The Effect of Air Pollution on the Healthy Growth of Cities: An Empirical Study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The proposed topic is very valuable.
I am asking for corrections and additions in places indicated in the commentary mode. In addition, please complete the description of the methods of analysis analysis using ArcGIS and a detailed description of the measurements performed / used in the analysis. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The effect of air pollution on the healthy growth of cities: An empirical study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Response to Comments from Reviewer #1

We first want to thank reviewer #1 for his/her careful reading of our manuscript. The comments mainly include six points. We have responded to the comments and incorporated the revisions into our revised manuscript.

Comment 1:

Define GDP.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. We have corrected the problem and added explanatory sentences in the paragraph:

“GDP (Gross Domestic Product) refers to the final results of the production activities of all resident units of a country (or region) calculated in accordance with the national market price within a certain period of time. It is often identified as the best indicator to measure the economic status of a country (or region).”

Comment 2:

Please define the parameters of the mentioned function in the publication text.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. We have re-checked the whole manuscript. In fact, the manuscript we submitted shows all variable in detail, especially the key variables and their corresponding factors. We still thank you for this valuable comment, because it urges us to correct the inconsistent font format. The revised sentences are as follows:

“In the formula, 2S and 3S are the proportion of the secondary and tertiary industries in the city, which is used to measure the level of industrial development, and PM2.5 is the concentration of PM2.5, which is used to measure the degree of air pollution. FA stands for fixed asset investment, measured by the amount of fixed asset investment, Innovation stands for technological innovation, measured by the number of micro-invention patents authorized, and Open stands for opening to the outside world, measured by the actual foreign investment as a percentage of GDP. β₀ is a constant term, β₁~β₄ are regression coefficients, and ε is a residual term. In this paper, i covers 13 prefecture-level cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and the t is from 2000 to 2017.”

“The definitions of PM2.5, 2S, 3S and Open in formula (2) are the same as those of formula (1). In addition, Pop stands for population density, measured by the number of people per unit area, FDI stands for foreign direct investment, measured by the actual use of foreign investment, Trans is the traffic condition, measured by the number of private cars owned per unit of highway mileage, Enviro represents the greening level, measured by the green area coverage of the built-up area, UL represents the urbanization level, measured by the proportion of urban population to the total population, CEI stands for energy intensity, measured by carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP. ρ₀ is a constant term, ρ₁~ρ₈ are regression coefficients, and μ is a residual term.”

Comment 3:

Define CEI.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. We have corrected the sentence “CEI stands for energy intensity, measured by carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP” to “CEI stands for carbon emission intensity. Carbon emission intensity refers to the amount of carbon emissions generated as GDP increases, measured by carbon emissions per unit of GDP. It cannot be ignored that carbon emissions may increase the local temperature, thereby affecting the diffusion process of fine particulate matter. Based on this conjecture, this paper considers the effect of carbon emission intensity on urban air pollution.”

Comment 4:

Please define version software of ArcGIS and define data source (website etc.) - citation.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. We have added information about the version of ArcGIS and data source of PM2.5 in the manuscript. The revised sentences are as follows:

“This paper is based on the original data released by the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group of Dalhousie University [36] and it is analyzed by ArcGIS 10.5 to obtain PM2.5 concentration data.”

36. Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group. Available from http://fizz.phys.dal.ca/~atmos/martin/?page_id=140.

Comment 5:

Please define data source of socio-economic data (website etc.) - citations.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. We have added information about data source of socio-economic data in the manuscript. The revised sentences are as follows:

“The socio-economic data comes from the “China City Statistical Yearbook” from 2001 to 2018 [37] and the provincial and municipal statistical yearbooks.”

37. Department of Urban Socioeconomic Investigation, National Bureau of Statistics. Available from http://data.cnki.net/yearbook/Single/N2019070173.

Comment 6:

Please complete the description of the methods of analysis using ArcGIS and a detailed description of the measurements performed / used in the analysis.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. We have added explanatory sentences in the paragraph:

“In this paper, the ArcGIS 10.5 platform is used to perform basic spatial correction on raster data about the average annual concentration of PM2.5. After vectorizing the administrative divisions of cities, this paper further uses it as a mask to extract the annual average PM2.5 concentration data, and zonal statistics the average annual PM2.5 concentration of each city.”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have done a great deal of research. A large array of empirical data is used to obtain results; statistics are voluminous in time and geography. The research methodology is built logically and adequately. Recommendations for managing the situation are proposed in the conclusion.
But authors overlook the international status of publications. The article is submitted to an international journal and should be of interest to a wide audience. A study of this level cannot be limited to the scale of a region of one country. In the introduction there are references to the experience of the industrial center of Essen, Germany, as well as Houston, USA. But not more!
Authors are encouraged to draw analogies with the problems of other countries and regions of the World (Russia, India, European countries), to make an attempt to adapt models, results and conclusions to a more universal level.
I often have to review articles by Chinese scholars. Such isolation and inattention to an international audience is inherent in them. The correspondence of the obtained results is required, which are undoubtedly important and relevant for a particular country, but may not be very interesting to scientists from other countries.

Author Response

The effect of air pollution on the healthy growth of cities: An empirical study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Response to Comments from Reviewer #2

We first want to thank reviewer #2 for his/her careful reading of our manuscript. We have responded to the comments and incorporated the revisions into our revised manuscript.

Comment 1:

Authors are encouraged to draw analogies with the problems of other countries and regions of the World (Russia, India, European countries), to make an attempt to adapt models, results and conclusions to a more universal level.

Response:

Thanks for your comment and affirmation. As we said, there are relatively few articles focusing on urban development from the perspective similar to this article, so we chose the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, a China’s typical region, as the entry point for our study. We have obtained some interesting results by our efforts, such as revealing the two-way causal relationship between urban air pollution and healthy development. As mentioned in your review comments, we lacked of in-depth thinking in the research process especially international comparison about this research topic. Please allow us to express our sincerest apologies, because our manuscript had not met your expectations to a certain extent. In fact, we regard this manuscript as a phased result of this research theme, and we will add international cases for follow-up research to enhance international comparison. Your stimulating suggestions will provide continuous motivation for our future research work.

Comment 2:

For me the paper has some problems mainly conceptual. These conceptual problems have implications in the results and methodology validation. I can list some of my comments: The title points to air pollution in urban context but the paper is about air pollution related to industrial activity in urban areas. First, I have doubts if the industry is the main focus of pollution in all cities, and in specific in the studied city; traffic by road and air are the most important in cities in the world; second the components of air pollution for industry are different for traffic and that demands a more precision in the title and core objectives definition; third, the simulation of impact is not supported as we don`t know the importance of the sectors in the present situation and if there will be the same in future. There are not specific assumptions for the industrial sectors that represent vulnerability? They are critical values: 5% of total employment in cellulose/paper? 7%of chemicals? Or 75% of computed components industries? Considering the presentation, the communication about a large number of tables with results is not really useful. The reader needs more information about the city situation in terms of industrial development.

Response:

We have received your supplementary comments, which fully reflects your rigorous attitude towards scientific research. Please allow us to answer your review comments in good faith again. The PM2.5 concentration data used by our manuscript is the final results of multiple factors. In other words, we did not decompose the PM2.5 concentration data. The original intention of our study is to explore the relationship between the urban industrial development and the macroscopic air pollution status. In fact, we always agree with you that the pollution caused by transportation is an important source of PM2.5. This does not seem to prevent us from discussing the relationship between PM2.5 and industrial development, because the relationship between the two is objective. The development of the industry can affect the final state of the PM2.5 concentration, which in turn the former will respond to changes in the latter, that is, two-way causal relationship. We feel great thanks for your professional review work on our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx