Multiscale Analysis of the Effects of Landscape Pattern on the Trade-Offs and Synergies of Ecosystem Services in Southern Zhejiang Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The research on the effects of landscape ecological patterns on ecosystem services has important academic value. This paper has done exploration with the mountainous areas in southern Zhejiang Province as the research area, but there are still some issues that need to be explained and supplemented. The details are as follows:
1. The scientific issues studied in this paper are not clear. What has been improved, proposed, and verified need to be further condensed and summarized.
2. The research on trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem services and their scale effects has been extensively carried out by scholars. There is no innovation in theory, methods, and other aspects of this article, and its characteristics are not prominent.
3. The author needs to provide sufficient reasons for choosing five ecosystem services, such as food production, carbon sequencing, flood mitigation, water conservation, and soil retention, over other services.
4. There is great uncertainty in simply linking food production calculations to NPP. After all, not all vegetation NPP is a source of food production.
5. The author has introduced many empirical models when calculating ecosystem services. The background of these models has not been explained, and whether they are suitable for the study area needs to be fully demonstrated. In addition, the selection of parameters in the formula also requires a basis.
6. What are the reasons why the author chose 7 landscape pattern metrics instead of other indexes? It needs to be explained. In addition, the ecological significance of these landscape pattern indices also needs to be briefly explained.
7. What is the basis for adopting natural fracture classification for ecosystem service value in the paper? （Table 1）
8. Necessary explanations should be provided for the research results, such as the reasons for the significant differences in ecosystem service tradeoffs at different scales.
9. Like the previous question, the author only demonstrated the relationship between the landscape ecological index and the tradeoff category through regression analysis, but actually did not analyze how the landscape pattern index had an effect on tradeoff synergy.
10. From the perspective of the research topic, it should be the impact of landscape pattern on ecosystem service trade-off synergy, but it seems that the paper has made the impact of ecosystem service trade-off synergy on landscape pattern.
11. The discussion needs to be strengthened and the reference value of research conclusions for similar issues summarized.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
By simulating multiple ecosystem services, the authors explored the coupling relationships between them at different scales, and further attempted to explain the scale effects of coupling relationships by combining landscape pattern. The topic selection is obviously innovative, and the conclusions can serve the relevant policy planning. However, some methods used in this study are not clearly described and their rationality remains to be discussed. And the conclusions need to be further condensed. Specific suggestions are as follows:
Abstract
Line 20-27 The main conclusions obtained need to be further refined to enhance the logic of expression. Piling up too many results will increase the difficulty of understanding.
Introduction
Line 38 I suggest to add a description of the existing research on the impact of landscape pattern on TOSs here.
Line 47-48 There have been many studies on the TOSs scale effect, It is not appropriate here to say "results based on these methods did not reveal the spatial differentiation of ESs relationships". Same problem in Line 72.
Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) is the most direct and effective means of human intervention in ecosystem. Ecosystem services largely depend on underlying surface types. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the relationship between scale effect of TOSs and landscape pattern to explain the causes of scale effect and guide human to optimize TOSs. I think this is probably the main highlight of this article. It is suggested to sort out the logic of the introduction and highlight scientific problems and academic contributions..
Study area and meterials
Line 99 Unit in "RMB0.59 trillion" is proposed to be changed to "billion".
Line 104 "Thus, there are still ecological and environmental problems such as soil erosion and forest ecosystem degradation due to human activities ", were the ecological and environmental problems caused by the rapid development since 2020?
Method
Line 141 and 150 Can these formulas be used to calculate the pixel scale results?
Line 160 How to calculate α?
Line 172 How to calculate Qfm?
Line 178 It looks like Pi is the runoff without vegetation cover according to Line 176, does the precipitation equal to the surface runoff without vegetation cover such as bare land?
Section 3.1.5 Is the calculation formula in this section proposed by the author for the first time or from existing research? If so, please state the source.
Section 3.2 Need to explain what PD, COHE and SHDI stand for, the calculation method, and what the values represent?
Line 196 Title of section 3.3 only mentioned trade-offs, how about synergies?
Line 214 Are the percentages of different LULC types independent variables?
Line 217 Xn seems not a metrics. I don't know if I understand correctly, X =[X1, X2... Xn], and X is the landscape metrics, n=7?
Results
Fig.2 Is there only high, medium and low in the figure? If so, the legend can be displayed in an independent form of three color.
Section 4.4 Whether the influences of different land use types on strong trade-offs and weak trade-offs are independent. For example, "Forest% was found to have a positive correlation with the weak trade-offs." Is it because "Forest% had a negative impact on the strong trade-offs ", which indicated the trade-offs was weaken at town scale. The strong trade-offs ", which indicated the trade-offs was weaken at town scale. It is suggested that the content of this section should be further summarized.
Discussion
Line 348-350 Does that mean the synergy is weaker?
Section 5.1 Are the "strong trade-offs" and "weak trade-offs" independent of each other, and does it make sense to discuss their variations separately?
Line 445 What does "detailed scale analysis" include in specific?
Conclusion
Line 455-456 The relationships of FP-CS, FP-FM, FP-WC and FP-SR were trade-offs, while the other ESs types were synergies “on all scales”?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an excellent report dealing with critical technical aspects using remote sensing data to estimate regional blue-green infrastructure. I found no particular shortcomings with the methods, data analysis, or conclusions. My comments here are solely concerned with the following points. Consideration of these points will, I believe, lead to an improved report that better illustrates the key relationships and clarify the communication of conclusions.
1. page 2 line 83 "high-quality development ......." Unclear. I am not sure what it means here - does it refer to low-density development land use like residential or other types of land use?
2. page 3 line 98: I suggest adding "above sea level" right after "0 m" as this is a common practice in scientific writing. Also, why is the MC of Zhejiang not shown on the elevation map? Showing the MC on the elevation map would give readers a clearer sense of its location in Zhejiang Province.
3. page 6 4.1. section text section needs to add "as shown in (a) or (b) sub-figure" to improve communication clarity.
5. page 8 Figure 4 I understand that the county boundaries are shown to give readers the necessary background. But, shouldn't other boundaries such as watershed boundaries and towns on (c) be shown?
6. page 9 Figure 5 The Sankey visualization needs more explanation. For example, width represents a flow volume, etc.
7. page 13 5.3. line 431: What kind of operational options could the hierarchical governance of ESs take from this research?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
After modification, the article has been significantly improved.Only a few minor issues need further revision.
Line 226 Qfc, Qlc and Qrc can all calculate the results on the raster scale. How Qfm obtains the results on the raster scale, please explain further.
Table1 Explain the meaning of each parameter in the calculation formula.
Figure2 Please add units to the legend.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments (Round 2)
1.Line 226 Qfc, Qlc and Qrc can all calculate the results on the raster scale. How Qfm obtains the results on the raster scale, please explain further.
Response: Thank you for your comments. The raster calculation results of Qfc, Qlc and Qrc were applied to the raster calculator in arcgis10.2 for raster superposition to obtain Qfm. We have added the explanation in Line 215.
2. Table1 Explain the meaning of each parameter in the calculation formula.
Response: Thank you for your kind reminding. We have explained the meaning of each parameter in the calculation formula after the table.
3. Figure2 Please add units to the legend.
Response: Thank you for your advice. We have added units to the legend.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
