Long-term assessment of ecosystem services at ecological restoration sites using Landsat time series

Trinidad del Río-Mena; Louise Willemen; Anton Vrieling; Andy Snoeys; Andy Nelson

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0243020

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 13, 2020
17 Mar 2021 Decision Letter - Shijo Joseph, Editor PONE-D-20-35781 Long-term assessment of ecosystem services at ecological restoration sites using Landsat time series PLOS ONE Dear Dr. del Río, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’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. The comments are appended below. In addition to this, please also address the comments given in the attached file. Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 23 2021 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 plosone@plos.org. 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Please do not edit.] 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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 ****** 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 describes a topical study showcasing how publicly available remote sensing data can be combined with field work data to assess the impact of ecosystem restoration operations. I was a bit unclear about stage 2 (figure 2). What is the objective of clustering based on the trajectory? Also, what do you mean by “trajectory”? Can you put in 2-3 sentences explaining this step. Please clarify this point: In section 2.3, you have described a model that links ~May Landsat image reflectances to field data. If phenology is an important factor in your study area, then the fact that the indices you have chosen best represent the ES variables would be applicable in May. But then you use images “representing the greenest moment of the year”. At this moment, the “may-month-based indices” may not be the best. If possible, do a more rigorous error analysis, so that spatial estimates of error/uncertainty is made. I have several minor comments in the attached PDF: “PONE-D-20-35781_reviewerComments.pdf”. Otherwise, the methodology seems okay and the results are fine. Good work! ****** 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. 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 [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: PONE-D-20-35781_reviewerComments.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243020.r001
Revision 1
23 Apr 2021 Author Response Long-term assessment of ecosystem services at ecological restoration sites using Landsat time series Response to the Editor >> We appreciate the consideration of our paper for revision. Thank you for the helpful feedback and corrections. >> In addition to the revisions regarding the editor and the reviewer feedback, we found and corrected a mistake in the calculation and interpretation of the BACI contrast in the results and discussion. These corrections resulted in a modification of the sign of the BACI contrast (Legend in Figure 3), although the location of the positive and negative effect of the interventions did not change. We also corrected the estimates of the RS model for presence of iconic species (Table 5). This change did not affect any of the results as we only used the vegetation index for the BACI analysis. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements >> In this version, we adjusted the text format according to the formatting guidelines. Regarding Financial Disclosure section Please provide an amended Funding Statement declaring this commercial affiliation, as well as a statement regarding the Role of Funders in your study. >> We now included the Funding Statement as indicated in the cover letter. Please provide un updated Competing Interests Statement declaring this commercial affiliation along with any other relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development, or marketed products, etc. >> We now updated the Competing Interests Statement in the cover letter as requested. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. >> Thank you for this reminder. We are working on uploading the repository information in Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) and will provide the DOI access information to be included in the accepted manuscript. Please upload a copy of Figures4 & 5, to which you refer in your text on line 317. If the figure is no longer to be included as part of the submission please remove all reference to it within the text. >> We corrected this error in the reference of Figure 3. Response to Reviewer 1 This paper describes a topical study showcasing how publicly available remote sensing data can be combined with field work data to assess the impact of ecosystem restoration operations. >>We would like to thank the reviewer for the constructive and comprehensive feedback that helped us to improve the quality of this manuscript. We address and respond to the specific comments below. I was a bit unclear about stage 2 (figure 2). What is the objective of clustering based on the trajectory? Also, what do you mean by “trajectory”? Can you put in 2-3 sentences explaining this step. >>We edited the text in order to clarify the ISODATA classification and the terminology used. Lines 213-219 it now reads: “In the second stage, to ensure that both impact and control pixels have similar ecosystem service provision before any intervention occurred, we divided the landscape into five vegetation clusters. This clustering was based on the similarity of the changes in ecosystem service indicator under consideration. These change trajectories were derived from the ten Landsat images in the 1989-1990 period, i.e. before the intervention took place.” Please clarify this point: In section 2.3, you have described a model that links ~May Landsat image reflectances to field data. If phenology is an important factor in your study area, then the fact that the indices you have chosen best represent the ES variables would be applicable in May. But then you use images “representing the greenest moment of the year”. At this moment, the “may-month-based indices” may not be the best. >>Indeed, we unfortunately lack temporal field data for different seasons to estimate variations of ES estimations using the RS models. However, to calibrate the models we used plots having different levels of ES supply (i.e. different vegetation cover, green biomass and spekboom cover percentage). This is described in our previous work referenced in line 238 (Del Río-Mena et al., 2020). For more clarification the first sentence of section 2.3 now reads: “During the fieldwork period from May to July 2017, we estimated ecosystem services based on measurements in 32 plots of 900 m2 that were distributed over the study area. We purposely selected the plots to have a large spread of values for the ecosystem service indicators, in order to better allow for extrapolation beyond the May-July period [77].” If possible, do a more rigorous error analysis, so that spatial estimates of error/uncertainty is made. >>In the section 4.3 of the Discussion we describe the implications of our data choices and possible errors. We now better clarify the uncertainty resulting from the selection of the reference years (line 612). In this section, we now also better indicate the implications of the control site selection for the BACI outcomes and significance (line 624). To explore to the sensitivity to the number of control sites, we run a number of analyses for 100 controls instead of 20, these did not result in notable differences (line 628) (Table S6). SPECIFIC COMMENTS PROVIDED AS COMMENT BOXES IN THE MANUSCRIPT 1. Introduction Lines 85: Repeated words >>We deleted the repeated words “and vi)” 2.1. Study area and interventions Figure 1: Order of restoration interventions >>The restoration interventions in the legend are now organized according to the order in the text. Figure 1: Add rectangle to the main map so that it corresponds to the small red rectangle in the inset (bottom left). >>We added the rectangle as indicated. Although the red rectangle in the inset shows an indication of the location of the study area and it does not show the exact size, we now adjusted the dimensions to make them closer real size. Table 1: From the table is not clear the provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem service >>We now added the type of ecosystem service in brackets in the first column of Table 1. 2.3. Model calibration and selection of spectral indices to represent ecosystem services Table 2: Add references to the indices >>We now added the source references to each ecosystem service. 2.4. RS- GIS data description Table 3: Use full name “soil parent material” >>We now changed “parent “material” for “soil parent material” for the whole manuscript. 2.5. ISODATA clustering, BACI analyses, and intervention evaluation Line 264-265: This detail is not needed: Just say that you selected control from the same vegetation cluster. >>We edited the sentence. It now reads, “We randomly selected 20 control pixels per intervened pixel (Meroni et al., 2017) from the same vegetation cluster as the intervened site, avoiding pixels within the SLC off data from Landsat 7 ETM+.” 3.1. Selection of spectral indices Table 5: Define “standardized RMSE, provide the %RMSE and give formula in the text. >>To be able to compare the residual variance between ecosystem services models (different units and scales), we standardized the RMSE results using the formula Std. RMSE = RMSE/(Ymax- Ymin). We now added this explanation below Table 5 as “* Std. RMSE = RMSE / (Ymax- Ymin), where Ymax and Ymin are the maximum and minimum measured values of the ecosystem service indicator.” References Del Río-Mena, T., Willemen, L., Vrieling, A., Nelson, A., 2020. Remote sensing for mapping ecosystem services to support evaluation of ecological restoration interventions in an arid landscape. Ecol. Indic. 113, 106182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106182 Meroni, M., Schucknecht, A., Fasbender, D., Rembold, F., Fava, F., Mauclaire, M., Goffner, D., Di Lucchio, L.M., Leonardi, U., 2017. Remote sensing monitoring of land restoration interventions in semi-arid environments with a before–after control-impact statistical design. Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinf. 59, 42–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2017.02.016 Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243020.r002
28 Apr 2021 Decision Letter - Shijo Joseph, Editor Long-term assessment of ecosystem services at ecological restoration sites using Landsat time series PONE-D-20-35781R1 Dear Dr. del Río, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. 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 onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Shijo Joseph, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243020.r003
Formally Accepted
3 Jun 2021 Acceptance Letter - Shijo Joseph, Editor PONE-D-20-35781R1 Long-term assessment of ecosystem services at ecological restoration sites using Landsat time series Dear Dr. del Río-Mena: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr Shijo Joseph Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243020.r004

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