PONE-D-20-28811

Evaluation method of ecosystem service value under complex ecological environment: A case study of Gansu Province, China

PLOS ONE

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: N/A

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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

Reviewer #3: 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

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: In this paper, xiaojiong Zhao et al. has taken Gansu Province as an example, the regional division method of ecosystem service function is proposed based on the characteristics of differences among different regions, and the variation trend of ESV in Gansu province from 2000 to 2015 is analyzed, which expands the thinking of regional ecological evaluation. The subject matter of this paper is novel, the Angle is clear, the data analysis process is accurate and careful. However, the manuscript needs revision before it is acceptable for publication. The writing of the paper should be improved, I found some of the text is repetition and some parts are not very fluid. The specific sections are questions that should be answered before accepting and proceeding to publications.

1. In introduction, It is recommended that authors add comparisons with other ecosystem service value studies and introduce the advantages of the approach used in this article;

2. In the discussion section, I suggest comparing with other ecological service value assessment methods in Gansu Province;

3.There are still some problems in English grammar and sentences. Please check and correct them carefully.

Reviewer #2: comments to the Author:

The first time I looked at the title " Evaluation method of ecosystem service value under complex ecological environment: A case study of Gansu Province, China ", I was just wondering to know how would the authors deal with this topic. I was a little impressed and felt that this might be a very interesting manuscript. When I reviewed the manuscript, I didn't feel disappointed. In the manuscript, On the one hand, the average value equivalent factor per unit area of different ecosystems is determined in Gansu Province, with reference to the six calculation process. This method of meta-analysis will avoid or reduce the subjective conjecture which is easy to be caused by relying on experts' experience; On the other, through abundant eco-environmental data, this study established a value evaluation model and completed the evaluation of ecosystem service value under complex ecological environment. In particular, one thing is affirmed that the human activity factors that affect ecosystem service value are fully considered by Author to the evaluation of ecosystem service value, such as carrying capacity, air pollution, over exploitation of groundwater and water pollution etc. The methods and data used in the study are new. The manuscript meets the requirement for acceptation for publication.

My main concerns are as follows:

Introduction

1. The description of Gansu Province may be suitable for the part of study area.

2. There lacks enough literature review on the topic in the study area. The authors may check some references on this topic in last decades.

Materials and Methods

1. What is the basis of the ecosystem type classification?

2. Please supplement the distribution map of ecosystem types

3. from 2000-2015, what does this mean? The authors have to state clearly which year was used.

4. Classification of ecosystem service functions. Please explain the specific problem of repeatability. The description is not fully understood due to the ecological integrity has been evaluated in previous research.

Result

1. In the Table3, the unit of area is km2, while in formula 19, the unit of area is ha.

2. Biodiversity maintenance value regulation index (a11), How the habitat quality index is measured?

3. "invest" should be "InVEST"

Other detail question

English needs proofreading and editing, especially those sentences related to comparison. In addition, there exists many formatting problems in this manuscript, please verify the full text.

1.Please unify the number of decimal points in the whole text.

2. Table1. Please note that the black space.

Reviewer #3: (1)The paper takes Gansu Province as an example, on the basis of fully considering the 6 regional differences of ecosystem service function. But it don’t explain why Gansu was taken as an example? Does Gansu have a typical ecological service system?

(2)making dialogue with the ESV evaluation and calculation literatures by taking the role of your specific context.

(3)This paper did a poor job in readability, with many typo errors and unstructured sentences. The authors need a copy editor before next submission.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: reviewers comments.docx

Ecosystem service value evaluation method in a complex ecological environment: A case study of Gansu Province, China

PONE-D-20-28811R1

Dear Dr. zhao,

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,

Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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 #3: 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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: 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 author has added comparisons with other ecosystem service value studies and introduce the advantages of the approach used in the introduction and grammar problems also have been solved.The overall structure of the article is clear and has strong scientific and practical significance.

Reviewer #3: I really appreciate the revision made by the author, which can be seen to improve the readability of the paper.

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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: No

Reviewer #3: No