Changes of Inundation Frequency in the Yellow River Delta and Its Response to Wetland Vegetation
, Hongyu Ji 2, Ping Li 3 and Shentang Dou 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I find the work interesting and useful, and may be of interest to scientists and technicians working on relations inundation frequency-wetland vegetation. The work falls within the scope of “Land”. It has a sufficient impact and it represents an advance in the subject matter.
I think that the content of the manuscript is scientifically correct, with a good bibliographic review, an adequate methodology, good results and discussion, and conclusions based on the results and that respond to the stated aims.
I can only comment on some formatting issues. I suggest the following changes:
1) The manuscript is not in journal “Land” format.
2) Lines 29-30: The keywords should not be in the title, to facilitate the operation of search engines. Please replace “inundation frequency”, “wetland vegetation” and “Yellow River Delta”.” with other words.
3) Bibliographic citations in the text are not in journal format.
4) Coordinates are required on the map.
For all the comments, I consider that the paper can be published in “Land” with minor changes.
Author Response
1) The manuscript is not in journal “Land” format.
We have rearranged the format of this manuscript.
2) Lines 29-30: The keywords should not be in the title, to facilitate the operation of search engines. Please replace “inundation frequency”, “wetland vegetation” and “Yellow River Delta”.” with other words.
We have clarified the keywords.
3) Bibliographic citations in the text are not in journal format.
We have revised the bibliographic citations meet the requirements of this journal.
4) Coordinates are required on the map.
We have added coordinates to the map.
For all the comments, I consider that the paper can be published in “Land” with minor changes.
We thank the reviewer for pointing this out.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, my corrections in the attached PDF.
All the best
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
In response to the comments and suggestions of the second reviewer, we have made detailed and in-depth amendments and improvements to the paper, supplemented what was not explained clearly, and added references. After careful consideration, most of these suggestions have been revised, while others have not been revised but few individual problems have not been revised but will explain the reasons.
1) We still use the word "inundation frequency" in the title. Because the word "flood frequency" gives people the information that rainfall brings flood water. The Yellow River Delta is more flooded by rising tides than by precipitation.
2) The reviewers suggested that each section should be supplemented with research limitations and research prospects. Considering the workload and actual research level, we added the deficiencies of the whole research and the future development direction we think at the end of the article, seeing this in the last paragraph of the Section 3 Results and Discussion, Line 356-363 of revised manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Manuscript #Land-1874365:
This article addresses an interesting research topic for me. It reveals the relationship between changes of inundation frequency and wetland vegetation distribution in the Yellow River Delta. It is a valuable application for big data analysts by the Google Earth Engine cloud platform. The paper is probably publishable but should be improved.
Question 1:
While discussing the frequency of water inundation in different years, the land use classification map is the same one that is based on the Landsat remote sensing image on July 17, 2020. However, the land use change is also evident in 10 years. So, should the land use results of the corresponding years be considered? Similarly, what year is the vegetation classification map based on? The author should give a reasonable explanation.
Question 2:
P.7 paragraph 3.2.2: Please give scientific references to the concept of erosion and accretion area. If the author defines it yourself, please seriously consider whether it is reasonable and put it in the method section.
Additional Comments:
1. Express and language problems:
It is recommended that the authors seek assistance to improve writing. Some English word habits and unclear expressions are difficult to understand. Furthermore, some references are cited incorrectly.
P.1 Line 14: “economic development scarcity in China coat”; coat? What do you want to express?
P.1 Line 18: “MLM” should be written as “the Maximum Likelihood Method (MLM)”.
P.2 Line 68-69: “The YRD is located on the northern coast of China adjacent to the Bohai Sea and one of the largest estuarine deltas in the world[28-29].” However, the references 28 and 29 haven’t expressed this viewpoint.
P.2 Line 81-83: “the area of natural wetlands reaches 1000km2, accounting for 20% of the land area of Dongying, and the area of constructed wetlands reaches 1300km2, accounting for 25%.” The land area of Dongying is 8243 km2 on the official website(http://www.dongying.gov.cn/). So, of 5000 km2, 5200 km2, and 8243 km2, which is the exact land area of Dongying City?
P.11 Line 299 and 301, could you please label the latitude and longitude information of the station?
2. Tables and Figures:
Fig. 2 “Water boby” should rewrite as “Water body”.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
This article addresses an interesting research topic for me. It reveals the relationship between changes of inundation frequency and wetland vegetation distribution in the Yellow River Delta. It is a valuable application for big data analysts by the Google Earth Engine cloud platform. The paper is probably publishable but should be improved.
Question 1:
While discussing the frequency of water inundation in different years, the land use classification map is the same one that is based on the Landsat remote sensing image on July 17, 2020. However, the land use change is also evident in 10 years. So, should the land use results of the corresponding years be considered? Similarly, what year is the vegetation classification map based on? The author should give a reasonable explanation.
We thank the reviewer for pointing this question out. For the rapidly changes of the Yellow River Delta, it is very common that land cover has changed in 10 years. So, the spatial distribution information of natural wetland and constructed wetland was interpreted from the Landsat images of the corresponding years. In 3.4 section, the spatial distributions of the vegetation were obtained by interpreting the Landsat image in 2020. We have supplemented these important informations in the revised manuscript.
Question 2:
P.7 paragraph 3.2.2: Please give scientific references to the concept of erosion and accretion area. If the author defines it yourself, please seriously consider whether it is reasonable and put it in the method section.
We thank the reviewer for pointing this question out. The shoreline used to calculate erosion and accretion area was extracted from the Landsat images of the corresponding year.
Additional Comments:
- Express and language problems:
It is recommended that the authors seek assistance to improve writing. Some English word habits and unclear expressions are difficult to understand. Furthermore, some references are cited incorrectly.
P.1 Line 14: “economic development scarcity in China coat”; coat? What do you want to express?
We apologize for our error. The correct word should be “coast”
P.1 Line 18: “MLM” should be written as “the Maximum Likelihood Method (MLM)”.
We have updated.
P.2 Line 68-69: “The YRD is located on the northern coast of China adjacent to the Bohai Sea and one of the largest estuarine deltas in the world[28-29].” However, the references 28 and 29 haven’t expressed this viewpoint.
We have updated the references.
P.2 Line 81-83: “the area of natural wetlands reaches 1000km2, accounting for 20% of the land area of Dongying, and the area of constructed wetlands reaches 1300km2, accounting for 25%.” The land area of Dongying is 8243 km2 on the official website(http://www.dongying.gov.cn/). So, of 5000 km2, 5200 km2, and 8243 km2, which is the exact land area of Dongying City?
The percentage value should be 12.1% and 15.7%. We apologize for our error.
P.11 Line 299 and 301, could you please label the latitude and longitude information of the station?
We have added the latitude and longitude information of the station.
- Tables and Figures:
Fig. 2 “Water boby” should rewrite as “Water body”.
We have revised the figure.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
