applying the proposed methodology in comparison to other valuation techniques should be discussed.
Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have added relevant descriptions in the last paragraph of section 2.2, and we mainly introduced the reasons why we chose these methods and their advantages, which is “In the evaluation of the above ecosystem service functions, the methods of physical quantity are selected and constructed based on the mechanism characteristics of each function, and each model has also been successfully applied in corresponding research; The value quantities are calculated with reference to specific project materials and market prices. Compared with other studies of ecosystem service functions, the method of this study is more practical, and the acquisition of various parameters is more convenient, which avoids errors caused by conversion between different expressions.”
- The discussion does not present a comparison with other papers that analyze valuations of ecosystems and their services. A further discussion with previous work should be included.
Response: Thank you for your suggestion. Due to the differences in the methods used in the evaluation of ecosystem service functions, it is difficult to match in the comparison of specific values. In addition, there are few evaluations of the overall ecosystem service function value of the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins, so there are difficulties in comparison.
We selected Ma Guoxia's research on China's ecosystem service function evaluation in 2015 and Zhai Tianlin's research on the supply and demand pattern of ecosystem service functions in the Yangtze River Economic Zone to compare. In terms of the value of ecosystem service functions per unit area, there is a similar trend in this study with Ma’s research results, while in terms of spatial distribution patterns, the similarities between this study and Zhai’s research results are mainly manifested in the Yangtze River Basin, where the volume of regulation services in the Sichuan Basin and downstream areas is relatively small. We have added the discussion in line 463-470.
Thank you again for your advice.
We hope our modifications and the endeavors during the modification process will satisfied the editor and reviewers, and we look forward to our article being published. Thank you very much!
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors
Thank you for allowing me to review such an interesting manuscript. The paper is well-written and has a clear structure. The argument is clear as well as the aims and objectives of the entire research.
The introduction section could be improved. Most of the references used are recent and tap into relatively similar studies, however, some key reference work has not been mentioned, such as:
Russo, A., & Cirella, G. T. (2021). Urban Ecosystem Services: New Findings for Landscape Architects, Urban Planners, and Policymakers.
Pedersen Zari, M. (2012). Ecosystem services analysis for the design of regenerative built environments. Building Research & Information, 40(1), 54-64.
Pedersen Zari, M., & Hecht, K. (2020). Biomimicry for regenerative built environments: Mapping design strategies for producing ecosystem services. Biomimetics, 5(2), 18.
Marques, B., McIntosh, J., Hatton, W., & Shanahan, D. (2019). Bicultural landscapes and ecological restoration in the compact city: The case of Zealandia as a sustainable ecosanctuary. Journal of Landscape Architecture, 14(1), 44-53.
One aspect that is not clearly mentioned in the study, is how the researchers addressed social and cultural values in the study and how much of that affects the way in which ecosystem services discourse is organised. Would be good to have an overview of that.
The methodology is clearly explained. The results are organised in a logical and structured manner. As mentioned previously, one aspect missing is the importance of culture and society. Both river basins are populated by people. how is that taken into consideration while looking at ecosystem patterns and values? The authors seem to look at environment and nature in a very mechanic way. Perhaps this should be clearly addressed in the conclusion as a limitation in this study.
Author Response
Dear editor and reviewers:
Thank you very much for pointing out the problems in my manuscript, I have considered every comment seriously and discussed with other co-authors, and finally finished the modifications in text correspondingly. Hope that the modified manuscript will be appropriate to be published and if there are still some problems, please tell me timely, thank you again! My responses are listed below:
Reviewer 3:
- The introduction section could be improved. Most of the references used are recent and tap into relatively similar studies, however, some key reference work has not been mentioned, such as:
①Russo, A., & Cirella, G. T. (2021). Urban Ecosystem Services: New Findings for Landscape Architects, Urban Planners, and Policymakers.
②Pedersen Zari, M. (2012). Ecosystem services analysis for the design of regenerative built environments. Building Research & Information, 40(1), 54-64.
③Pedersen Zari, M., & Hecht, K. (2020). Biomimicry for regenerative built environments: Mapping design strategies for producing ecosystem services. Biomimetics, 5(2), 18.
④Marques, B., McIntosh, J., Hatton, W., & Shanahan, D. (2019). Bicultural landscapes and ecological restoration in the compact city: The case of Zealandia as a sustainable ecosanctuary. Journal of Landscape Architecture, 14(1), 44-53.
Response: Thank you for your reminding, the references you listed above are very interesting, and they gave me some new inspirations. I believe this will be useful in my future research. We have added the references above into the introduction.
- One aspect that is not clearly mentioned in the study, is how the researchers addressed social and cultural values in the study and how much of that affects the way in which ecosystem services discourse is organized. Would be good to have an overview of that.
Response: Thank you for your advice. We realize that we have missed a large part of the description of the cultural service method, and now we have added the formula in line 257-264.
- The methodology is clearly explained. The results are organized in a logical and structured manner. As mentioned previously, one aspect missing is the importance of culture and society. Both river basins are populated by people. how is that taken into consideration while looking at ecosystem patterns and values? The authors seem to look at environment and nature in a very mechanic way. Perhaps this should be clearly addressed in the conclusion as a limitation in this study.
Response: Thank you for your reminding. We agree with you about the importance of culture and society. It is difficult for us to consider all aspects in the process of evaluation of cultural services, and there are also difficulties in method selection. This is indeed a shortcoming of this research. We have added relevant descriptions in the end of the third paragraph of section 5, which is “Cultural services mainly refer to the cultural enjoyment and welfare brought to people by natural or semi-natural landscapes，so it is also a strong indication of the quality of the entire ecosystem and the environment. This study only considers tourist travel expenses as cultural services. However, due to the failure to construct a reasonable and effective method, the benefits related to education and scientific research have not been calculated. This is also a shortcoming of this research.”
Thank you again for your advice.
We hope our modifications and the endeavors during the modification process will satisfied the editor and reviewers, and we look forward to our article being published. Thank you very much!
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
In my opinion, the authors have followed the recommendations established in the initial review. Specifically, I consider that the article is currently in a position to be published.
