Identifying the Landscape Security Pattern in Karst Rocky Desertification Area Based on Ecosystem Services and Ecological Sensitivity: A Case Study of Guanling County, Guizhou Province

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors.

I am grateful for the opportunity to review the article "Construction of the landscape security pattern in karst rocky desertification area based on ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity: A case study of Guanling County, Guizhou Province".

The article is interesting and relevant. However, in general, the article needs to be improved.

I had the following questions while reviewing the article:

1. Figure 1 contains an error in drawing the coordinate grid. Obviously, the geographical map of China and the study area should have its own coordinate grid.

2. Give data sources (lines 108, 110)

3. Bring references to a single style - []. Check for formatting errors (line 111, 117, 159, etc.)

4. Justify the relevance of the reference to the article [23], which was retracted because it contains errors?

5. List all programs you used in section 2 (lines 222, 224). Please provide links to them.

6. Move the "Conclusion" section after the "Discussion" section.

7. Significantly expand the "Discussion" section.

 

The article can be accepted after elimination of remarks.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

We are very grateful for your suggestions on the revision of the article "Construction of the landscape security pattern in karst rocky desertification area based on ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity: A case study of Guanling County, Guizhou Province". Your suggestions are very important to us. We have revised the article according to your suggestions. While expressing our gratitude, we respond to your questions and suggestions as follows:

1. Figure 1 contains an error in drawing the coordinate grid. Obviously, the geographical map of China and the study area should have its own coordinate grid.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have standardized the drawing in this article.

2. Give data sources (lines 108, 110)

Thank for your comments, and we have explained the data source in the article. For your convenience, we have marked it with yellow background in this article and relevant descriptions are as follows:

(1) Land use data: derived from the results of the third national land survey (the third national land survey) in Guanling County, according to the land use classification system of the third national land survey (land use status classification GB/T21010-2017) the data are divided into seven categories.

(2) DEM data: obtained from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Data Sharing Center (https://www.resdc.cn/), with a resolution of 30 m, and using ArcGIS10.8 surface analysis to extract slope data.

(3) NDVI data: from National Ecological Science Data Center (http://www.nesdc.org.cn/), with a resolution of 30 m.

(4) Rocky desertification data: rocky desertification data from Xiong et al, and corrected by visual interpretation of remote sensing and field survey observations.

3. Bring references to a single style - []. Check for formatting errors (line 111, 117, 159, etc.)

Thank you very much for your question. Due to the lack of careful review, we have rechecked the format of the article and revised it according to the format of your journal submission.

4. Justify the relevance of the reference to the article [23], which was retracted because it contains errors?

We are very sorry that such errors have occurred due to the lack of rigorous references. After our review, we found that this document has indeed been withdrawn. We have removed this document from the manuscript. Thank you very much for your suggestion to make our chapter more rigorous.

5.List all programs you used in section 2 (lines 222, 224). Please provide links to them.

For the procedure steps and links in Section 2, we have explained them in detail in this article. For your convenience, we have marked them with yellow background in this article. The modification is as follows:

Based on the Guidos software, this paper examines the landscape structure of Guanling county by MSPA. The forestland, grassland, water area, cultivated land and garden land in the seven types of land use in the study area are used as the foreground data, and the other types are used as background data to extract the core areas. All values are binarized and imported into Guidos Toolbox software for MSPA analysis of the images using the eight-neighborhood analysis method.Then use Conefor 2.6 software (http://www.conefor.org/), proposed by Saura and Torne (2009), was used to calculate dPC of the core area.

The specific steps are as follows:

1. The land use datawas reclassified , and the water area, forest land, grassland and garden foreground were set as 1, and the other types were set as background for binary processing.

 

  2.Load the data exported from ArcGIS into Confor2.6 for calculation.

 

3. The regional MSPA can be analyzed in Confor 2.6.

 

。

 4.Finally, the map analyzed by MSPA was saved for importing into Arcgis. Then classify the landscape types to get the landscape distribution of the study area.

6.Move the "Conclusion" section after the "Discussion" section.

Thank you for your suggestion. After our further discussion and research, we found that the "discussion" link was placed above the "conclusion" link, and the article structure was more perfect. Your suggestion makes the structure of our article more precise.(lines 319~343). Modifications as follows （The areas marked with yellow are the contents we have modified）:

 

3.6 Discussion

This study combines ecosystem service values and landscape connectivity to determine ES, which is more scientific than previous methods and avoids subjective selection of ES. According to the particular topography and geomorphology in the study area and considering the influence of various factors on regional development, the five evaluation factors of rocky desertification degree, land use, NDVI, DEM and slope are selected to analyze the sensitivity of the study area. The selection of indicators takes into account the geomorphological characteristics of the karst region, which provides a more scientific basis for the construction of the comprehensive resistance surface and the extraction of EC in the study area.    

According to the result form this research we suggest that the protection of the core source area should first be strengthened in the process of ecological land use planning. The ES is the key part of the region. The ecological source area in Guanling County is small, with low proportion and scattered distribution, which is very unfavorable for the exchange of materials in the region. It should be protected in the landscape planning process and development and construction should be prohibited. Secondly, EC should be established, native species should be used as much as possible, a and corresponding widths should be set according to the source distribution and the topographic and geomorphic characteristics of the study area to promote species migration and minimize artificial facilities. An organic combination of the EC identified in this study and the original corridor to form an EC system can improve landscape connectivity between patches. In the corridor planning, the potential corridors identified in this study can be organically combined with the original corridors; important EC can be built in combination with the current corridors to enhance the connectivity between the corridors and the source sites; the construction of general EC can be combined with some scattered fragmented patches, using the existing spatial pattern to increase the connectivity between the source sites. Thirdly, we should focus on restoration of landscape patches. The general landscape of Guanling County is relatively fragmented. In the planning process, we should focus on reconstruction and restoration of landscape patches in poor patch connectivity and high ecological sensitivity area to minimize human interference.

4. Conclusion

This research selected five factors of land use type, DEM, slope, NDVI and rocky desertification to analyze the ecological sensitivity of Guanling county in Guizhou Province with ArcGIS10.8 software. Through the superposition of various factors, the distribution status of the ecological sensitivity of Guanling county was obtained. Based on the natural breakpoint method, the calculation results were divided into five grades: insensitive, mildly sensitive, moderately sensitive, highly sensitive and extremely sensitive, and the distributions of 7 landscape types (core, islet, perforation, branch, bridge, edge, loop) in the study area were identified. The core area was the main landscape in the study area and an important habitat for species. The total core area was 608.61 Km2, accounting for 65.73% of the ecological landscape area, with a wide distribution range. Using Conefor 2.6 software, the dPC index value of each patch was calculated, and the distribution of landscape connectivity in Guanling County was obtained and divided into four grades: extremely high, high, medium and low. The results show that the very high and high connectivity patches in Guanling County had an area of 518.26km2 , accounting for 35.82% of the total area, and were mainly distributed in the central, western and eastern parts of the study area; the medium and low connectivity patches had an area of 929.04 km2, accounting for 64.20% of the total area, and were mainly distributed in the northern and southern parts of the study area, with a relatively large area share and wide distribution. The landscape fragmentation of Guanling county was serious, and the connectivity was poor. According to the overlay of ecosystem service importance, ecological sensitivity and landscape connectivity in Guanling County, 10 ES were obtained with an area of 387.48km2 , accounting for 26.78% of the total area of the county. Using the distance analysis tool in ArcGIS10.8, combined with the comprehensive resistance surface of the study area, the minimum consumption distance between each ecological source point was calculated, and a total of 45 EC were obtained. The maximum resistance value was 2.06 and the minimum resistance value was 0.23, among which 20 ECs had resistance values over 1. Based on the gravity model, the interaction matrix between 10 ES was constructed to quantitatively evaluate the magnitude of the interaction forces between the source sites and identify the important EC and general EC in Guanling County. ES and EC together constituted the ELSP of Guanling county. In the southwest part of the study area, the connectivity of landscape patches was relatively poor, the distribution of ES was limited, and the sensitivity was high. In future planning and construction efforts, we should focus on ecological protection of this area and reduce human interference. However, there are still shortcomings in the study: for the study of EC in the study area is mainly based on the minimum cost distance, the width of the corridor is determined by many factors together, influenced by topography, climate change, etc. In this study, the article does not study the width of the corridor in detail because we are limited by the data acquisition and, at the same time, there is not enough time to conduct detailed experiments. The width of the corridor has an important impact on the ecological function of the landscape . Future research will address these inadequacies to improve the scientific accuracy of the study.

7. Significantly expand the "Discussion" section.

Based on the suggestions given by the editor and reviewer, the content of our article has been modified. We have extended the discussion part of the article to make it more readable and already shown the discussion part in the answer to question 6, and will not repeat it here.

Finally, thank you again for your suggestions on the revision of our manuscript, which is very important for improving the quality of our article.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The purpose of the paper is to present the methods and results used in identifying the ecological landscape security pattern (ELSP) in Guanling county, Guizhou Province, and to propose suggestions for planning of ecological restoration of Guanling county, and environmental protection of the karst region.

The main contribution and strength of this research paper, as the authors claimed, are in using of “… five influencing factors (land use type, digital elevation model (DEM), rocky desertification degree, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and slope) and 3S technology to obtain the distribution of the importance and sensitivity values of ecosystem services in Guanling county”, a typical karst region in Guizhou Province, China.

Overall, the authors did very good jobs in mapping and analyses of the geographical features and land use and land cover data. Several landscape ecological concepts and models were introduced into their research. As the authors stated in their conclusions that, however, there are some areas of weakness in these analyses. My suggestions to the authors for improvement of this manuscript are:

1) The title of this article needs to be modified. The word ‘construction’ should to be replaced using other word, such as “identifying”, or “Mapping of the …”. This is because the landscape patterns are naturally existing as part of the structures and functions of the natural ecosystems in that region. You didn’t build or make these natural patterns (i.e., the ES, patches, ecological corridors, core areas, etc.) on the ground. Your research work was just to explore and identify those landscape components, and illustrate their spatial relationships and patterns using GIS tools. You “make” the maps to show the patterns, but you didn’t do any ‘construction’ of the patterns physically in any area of the region.  Thus, ‘construction’ seems not to be a proper word to be used in this manuscript. It does not match what you presented in your manuscript.

2) The ecological sensitivity level assignment analysis (Table 2) needs to be re-considered, especially, for the assessments on the land use types, in combinations of their slopes, DEM, and NDVIs. As the authors already realized that these exercises were “subjective and lacks accuracy”.  The assessment results are fundamental for your research. I think this step could be modified and re-assessed to improve the quality of the manuscript.

3) On the “2.3.3 Construction of ecological resistance surface”

The Table 3 in this section needs to be re-formatted, as the ‘Sensitivity Level’ is not always as positive with the ‘Relative Resistance Values’. I suggest the authors to review in details on the concepts and modeling of ecological resilience. As well, the authors themselves pointed out that “the comprehensive resistance surface in their work is mainly based on the sensitivity of the study area, and some human factors, such as road distance, river network distance and residential area, are not taken into account.” Depend on the spatial scales of your analyses, some of these factors may be easily included in your analyses. The river network, for example, may be included as part of your ‘landscape connectivity analysis’ in this manuscript.

4) The authors stated in this manuscript that “In this study, the length and width of the corridor are not analyzed, and the linear corridor of the study area is obtained based on the minimum cost distance”. This might be an issue if the length of the ecological corridors were not counted in the landscape connectivity analysis. It should be fixed and re-assessed for mapping and improving the ELSP.

5) The Figure 8 needs to be explained in detail on the ecological importance of those analysed ecological corridors. What are the levels of differences between the ‘General ecological corridors’ and the ‘important ecological corridors’? The general landscape patterns of Guabling Country are controlled by geomorphology. The pattern in Figure 8 should be described in detail in your manuscript as this is the most important product of your research.

6) Generally speaking, both of the two sections of ‘discussions’ and the ‘conclusions’ need to be improved with more contents on your results and recommendations for the ecological planning, ecological reconstruction,  and environmental protection in Guanling County.

7) I suggest that this manuscript to be checked and re-written by a professional English writer, in order to improve the quality as an English language paper.

8) The last, but not the least, I would suggest that authors move the ‘Discussion’ session above the ‘Conclusion’ session.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

We are very grateful for your suggestions on the revision of the article "Construction of the landscape security pattern in karst rocky desertification area based on ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity: A case study of Guanling County, Guizhou Province". Your suggestions are very important to us. We have revised the article according to your suggestions. While expressing our gratitude, we respond to your questions and suggestions as follows:

• The title of this article needs to be modified. The word ‘construction’ should to be replaced using other word, such as “identifying”, or “Mapping of the …”. This is because the landscape patterns are naturally existing as part of the structures and functions of the natural ecosystems in that region. You didn’t build or make these natural patterns (i.e., the ES, patches, ecological corridors, core areas, etc.) on the ground. Your research work was just to explore and identify those landscape components, and illustrate their spatial relationships and patterns using GIS tools. You “make” the maps to show the patterns, but you didn’t do any ‘construction’ of the patterns physically in any area of the region.  Thus, ‘construction’ seems not to be a proper word to be used in this manuscript. It does not match what you presented in your manuscript.

We appreciate your suggestions. As you said, the landscape patterns are naturally existing as part of the structures and functions of the natural ecosystems in that region. We research work was just to explore and identify those landscape components, and illustrated their spatial relationships and patterns using GIS tools. So we listened to your suggestion and changed the title of our article to: Identification of landscape security pattern in karst rocky desertification areas based on ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity.

• The ecological sensitivity level assignment analysis(Table 2) needs to be re-considered, especially, for the assessments on the land use types, in combinations of their slopes, DEM, and NDVIs. As the authors already realized that these exercises were “subjective and lacks accuracy”. The assessment results are fundamental for your research. I think this step could be modified and re-assessed to improve the quality of the manuscript.

As you said, there are some disputes about the grade distribution of ecological sensitivity in the article, and the rationality and accuracy of indicator evaluation is very important for our subsequent research. After receiving your suggestions, we discussed the ecological sensitivity grade assignment of the study area again during this period, and finally revised the sensitivity grade assignment in the article with reference to the existing research,. For your convenience, we have marked the manuscript with yellow background, and modify it as follows:

 

Table 2. Ecological environment sensitivity evaluation factor classifications and weights

Sensitivity assignment	NDVI	DEM/m	Slope/。	Land use type	Rocky desertification
1	≤0.35	≤500	≤5	Construction Land	Extremely strong rocky desertification
3	(0.35，0.50]	(500，800]	(5，15]	Other land	Intense rocky desertification
5	(0.50，0.65]	(800，1100]	(15，25]	Cultivated land	Moderate rocky desertification
7	(0.65，0.75]	(1100，1500]	(25，35]	Grassland and Garden land	Mild rocky desertification
9	>0.75	>1500	>35	Forestland and Water body	No rocky desertification

 

We mainly redistribute the grades of NDVI, rocky desertification degree and land use type. In general, the higher the vegetation cover was, the higher the survival of wildlife was. Therefore, NDVI and land use type is positively correlated with the ecological sensitivity level. The level of rocky desertification is an important aspect of regional background conditions, reflecting the current situation of regional rocky desertification. The ecological environment of regions with high level of rocky desertification is poor, but tends to be stable and low sensitivity. On the contrary, once the regions with low level of rocky desertification are damaged, the ecological environment will become poor and sensitive.

3) On the “2.3.3 Construction of ecological resistance surface”

The Table 3 in this section needs to be re-formatted, as the ‘Sensitivity Level’ is not always as positive with the ‘Relative Resistance Values’. I suggest the authors to review in details on the concepts and modeling of ecological resilience. As well, the authors themselves pointed out that “the comprehensive resistance surface in their work is mainly based on the sensitivity of the study area, and some human factors, such as road distance, river network distance and residential area, are not taken into account.” Depend on the spatial scales of your analyses, some of these factors may be easily included in your analyses. The river network, for example, may be included as part of your ‘landscape connectivity analysis’ in this manuscript.

As you said, the ‘Sensitivity Level’ is not always as positive with the ‘Relative Resistance Values’. In our research process, some human factors are easily included. Our team reconsidered the resistance factors in the study area, based on previous studies, seven indicators were selected from landscape, topography and human interference, including elevation, slope, landscape type, degree of stone desertification, distance from rivers, distance from settlements and distance from roads, as resistance factors for the outward expansion of ecological sources, and these resistance factors were assigned resistance values. We have revised this content in the original text.(lines 171~178). In order to facilitate your reference, we have marked it with a yellow background in the manuscript. The modified results are as follows:

Table 3. Ecological resistance surface evaluation system

Resistance value	Distance from river/m	Distance from the settlement/m	Distance from road/m	Degree of stone desertification	Landscape type	Elevation/m	Slope/。
1	≤500	>1000	≤1000	No rocky desertification	Forestland and Water body	≤500	≤5
3	(500，1000]	(1000，800]	(500，1000]	Mild rocky desertification	Grassland and Garden land	(500，800]	(5，10]
5	(1000，1500]	(800，500]	(200，500]	Moderate rocky desertification	Cultivated land	(800，1100]	(10，15]
7	(1500，2000]	(200，500]	(100，200]	Intense rocky desertification	Other land	(1100，1500]	(15，25]
9	>2000	≤200	≤100	Extremely strong rocky desertification	Cultivated land	>1500	>25

 

4）The authors stated in this manuscript that “In this study, the length and width of the corridor are not analyzed, and the linear corridor of the study area is obtained based on the minimum cost distance”. This might be an issue if the length of the ecological corridors were not counted in the landscape connectivity analysis. It should be fixed and re-assessed for mapping and improving the ELSP.

Thank you for your very important suggestions, which have played an important role in the improvement of the paper. As you said, in the corridor analysis, the length and width of the corridor are very important. According to your suggestion, we reanalyze the ecological corridor and calculate the length of the corridor in the study area. However, the width of the corridor is determined by many factors, such as topography and climate change. In this study, due to the limitations of data acquisition and insufficient time for detailed experiments, the article does not conduct a detailed study of the width of the corridor. However, in the next study, we will conduct a special study on this issue to increase the scientific and accuracy of the study.

5）The Figure 8 needs to be explained in detail on the ecological importance of those analysed ecological corridors. What are the levels of differences between the ‘General ecological corridors’ and the ‘important ecological corridors’? The general landscape patterns of Guabling Country are controlled by geomorphology. The pattern in Figure 8 should be described in detail in your manuscript as this is the most important product of your research.

Thank you for your very important suggestions, which have played an important role in the improvement of the paper. Indeed Xiao S C et al.(2020); Jin X X et al,(2021); These problems are analyzed in the research of. In the identification of ecological corridors, the interaction between patches is a very important analysis element, but our analysis is not rigorous and deep enough. The general ecological corridor and the important ecological corridor in the original text are distinguished according to the resistance value of the potential corridor. In order to make the research more scientific, we used gravity model to further analyze the data in the revised draft, and calculated the interaction between various ecological sources, so as to identify important ecological corridors and general ecological corridors. In order to facilitate your reference, we have marked the modified contents of this part in yellow.(lines 194~203). The modifications are as follows:

 

Table 6.Interaction matrix between sources based on gravity model calculations

Number of source	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	0	23.556	4.1539	4.7667	4.765	8.9556	7.954	9.5467	43.4106	19.5628
2		0	7.0123	8.5573	4.9466	24.6238	24.6462	21.9493	6.4892	23.4465
3			0	22.3342	17.3254	16.2479	32.0352	10.4792	2.2473	4.4374
4				0	19.6368	12.927	32.9607	8.1683	2.2863	3.911
5					0	10.362	16.8525	7.2889	2.4914	3.4039
6						0	78.5538	168.1243	3.9237	17.3001
7							0	30.9580	3.5073	9.6917
8								0	5.3442	39.4447
9									0	9.4984
10

As you said, Guanling County, as a typical karst region, its landscape security pattern is an important part of our study, which should be described in detail in the article. We according to the topographic and geomorphological characteristics of Guanling County, combined with existing studies, seven indicators of elevation, slope, landscape type, degree of stone desertification, distance from rivers, distance from settlements, and distance from roads were selected as resistance factors for the outward expansion of ecological sources, and the resistance values were assigned to these seven resistance factors by grade respectively. Using the reclassification tool in ArcGIS10.8 to derive the resistance surface of 7 single factors, and then superimpose these 7 types of factors to find the mean value to get the comprehensive resistance surface distribution map of Guanling County . Combined with the importance of gravity model to identify potential ecological corridors, the ecological landscape security pattern (ELSP.) finally constructed was expanded and analyzed. For your convenience, we have marked the article with yellow background.(275~312) 

The modifications are as follows：

3.4 Comprehensive resistance surface and ES 

Using the reclassification tool in ArcGIS10.8 to derive the resistance surface of 7 single factors, and then superimpose these 7 types of factors to find the mean value to get the comprehensive resistance surface distribution map of Guanling County (Figure 7). The result shown that high resistance area is mainly located in the north, central and south of Guanling County, and the patches in this area are fragmented and the landscape connectivity is poor. The low resistance areas are mainly located in the western and southern fringes, where the landscape connectivity is relatively good and consists mainly of woodlands and grasslands. The selection of ES sites is based on the analysis of ecosystem service importance, ecological sensitivity and landscape connectivity in Guanling County, and the ecosystem service importance, ecological sensitivity and landscape connectivity are divided into four levels: very high, high, medium and low, respectively. And patches with two levels, very high and high after overlaid analysis with ArcGIS, were selected as ecological source sites. Finally, 10 ES were obtained, with an area of 387.48km², accounting for 26.78% of the total area. As far as the landscape components are concerned, the source sites are mainly woodlands,waters and grasslands, and the ecological values of construction land and bare land are relatively low, mostly non-source sites. In terms of distribution area, the southwest region of Guanling County has less distribution, while the central, western and eastern regions have more distribution. The distribution of ES is fragmented, and there are many fine patches in the area, with poor inter-patch connectivity and high landscape fragmentation, which is very unfavorable for species dispersal.

3.5 EC identification and ELSP construction

EC are the links between each ecological source and the pathways of material flow, allowing species to avoid disturbance during migration. According to the result of ecological source distribution, using the distance analysis tool in ArcGIS10.8, combined with the comprehensive resistance surface of the study area, the minimum consumption distance between the ecological source points in the study area are calculated, and a total of 45 EC are obtained. The total length of EC is 509.78km, the maximum resistance value is 2.06 and the minimum resistance value is 0.23. 20 of these ECs have resistance values above 1. Based on the gravity model, the interaction matrix between the 10 ecological source sites was constructed (Table 6), which can quantitatively evaluate the magnitude of the interaction between the source sites and discern the importance of potential EC, and the corridors with interaction forces greater than 10 was identified as important EC, while the rest were general EC. The interaction between source 6 and source 8 is the largest with 168.1243, which indicates that the material exchange and transportation between the two sources is more convenient and less costly. And the interaction between source 3 and 9 is the smallest at 2.2473, which indicates that the exchange between the two sources requires a higher cost distance and a higher difficulty factor for material exchange and transportation. The ELSP is mainly composed of , ecological nodes and EC. Under certain social, economic development and ecological protection conditions, this pattern plays an important role in the regional ecosystem. The ELSP of Guanling county is composed of ES and EC

6）Generally speaking, both of the two sections of ‘discussions’ and the ‘conclusions’ need to be improved with more contents on your results and recommendations for the ecological planning, ecological reconstruction,and environmental protection in Guanling County.

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions on our article. During the revision process, we expanded the discussion part of the article. The modifications are as follows：

3.6 Discussion

This study combines ecosystem service values and landscape connectivity to determine ES, which is more scientific than previous methods and avoids subjective selection of ES. According to the particular topography and geomorphology in the study area and considering the influence of various factors on regional development, the five evaluation factors of rocky desertification degree, land use, NDVI, DEM and slope are selected to analyze the sensitivity of the study area. The selection of indicators takes into account the geomorphological characteristics of the karst region, which provides a more scientific basis for the construction of the comprehensive resistance surface and the extraction of EC in the study area.    

According to the result form this research we suggest that the protection of the core source area should first be strengthened in the process of ecological land use planning. The ES is the key part of the region. The ecological source area in Guanling County is small, with low proportion and scattered distribution, which is very unfavorable for the exchange of materials in the region. It should be protected in the landscape planning process and development and construction should be prohibited. Secondly, EC should be established, native species should be used as much as possible, a and corresponding widths should be set according to the source distribution and the topographic and geomorphic characteristics of the study area to promote species migration and minimize artificial facilities. An organic combination of the EC identified in this study and the original corridor to form an EC system can improve landscape connectivity between patches. In the corridor planning, the potential corridors identified in this study can be organically combined with the original corridors; important EC can be built in combination with the current corridors to enhance the connectivity between the corridors and the source sites; the construction of general EC can be combined with some scattered fragmented patches, using the existing spatial pattern to increase the connectivity between the source sites. Thirdly, we should focus on restoration of landscape patches. The general landscape of Guanling County is relatively fragmented. In the planning process, we should focus on reconstruction and restoration of landscape patches in poor patch connectivity and high ecological sensitivity area to minimize human interference.

• 我建议这篇手稿由专业的英语作家检查和重写，以提高英语论文的质量。

我们对修订版进行了润色和修改，以提高文章的英文质量

• 最后但并非最不重要的一点是，我建议作者将“讨论”环节移到“结论”环节之上。

感谢您的宝贵建议。经过我们进一步讨论研究，发现“讨论”链接放在“结论”链接之上，文章结构更加完善。（第319~343行）

最后再次感谢大家。您的建议对我们的文章修改意义重大

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The study constructed the landscape security pattern in the karst rocky desertification area based on ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity and found some positive impacts. The following changes need to be incorporated, i.e.,

1) Introduction: Add possible research questions, and link them with the study's objectives.

2) Introduction: add the latest research on the topic, for instance,

- Dai, L., & Wang, Z. (2023). Construction and optimization strategy of ecological security pattern based on ecosystem services and landscape connectivity: a case study of Guizhou Province, China. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 1-17.

- Khan, M. (2023). Shifting Gender Roles in Society and the Workplace: Implications for Environmental Sustainability. Politica, 1(1), 9–25. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.5281/zenodo.7634130

- Shuai, N., Hu, Y., Gao, M., Guo, Z., & Bai, Y. (2023). Construction and optimization of ecological networks in karst regions based on multi-scale nesting: A case study in Guangxi Hechi, China. Ecological Informatics, 74, 101963.

- Aqib, M., & Zaman, K. (2023). Greening the Workforce: The Power of Investing in Human Capital. Archives of the Social Sciences: A Journal of Collaborative Memory, 1(1), 31–51. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.5281/zenodo.7620041

- Wu, Z., Xiong, K., Zhu, D., & Xiao, J. (2023). Revelation of Coupled Ecosystem Quality and Landscape Patterns for Agroforestry Ecosystem Services Sustainability Improvement in the Karst Desertification Control. Agriculture, 13(1), 43.

- Jiang, Y., Gao, J., Wu, S., & Jiao, K. (2023). Mediation effect as the component to ecosystem? Establishing the chain effect framework of ecosystem services across typical karst basin in China. CATENA, 221, 106761.

3). Add contribution to the study.

4). Include the latest studies in the methodology section to improve the section, i.e.,

- Ali Warsame, A., & Hassan Abdi, A. (2023). Towards sustainable crop production in Somalia: Examining the role of environmental pollution and degradation. Cogent Food & Agriculture, 9(1), 2161776.

- Raihan, A., Pavel, M. I., Muhtasim, D. A., Farhana, S., Faruk, O., & Paul, A. (2023). The role of renewable energy use, technological innovation, and forest cover toward green development: evidence from Indonesia. Innovation and Green Development, 2(1), 100035.

 

5) Add Conclusions and policy recommendations at the end.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer

We are very grateful for your suggestions on the revision of the article "Construction of the landscape security pattern in karst rocky desertification area based on ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity: A case study of Guanling County, Guizhou Province". Your suggestions are very important to us. We have revised the article according to your suggestions. While expressing our gratitude, we respond to your questions and suggestions as follows:

• Introduction: Add possible research questions, and link them with the study's objectives.

Thank you for your suggestions. We have modified the introduction. According to the research objectives, we have modified the introduction. For your convenience, we have marked it with yellow background in the manuscripts.（lines 90~97）

• Introduction: add the latest research on the topic, for instance,

Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have added the latest research content in this research field to the introduction. Your suggestions make our article more rigorous.

- Dai, L., & Wang, Z. (2023). Construction and optimization strategy of ecological security pattern based on ecosystem services and landscape connectivity: a case study of Guizhou Province, China. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 1-17./https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.5281/zenodo.7634130

- Khan, M. (2023). Shifting Gender Roles in Society and the Workplace: Implications for Environmental Sustainability. Politica, 1(1), 9–25. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.5281/zenodo.7634130

- Shuai, N., Hu, Y., Gao, M., Guo, Z., & Bai, Y. (2023). Construction and optimization of ecological networks in karst regions based on multi-scale nesting: A case study in Guangxi Hechi, China.Ecological Informatics,74, 101963.DOI：10.1016/j.ecoinf.2022.101963

- Aqib, M., & Zaman, K. (2023). Greening the Workforce: The Power of Investing in Human Capital. Archives of the Social Sciences: A Journal of Collaborative Memory, 1(1), 31–51.https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.5281/zenodo.7620041

- Wu, Z., Xiong, K., Zhu, D., & Xiao, J. (2023). Revelation of Coupled Ecosystem Quality and Landscape Patterns for Agroforestry Ecosystem Services Sustainability Improvement in the Karst Desertification Control. Agriculture,13(1), 43.

- Jiang, Y., Gao, J., Wu, S., & Jiao, K. (2023). Mediation effect as the component to ecosystem? Establishing the chain effect framework of ecosystem services across typical karst basin in China. CATENA, 221, 106761.

3). Add contribution to the study.

4). Include the latest studies in the methodology section to improve the section, i.e.,

With regard to the identification methods of ecological corridors and ecological sources in the ecosystem, scholars have carried out relevant empirical studies in different cases, and we have quoted relevant literature into the article.(lines 65~71)

- Ali Warsame, A., & Hassan Abdi, A. (2023). Towards sustainable crop production in Somalia: Examining the role of environmental pollution and degradation. Cogent Food & Agriculture, 9(1), 2161776.

- Raihan, A., Pavel, M. I., Muhtasim, D. A., Farhana, S., Faruk, O., & Paul, A. (2023). The role of renewable energy use, technological innovation, and forest cover toward green development: evidence from Indonesia. Innovation and Green Development, 2(1), 100035.

5) Add Conclusions and policy recommendations at the end.

Thank you for your suggestion. We have added corresponding planning suggestions at the end of the article. The modifications are as follows：

3.6 Discussion

This study combines ecosystem service values and landscape connectivity to determine ES, which is more scientific than previous methods and avoids subjective selection of ES. According to the particular topography and geomorphology in the study area and considering the influence of various factors on regional development, the five evaluation factors of rocky desertification degree, land use, NDVI, DEM and slope are selected to analyze the sensitivity of the study area. The selection of indicators takes into account the geomorphological characteristics of the karst region, which provides a more scientific basis for the construction of the comprehensive resistance surface and the extraction of EC in the study area.

According to the result form this research we suggest that the protection of the core source area should first be strengthened in the process of ecological land use planning. The ES is the key part of the region. The ecological source area in Guanling County is small, with low proportion and scattered distribution, which is very unfavorable for the exchange of materials in the region. It should be protected in the landscape planning process and development and construction should be prohibited. Secondly, EC should be established, native species should be used as much as possible, a and corresponding widths should be set according to the source distribution and the topographic and geomorphic characteristics of the study area to promote species migration and minimize artificial facilities. An organic combination of the EC identified in this study and the original corridor to form an EC system can improve landscape connectivity between patches. In the corridor planning, the potential corridors identified in this study can be organically combined with the original corridors; important EC can be built in combination with the current corridors to enhance the connectivity between the corridors and the source sites; the construction of general EC can be combined with some scattered fragmented patches, using the existing spatial pattern to increase the connectivity between the source sites. Thirdly, we should focus on restoration of landscape patches. The general landscape of Guanling County is relatively fragmented. In the planning process, we should focus on reconstruction and restoration of landscape patches in poor patch connectivity and high ecological sensitivity area to minimize human interference.

Finally, thank you again. Your suggestions are of great significance to our article revision

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors. Thank you for the answers provided to my comments.

I am partially satisfied with the answers.

1. In Figure 1, give the coordinate grids on the maps on the right. Specify the neighboring countries of China, sign the main names of countries, oceans. How are these maps interconnected?

2. Increase the Discussion section.

 

The article can be accepted after responding to comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please have your manuscript checked thoroughly by a professional writer who has expertise and sills in English language writing. This way will help to improve the quality of your explanations on your research results, and help readers better understand your research.