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PONE-D-20-12507

A Climate Adaptation Strategy for Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site: Steppingstone to Climate Proofing the East Asian-Australasian Flyway

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Eric Wikramanayake,

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PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

In this manuscript, the authors modeled the change in coastal landscape in an important waterbird area (Mai Po) under different SLR and accretion scenarios. Both reviewers think this work is an important contribution in waterbirds conservation in eastern Asia. But they also raised some concerns such as the model limitations, constrains and accuracy. In addition, as suggested by one reviewer, it will be better to give some conservation advice in the discussion part. I also think the manuscript will be improved by taking these comments into account. Please see the detail comments below.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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

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

PLOS ONE 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 #2: Yes

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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: The authors modelled the change in coastal landscape in an important waterbird area under different SLR and accretion scenarios. The authors then concluded that substantial amount of migratory bird habitat will be lost in 2100 under the predicted accretion rate and 1.5-2.0m SLR scenarios. This is study is critically important in conservation management and I added a few comments below which could be used to improve the manuscript.

General comments:

1. Given the modelling nature of this manuscript, please add a paragraph or section, to discuss briefly the limitations and constrains of this SLAMM approach. Has this model been tested? What was the accuracy? A brief discussion on these will allow less-experienced readers to evaluate the evidence and follow more easily.

2. Line 352 – this is an important paragraph but this also mean it's critically important to evaluate the model's accuracy, and the probability of errors – which could lead to the purchase of less useful area. Could the authors also demonstrate how much longer will other potential buffer area (ponds around Lut Chau and Nam Sang Wai) last for? If it's just 10-20 years, then is it really a sustainable solution?

3. From the waterbirds' perspective, e.g. shorebirds, this paper could be improved substantially by considering the entire Deep Bay instead of having an arbitrary cut off in the middle of the tidal flat. Many of the birds in Maipo are also known to the mainland China side of Deep Bay and leaving the other half out could only reveal partly how waterbird’s habitat will change in the future.

Specific comments:

Lines 27, 285, 393 – consider the use of “migration phenomenon” instead of “migration”

Line 119 – please provide the GPS coordinate, perhaps the centroid of Maipo

Line 133 – capitalize “E”ndangered

Line 136 – citation needed, consider the BFS annual census report or Sung et al. 2018

www.doi.org/10.1017/S0959270917000016

Line 165 – please provide a bit more details since accretion can still be clearly felt today, any information on when will the land clearing and development be stopped? How much of the accretion may come from natural runoffs?

Line 177 – the degree symbol looks more like a zero instead

Line 222 – Please explain what do low and high tides mean here (are they an average?), since substantial differences could be found between spring and neap tides

Line 252 – may also consider the latest publication related to hunting by Gallo-Cajiao et al. 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108582

Line 339 – may also consider the latest publication by Jackson et al. 2020 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108591

Reviewer #2: The authors modelled the impacts of climate change and decreasing sedimentation rates on

important bird habitats in the Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar site to support a climate

adaptation strategy that will continue to host migratory birds. The text is grammatically under understandable, although English to be reviewed before considering it to publication. In addition, some of references are not in our style, which are close but not completely correct.

The work of this paper is practical and logical, it provides a great contribution to the literature on how the important bird habitats change in different future scenario. However, there are some main problems to be further improved as well, I listed some specific comments below:

As we know, the climate change and human disturbance are the main driving force of the coastal wetland change in the world. Base on the result, it seems the climate change is not the principal threat of the Mai Po till 2075. Hong Kong and Shenzhen both are the biggest city in the world. So, in the discussion, it needs to give more conservation advice or reflection, how to control or monitor the sediment. Such as, at the 2100: 2m SLR; 2mm accretion; High Tide scenario, it need build more high-tide habitat for waterbirds. Or we need to keep the sediment stabilize, try to avoid the construction and the activities of changing the ecological processes of wetland, e.g. Shenzhen Bay dredging for cruise recently.

It is better put the Low tide image and Hide tide of the same scenario together and it will be easy to check the impact for the migratory waterbird.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Chi-Yeung Choi

Reviewer #2: No

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A Climate Adaptation Strategy for Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site: Steppingstone to Climate Proofing the East Asian-Australasian Flyway

PONE-D-20-12507R1

Dear Dr. Wikramanayake,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Yong Zhang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

I can only reach one of the original reviewers and he is happy with the revised version of the manuscript. I have reviewed the comments of the another reviewer and the responses from the authors, i think authors also answer the concerns appropriately.

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. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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 ONE 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

**********

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: Well done in revising this interesting manuscript. All my concerns are addressed and let's hope the local stakeholders will follow the recommendations from this manuscript and secure those less-impacted wetlands for the long-term future.

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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.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Chi-Yeung Choi