Understanding the Abandonment of Aquaculturists: A Case in the Amazon (North of Brazil)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Article is well written dealing with an important issue necessary for decision and policy makers due to socio-economic importance of aquaculture throughout the world. Research methodology is well documented and results are clearly presented and supportive to the conclusions of the work.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. The authors agree and thank the reviewer for his valuable contributions, which will be of fundamental importance for the future publication of the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have taken a meticulous look on the paper written by   Hungria et al., that describes the socio-economic challenges of aquaculturist leaving the sector and loopholes of government actions, production chain, technical assistance and advanced studies to restore the blue economy in the Amazon region of Brazil and the potential factors contributing to it.

 The study is very relevant in context of reviving the   aquaculture operations in the region once all the challenges faced by the fish farmers are adequately addressed by the concerned. The study design and results are well framed. The manuscript could be considered for acceptance after major revision. My observations about your manuscript are as follow.

1. The document does not provide information on the specific number of sources such as academic journal articles or reports from government institutions.

2.The author should also highlight about the information on the  risks and challenges associated with fish farming in region.

3. It would be worth to mention about the educational aspects of fish farming community in the sample survey. Moreover, the  gender issues in aquaculture value chains  should be also discussed. Importance of co-management should be discussed in the discussion and further the diversification of aquaculture species should be taken into account.

4. In fig.4  on  x axis, Spanish names are mentioned for aspects which is not understandable for the global readers.

5. The conclusion should be extended to sum-up the whole findings and future course of direction.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

ok

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. The authors agree and thank the reviewer for his valuable contributions, which will be of fundamental importance for the future publication of this manuscript. 
Comment1: With regard to the comments, we would like to inform you that the authors have partially accepted and included in the manuscript the suggestions contained in item 3. 

Response1: We have included in the manuscript, more specifically in table 3 which deals with the social profile of the aquaculture farmer, the educational aspects of the community by sampling as requested. Gender issues in aquaculture value chains have also been included in the discussion. 

Comment 2: With regard to the comments, we would like to inform you that the authors have taken on board and corrected the suggestion contained in item 4.

Answer 2: The legend on the x-axis of fig. 4 has been changed to English. 

Comment 3: With regard to the comments, we would like to inform you that the authors have accepted and corrected the suggestion contained in item 5.

Answer 3: We have included a summary of all the results in the manuscript, as well as guidelines for the future in the conclusion. 

Comment 4: In relation to what was requested in items 1 and 2, we would like to inform you that it was not very clear to the authors what we should include in the manuscript, but we intend to include the other information during the process of revising the article.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a value study of the mechanism of aquaculture ponds abandonment activity based on the practical investigation data. The results and analysis could provide valuable suggestions to the government so that the aquaculture activity provide sustainable services for the socio-economic.

 

While I have some major suggestions for promoting the manuscript:

1.      Try do a wider investigation about the abandonment of the aquaculture activity, such as throughout the world instead of just Brazil, and find out the most important contribution to the shared study community, then reorganized the Introduction and Discussion part according to this finding.

2.      Draw an abstract flowchart to illustrating the mechanism of abandonment activity and also the mechanism of the suggestions of the return.

 

I also have some minor suggestions:

1.      English expression instead of other languages should be checked throughout the manuscript, such as Figure 4.

2.      I didn’t recognize the relationship among subfigures of Figure 1. Some more details are needed. Land use or land cover data here is also important for analyzing, and should be figured.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This is a value study of the mechanism of aquaculture ponds abandonment activity based on the practical investigation data. The results and analysis could provide valuable suggestions to the government so that the aquaculture activity provide sustainable services for the socio-economic.

 

While I have some major suggestions for promoting the manuscript:

1.      Try do a wider investigation about the abandonment of the aquaculture activity, such as throughout the world instead of just Brazil, and find out the most important contribution to the shared study community, then reorganized the Introduction and Discussion part according to this finding.

2.      Draw an abstract flowchart to illustrating the mechanism of abandonment activity and also the mechanism of the suggestions of the return.

 

I also have some minor suggestions:

1.      English expression instead of other languages should be checked throughout the manuscript, such as Figure 4.

2.      I didn’t recognize the relationship among subfigures of Figure 1. Some more details are needed. Land use or land cover data here is also important for analyzing, and should be figured.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. The authors agree and thank the reviewer for his valuable contributions, which will be of fundamental importance for the future publication of this manuscript.

Comment 1: Regarding the observations, we inform that the authors accepted and included in the manuscript the suggestions contained in item 1.

Answer 1: We inform that we conducted a broader investigation in search of works around the world that deal with the subject of abandonment of aquaculture activity, from there we organized our introduction as well as the discussion of the manuscript.

Comment 2: Regarding the observations contained in item 2.

Answer 2: We inform that it was not very clear to the authors the inclusion of the flowchart to illustrate the mechanism of the abandonment activity and also the mechanism of the return suggestions.

Answer 3: Regarding the other suggestions.

Comment 3: The expression in English was checked and corrected throughout the manuscript.

Comment 4: Regarding the other items that were not met, we inform that it was not very clear to the authors, but we intend to include the other information throughout the article review process.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors have addressed  the comments,  and now this is suitable  for acceptance. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. The authors agree and thank the reviewer for his valuable contributions, which will be of fundamental importance for the future publication of this manuscript. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors didn't revise the manuscript well of the major suggestions I rose up.

 

Author Response

Response to reviewer 3 comments

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We are grateful that our article falls within the scope of your journal and we appreciate your contribution and critical analysis of reviewers to improve the quality of our paper.

 

 Reviewer #3:

This is a value study of the mechanism of aquaculture ponds abandonment activity based on the practical investigation data. The results and analysis could provide valuable suggestions to the government so that the aquaculture activity provide sustainable services for the socio-economic. While I have some major suggestions for promoting the manuscript:

 

• Try do a wider investigation about the abandonment of the aquaculture activity, such as throughout the world instead of just Brazil, and find out the most important contribution to the shared study community, then reorganized the Introduction and Discussion part according to this finding.

 

Answer: Thank you for pointing this out. Therefore, We inform that we conducted a broader investigation in search of works around the world that deal with the subject of abandonment of aquaculture activity, from there we organized our introduction, see lines 55 to 60. As well as the discussion of the manuscript, see lines 314 to 326.

 

• Draw an abstract flowchart to illustrating the mechanism of abandonment activity and also the mechanism of the suggestions of the return.

 

Answer: Thank you for your suggestion. We inform you that flowcharts included in the results, see (Figure 5) and (Figure 7) lines 239 and 270. To illustrate the mechanism of the abandonment activity and also the mechanism of the reentry suggestions.

 

• The English expression instead of other languages should be checked throughout the manuscript, such as Figure 4.

 

Answer: Thank you for your suggestion. We inform you that We inform you that we proofread the manuscript to correct possible errors in the translation into English such as Figure 4.

 

• I didn’t recognize the relationship among subfigures of Figure 1. Some more details are needed.

 

Answer: We inform you that subfigures of (Figure 1) referent to the maps Geographic location of the inactive fish farms,  are interconnected with each other.

 

• Land use or land cover data here is also important for analyzing, and should be figured.

 

Answer: Answer: Thank you for this interesting suggestion. Unfortunately, data relating to land use or land cover were not collected for this reason they were not analyzed.

 

We have considered all your reviewers’ comments. We have made corrections as well as we modify areas that were poorly described. We are grateful for your contribution and critical analysis to improve the quality of our paper. We hope the manuscript would be further considered for publication in Aquaculture Journal.

Sincerely.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No further suggestions.