Quantitative Analysis of Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics using Geoinformatics Techniques: A Case Study on Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) in West Bengal, India

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript presents a most valuable approaches in spatial analysis for a better understanding of a the hydrological response of a region in a certain the analysis of the well-known Land Use Land Cover (LULC) dynamicity. The study applied a case study to explore a deep analysis of LULC dynamicity by using digital Landsat TM and Landsat OLI data to classify the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) into seven classes with over 90% classification accuracy for decadal level assessments of 30 years from 1989 to 2019. The Change index, the Dematel method for analysing the cause-effect relationship among the LULC classes, the Jaccard Similarity Index for measuring the nature of similarity among the LULC classes, and the Adherence Index for measuring the consistency of the LULC classes after the transition were used in this study to analyse the LULC transformation. The results show that how urban land use is altering at the expense of other land uses. In addition, the shifting pattern of mean centers of the LULC classes through the time has given a very significant insight into the LULC dynamics over 30 years of span. The LULC dynamicity and transformation patterns over the 30 years of the KMDA area is expected to assist land and urban planners, engineers and administrations in making policy and decisions to ensure inclusive urbanisation that accommodates population growth while minimising the impact on the natural resource potentials pertaining to the area.

The study is interesting, but there are somewhere to be improved as below:

1) Table 11 should use the three decimal number similar as other tables.

2) Discussion should be a separate section from Results so that the validation should be addressed somewhere.

3) All equations should be cited with references. 

Author Response

R: Reviewer; A: Answer to the reviewer

RERVIEWER 1

R: This manuscript presents a most valuable approaches in spatial analysis for a better understanding of the hydrological response of a region in a certain the analysis of the well-known Land Use Land Cover (LULC) dynamicity. The study applied a case study to explore a deep analysis of LULC dynamicity by using digital Landsat TM and Landsat OLI data to classify the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) into seven classes with over 90% classification accuracy for decadal level assessments of 30 years from 1989 to 2019. The Change index, the DEMATEL method for analysing the cause-effect relationship among the LULC classes, the Jaccard Similarity Index for measuring the nature of similarity among the LULC classes, and the Adherence Index for measuring the consistency of the LULC classes after the transition were used in this study to analyse the LULC transformation. The results show that how urban land use is altering at the expense of other land uses. In addition, the shifting pattern of mean centers of the LULC classes through the time has given a very significant insight into the LULC dynamics over 30 years of span. The LULC dynamicity and transformation patterns over the 30 years of the KMDA area is expected to assist land and urban planners, engineers and administrations in making policy and decisions to ensure inclusive urbanisation that accommodates population growth while minimising the impact on the natural resource potentials pertaining to the area.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. We wish that the new version of the paper could be appropriate after the corrections made following the comments of the reviewer.

 

R: The study is interesting, but there are somewhere to be improved as below:

1) Table 11 should use the three decimal number similar as other tables.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: 2) Discussion should be a separate section from Results so that the validation should be addressed somewhere.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: 3) All equations should be cited with references. 

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

R: Reviewer; A: Answer to the reviewer

RERVIEWER 2

R: L. 42-47: It is true, but too broad statement and not informative. Please, consider removing from the manuscript.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 54: “The proper geographic scale” à “The proper temporal-spatial scale”.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 57: Put the Author’s name and the reference number together when referencing previous studies in the middle of sentences. For example, “predicted by [2] using a CA Markov analysis” à “predicted by Liping et al. [2] using a CA Markov analysis”.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 66: “Geographic Information System are needed (GIS)” à “Geographic Information System (GIS) are needed”

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 69-77: Not informative. Condense them into 1-2 sentences and combine them with the previous paragraph.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 79-108: This part is too long and not informative (not directly relevant to the study topic). Condensed 5-6 sentences might be enough.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 125-133: I understand what the authors wanted to do in the study, but there a no clear statements regarding the problems, the importance, the purposes, and the possible contributions of the study.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 144-168: condense the subsections. It is too wordy.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issue has been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 171: Is there any reason for choosing these years?

A: Thank you for your suggestions. These three years help us to identify the land use change characteristics based on three decades.  Minimum 30 years also helps for climate change studies in the future for early career researchers.

 

R: L. 181: The three years?

A: Thank you for your suggestions, it is actually three decades not year.

 

R: L. 192-197: Please, explain how you performed the post-classification refinement. The last sentence (Kappa method) should move to the next paragraph. Also, does “error matrix” differ from “Kappa”?

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The paragraph has been reframed as per suggestions. Yes, error matrix differs from Kappa, as error matrix helps in K-hat calculation.

 

R: L. 203-204: What ground truth data? Any reason for 275 points?

A: Thank you for your suggestions. As the study focus on the land use dynamics the following 275 points are taken as the random basis for the computation of accuracy assessment.

 

R: L. 211: “Where” or “where”? Please check other equations also.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: L. 211: Please, provide more information about “past-classification reconfiguration”.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

 

 

R: L. 251, 263,268, and 279: If it is sequential, using numbers or alphabet might be better that using dots. If you do not develop these equations, it is safe to use reference(s).

A: Thank you for your suggestions. As per the suggestion the manuscript has been revised. Instead of dots the numbering has been done in sequential manner. For the equations, references have been mentioned.

 

R: L. 327: The captions of Table 2 should provide more information to make readers easy to understand. The numbers in the tables are the number of assessment points? You didn’t use 275 points? Is it difference from “confusion matrix”? Different height of each LULC make hard to read and using abbreviation for LULC and same height might be better.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. As per the suggestions, for table2, title has been modified for easy understanding. And it’s a contingency matrix not confusion, where we didn’t use the 275 points.

 

R: Table 3: Putting area and percent side-by-side make so confusing. Please, reorganize the table.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: Equation 13 and 14 should be discussed in the METHOD section.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: The resolution of all images is very poor. Need better ones.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: Are Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 different?

A: Thank you for your suggestions. Yes sir, these two figures are different for interpretation like one for land use classification and other for land use areal statistics represented through pie diagram.     

 

R: Table 4, Table 5, Table 6, and Figure 4. I am not sure how these parts are meaningful. In part, it is associated with the study purpose. Make clear the study purposes and related with the mean center shifting and the similarity index. Otherwise, they are irrelevant.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. As per your comment table 6 is really irrelevant and that has been deleted. But table 4 and 5; and figure 4 are meaningful in my view.

The mean centers of the various land use and land cover elements' shifting distances and directions are displayed in Table 4. A key indicator of the geographic distribution of any feature is its mean center. For a group of features, it serves as the Geographic Center or Center of Concentration. The Mean Center can be used to compare the distribution of various features as well as track changes in a feature's distribution over time (https://glenbambrick.com/2017/03/21/calculating-the-mean-center/). Therefore, to depict the land use and land cover changes over time, mean centers of each land use and land cover element and their sifting distances and direction has been tabulated in Table 4.

Table 5 is showing the Jaccard Similarity coefficients of each land use and land cover element. In my view, land use and land cover changes are the outcome of interactions between existing land use and land cover elements steered by various driving factors. Therefore, measuring the similarities in changing pattern of land use and land cover elements is an essential approach to express the interactions between the elements.  

 

R: L. 427: Equation 15 should be descried in the METHODS section with proper reference.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

 

R: Table 9. It is confusing that all LULC types gain (a) and loss (b). Maybe joining a and b together is better way to know how much each LULC type changes over the time.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. I absolutely agree with reviewer’s suggestion in this regard. Following the manuscript preparation format and type setting styles of the esteemed journal, I have tried to do the same. But could not manage to furnish the table within the space. So, I have separated the accounts on Loss and Gain.  

 

R: Figure 5 and Table 13. I am not sure you can specify the cause and the effect with this diagram. And please, provide full name first, and use acronyms and they should be the same in the body text, figure, and table.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. Yes sir, by table 13 and figure 8 we can enumerate the cause and effect. The positive value of (ri-cj) indicates the cause and negative value of it indicates the effect by the plotting of (ri-cj) against (ri+cj) is depicting the same graphically.

Besides the full name of the acronyms has been mentioned in the text under section 2.2.4.

 

R: RESULTS section should be divided into multiple sub-sections for clarity.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. As the results have been studied as per each of the method used, to parity with methodology, multiple sub-sections have not done..

 

R: CONCLUSION section looks like a summary of the study.

A: Thank you for your suggestions. The issues have been fixed in the current version of the manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

It is suggested to be accepted for the publication after its revision with replies to all my comments.

Author Response

REVIEWER - R; ANSWER TO THE REVIEWER - A

R - It is suggested to be accepted for the publication after its revision with replies to all my comments.

A - Thank you very much for your very kind commet; we are extremely glad that we have been to reply to your valuable comments

 

Reviewer 2 Report

-The study purpose is not clear enough. Please check the way to present the equations ('where'). The origin of equations should be referenced in body texts. 

-Table 1 is missing.

-Where is Table 3a-d? The decimal degree between body texts and table 3 is different.

-Showing pie charts in Figure 3 are better than a table?

-Can't understand why the format of Tables is different?

-Table 6. How about the rate of accumulated changes from 1989 to 2019?

Author Response

REVIEWER - R; ANSWER TO THE REVIEWER - A

 

R - The study purpose is not clear enough. Please check the way to present the equations ('where'). The origin of equations should be referenced in body texts. 

A - Thank you very much for you valuable comment. The study purpose was reported in LINE 125-128 - The outcomes of this study represent a very useful tool for both hydrology and hydraulic researchers in the assessment of land use/cover impacts on the ecohydrological behaviour of both urban and natural watersheds.

All "where" have been corrected, and all equations have been referenced.

 

R - Table 1 is missing.

A - Thank you very much for you valuable comment. Table 1 has been corrected

 

R - Where is Table 3a-d? The decimal degree between body texts and table 3 is different.

A - Thank you very much for you valuable comment. Table 3 has been corrected

 

R - Showing pie charts in Figure 3 are better than a table?

A - Thank you very much for your valuable comment. A data table is obviously important to excavate the information in regard to this present study. However, for the visual understanding about the areal account the cartogram like ‘Pie chart’ has been implemented in this study. 

 

R - Can't understand why the format of Tables is different?

A - Thank you very much for you valuable comment. All Tables have been corrected