PCLM-D-22-00034

Understanding the effects of climate change and resilience among highlanders in north Bhutan: a case study under Gasa district

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Dorji,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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This manuscript has been reviewed by three reviewers whose specific comments are available for the authors' review as well as in the appended PDF. The major worry is that the manuscript is not flowing in terms of structure, the quality of writing (including grammar) as well as the lack of rigor in the methodology. The reviewers have provided suggestions to remedy these issues. However, as it stands, the manuscript does not meet the PLOCS Climate criteria for publication due to the reason cited above.

The paper requires a major revision given the work that needs to be put in as reviewed. If the authors attend to the reviewers' comments and tighten the manuscript, specifically, the writing, structure, methodology as well as discussion sections they may be able to turn around the manuscript for re-consideration for publication.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by . If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Mzime Regina Ndebele-Murisa, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information.

2. Please amend your detailed online Financial Disclosure statement. This is published with the article. It must therefore be completed in full sentences and contain the exact wording you wish to be published.

a. State the initials, alongside each funding source, of each author to receive each grant.

b. State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

3. Please ensure that the funders and grant numbers match between the Financial Disclosure field and the Funding Information tab in your submission form. Note that the funders must be provided in the same order in both places as well.

4. Please update your online Competing Interests statement. If you have no competing interests to declare, please state: “The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.”

5. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. 

Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services.  If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free.

Upon resubmission, please provide the following:

The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript

A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a *supporting information* file)

A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new *manuscript* file)

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

This manuscript has been reviewed by three reviewers whose specific comments are available for the authors' review as well as in the appended PDF. The major worry is that the manuscript is not flowing in terms of structure, the quality of writing (including grammar) as well as the lack of rigor in the methodology. The reviewers have provided suggestions to remedy these issues. However, as it stands, the manuscript does not meet the PLOCS Climate criteria for publication due to the reason cited above.

The paper requires a major revision given the work that needs to be put in as reviewed. If the authors attend to the reviewers' comments and tighten the manuscript, specifically, the writing, structure, methodology as well as discussion sections they may be able to turn around the manuscript for re-consideration for publication.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper has the potential of becoming an informative paper. Unfortunately, it lacks organization, and the discussion is weak. The authors should restructure the paper, back the discussion with solid literature and present it in a more academic paper before resubmission. The authors should also get the paper proofread before submission.

Abstract: No clear goal on the objective of this paper/study. Also, there is no mention of the roles of yak in the abstract. The authors seem to mention it a lot in the paper.

Line 20: Consider adding (cordyceps) after Cordyceps Sinensis.

Line 21 – 23: Consider rewrite these two sentences. We already know that climate change results in a decline in cordyceps yields. Do you mean, how the decrease in household income effects the livelihood of communities in highland areas of Bhutan? Also, other effects of climate change?

Introduction: Unorganized and very confusing. Consider rearrange the introduction and try to make it less confusing. Basically, this research is exploratory in nature. It aims to understand the impacts of climate change on the livelihood of the two highland communities (Laya and Lunana) in North Bhutan? Also, the objective of this research should be mentioned as soon as possible, not on page three.

Line 42: …includes, but is not limited to, the…

Line 50 – 53: Unnecessary information. You can keep them but condense them into one sentence.

Line 54: Again, add (cordyceps). Also, I believe that the common English name is caterpillar fungus.

Line 55: This unique fungal is used in traditional medicine. According to XXX and YYY, the fungal contain many health benefits.

Line 60 to Line 72: No connection with the previous sentence. Consider moving the in-depth information on Bhutan and the two communities to the study side section. You need to mention the characteristics of the country and the locations of the communities briefly in the introduction.

You will need to look for the works of literature that contend that cordyceps are sensitive to the negative impacts of climate change. This will strengthen your claims.

It would help if you highlighted the fact that people convert from raising Yaks to cordyceps, which are sensitive to climate. People have become reliant on cordyceps, and changing the long-term weather pattern will impact people's livelihood.

Line 99 – 100: Mobile network is understandable, but perhaps the term communication network, where the link to and from end nodes is wireless, or simply wireless network, are better.

Line 102: what is masl.?

Perception of climate change is different from the impacts of climate change. I think you would need to do more literature reviews on the impacts of climate change, especially the effects on highland agriculture and highland settlements.

You are using a lot of unnecessary short forms. Why do you have to shorten household and semi-structured interviews?

Are there any attempts to balance the gender? Do you consider gender apart from male and female?

The age group categorization is very strange. Why 31 to 60? Also, why teenagers and youths were not included in the study? Please provide the reason.

Line 200 to 207: How are these related to climate change?

Line 239: Are these observations match any available literature in other areas around the world?

Discussion is inadequate. There are many potential analyses that the authors can discuss to make this paper even more robust.

Conclusion: I am still unsure whether you are exploring the impact of climate change or the perception of climate change. You can do both, but please be clear in your introduction.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript focuses on an interesting and relevant theme. However, the following need attention:

1. Research design not clarified, it has many flaws and leaves the relevant detail eg size of target target population

2. Data collection methods are not well explained eg the FGD tools are not clear and data collection instruments

3. The map of the study area lacks relevant detail

4. There is a lot of mix up and repetition of themes in the presentation of results.

NB The articulation and presentation of the methods and results need a though revision

5. General grammatical mistakes, perhaps the authors may need assistance of a language editor.

Other comments are on the attached manuscript.

Reviewer #3: Comments to the Authors

The topic is interesting, topical and important in understanding the plight of indigenous communities facing the wrath of climate change. There is immense evidence of primary data collection and appropriate ethical considerations. Below are some observations which can be incorporated to improve the presentation, flow of ideas and robustness of the study.

1. The aim/objective of the study is silent in the abstract. This can be inserted at the end of the sentence in line 23.

2. In the description of the study site, you may need to insert the approximate distances in kilometers of miles in brackets ,so that you create a universal picture of the lengths. Pages 4-5.

3. Figure 1, the map of the study area is ok, but its too plain and need to be improved by adding some labels that are relevant to the study. Insert a basemap, especially a topographic one. This will provide the geographic context of the study area and the background detail necessary to orient the location of the map.

4. There is need to be consistent stating the altitude, either MASL written in full or as an acronym. Refer to lines 63/64 and 92,102, 103, 278.

5. Line 159-160, variables education level were categorized as educated and uneducated and for occupation, as farmer and non-farmer, however Table 1 contains more explicit descriptions of the variables. Make sure that the text correspond with the information in the tables.

6. Slightly restructure the results and discussion section of the paper to improve the flow of ideas. In order to discuss the impact of climate change on livelihood of the community, there is need to first briefly describe the nature of climate change in the area, then the perceived effects of the identified climate change parameters on livelihood options (sources of food and income) of the households. Line 208, briefly explain the aspect of climate change that has affected the specific source of income, how it has affected it and the implications to adaptation and resilience. Line 247, briefly elaborate on the negative impacts of the temperature changes observed on the economic activities of the community.

7. Statistical Analysis.

(i) link the socio demographic characteristics of the community (Table 1) to the implications for adaptation and resilience building

(ii) explain the meaning of the figures of the Chi-Square or the Fisher’s exact test. (Tables 1, 2, 3.& 4). What would be the implications on community adaptation to climate change and resilience?

(iii) line 294. What is the purpose of the Sutrop Index? ( Table 5) Briefly explain the meaning of the indices in the context of the study and implications to the research problem

8. you are strongly recommended to engage a language editor to improve grammar, tenses, spellings, punctuation ( especially where there is listing of phenomena) and general expressions

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Olga Laiza Kupika

Reviewer #3: Yes: Varaidzo Chinokwetu

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PCLM-D-22-00034_reviewed.pdf

PCLM-D-22-00034R1

Understanding the impact of climate change and resilience among highlanders in northern parts of Bhutan:  a case study in Gasa district

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Dorji,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 09 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Mzime Regina Ndebele-Murisa, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information.

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

This manuscript has improved significantly and the authors have addressed most of the comments that the reviewers sent. However, the issue of proof reading still remains unaddressed and this is sadly a substantive part of the comments that the authors need to address. The manuscript is in need of proof reading and professional editing. It is a need. This will help to to to correct some of the content as well as restructure the the manuscript and lift the quality of the work to make it more clear, appropriate, engaging and accurate. Additionally, the manuscript in its current state still does not meet the requirements of the journal in presenting polished work and unfortunately, simply addressing the rest of the comments and not the editing is not good enough. We return the manuscript to the authors to address this issue by using professional editing to improve their manuscript.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript has been improved since the first review. Most of the comments have been addressed. However, while this research can be valuable since it highlights the mountainous country of Bhutan, it still needs to be proofread and edited. The paper's organisation should be revised, especially the introduction and the abstract, as they need to be clearer and easier to read. The narrative of how the people switch from yak to caterpillar fungus is weak. This weakness might be due to the issues with the English language.

Also, I would like to see the authors discuss how their research is similar or different from the literature on adaptation to climate change in the mountainous region. It would make the paper much more substantial.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PCLM-D-22-00034R2

Understanding the impact of climate change and resilience among highlanders in northern parts of Bhutan:  a case study in Gasa district

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Dorji,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 25 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at climate@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pclm/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Anamika Barua

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

1. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information.

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

The paper is interesting and as mentioned by the reviewer it has improved a lot than the previous version. Kindly incorporate the comments of the reviewers and those which author does not find necessary needs to come with a justification why. However, I would suggest to make the necessary changes as suggested by the second reviewer as that will bring more scientific rigour to the paper.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I don't know

Reviewer #4: I don't know

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have addressed my previous comments and drastically improved the paper's language. There are minor mistakes here and there, which the authors can address following a quick run-through.

The only thing I would like the authors to address is the language of the abstract. The authors can do this relatively quickly.

Reviewer #4: Its an interesting contribution as we really know little about the reality in high elevation Himalaya. However, the paper can do better in presenting the findings. It was difficult to read the sentences with numbers and stats coming in between. I suggest more figures and tables summarizing analysis and then synthesizing inferences from them in results and discussions. I could not understand whether yak herding is going down and now exchanged with trade for caterpillar mushroom or is it going up. If it is going up, then it is different from places like Haa in Bhutan and needs discussion. The discussion is very site specific and can connect better to country and Himalayan region.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Nuttavikhom Phanthuwongpakdee

Reviewer #4: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Understanding the impact of climate change and resilience among highlanders in northern parts of Bhutan:  a case study in Gasa district

PCLM-D-22-00034R3

Dear Dr. Dorji,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Understanding the impact of climate change and resilience among highlanders in northern parts of Bhutan:  a case study in Gasa district' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team. 

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact climate@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Anamika Barua

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Thank you for addressing all the comments

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):