PONE-D-21-31069LANDSCAPE COMPLEXITY METRICS BASED ON INFORMATION ENTROPYPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mattos,

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.

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Kind regards,

Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Reviewer 1

1. The title needs to be more detailed.

2. Please highlight the key points in the abstract.

3. The introduction should further highlight what is the motivation of the paper.

4. Material and Methods: 2.2 should be "Methods", "Application of complexity measures based on information entropy of

remote sensing images" etc. should be 2.2.1.

5. Results and discussion: The results should be better described, discussed and justified using references.

6. Conclusion mostly looks like a summary of the work done and the results obtained. No interpretation of the results in given as well as no recommendation for the government and policy makers as to how the results could be used. Also, there should be some content in the conclusion regarding the limitations of the current research and future work possibilities.

7. The format of the manuscript is chaotic. It is recommended that authors make adjustments according to the submission guidelines.

8. The picture pixels in the manuscript are too low.

Some literature to consult:

Influence of urban morphological characteristics on thermal environment, Sustainable Cities and Society (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103045.

Coupling Coordination Relationships between Urban-industrial Land Use Efficiency and Accessibility of Highway Networks: Evidence from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, China. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1446. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051446

Understanding land surface temperature impact factors based on local climate zones, Sustainable Cities and Society (2021), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102818.

Demand prediction and regulation zoning of urban-industrial land: Evidence from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, China. Environ Monit Assess 191, 412 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7547-4

Reviewer 2

The work "LANDSCAPE COMPLEXITY METRICS BASED ON INFORMATION ENTROPY" calculates and spatially expresses the complexity of landscape indicators for different regions of interest (ROIs) selected in the satellite image based on the scripts CompPlex HeROI and CompPlex Janus, aiming at revealing the impact of land use change and its fragmentation on landscape complexity. In my opinion, the work is interesting and worthy of publication, however, it requires some clarifications.

1.In the "Introduction" section, "information entropy" is simply mentioned, but as the main content of the research, the background and current related researches of information entropy should be added.

2.In the "Material and Methods" section, López-Ruiz, Mancini, and Calbet (LMC)和Shiner, Davison, and Landsberg (SDL), as key measures, have not been explained clearly, and need to be further clarified.

3.The names of ROIs are inconsistent in the text, Figure 7, Table 2 and Table 3, so it is suggested to unify them.

4.In Table 2 and Table3, the meanings of different colors are best explained in the legend.

5.The clarity of pictures in the manuscript needs to be further improved.

6.Results and discussion are expressed together in the manuscript, but the content expressed is mostly the description of the results, which lacks in-depth discussion. It is suggested that the discussion be set up as a separate part to discuss some key issues, such as:

(1) What are the reasons for the differences in the complexity of different landscapes? How changes in land use and the consequent fragmentation affect the complexity of the landscape?

(2) The manuscript mentioned that“the complexity algorithms are robust”, but how to prove it?

(3) What are the limitations of the research?

[Note: HTML markup is below. 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

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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: 1. The title needs to be more detailed.

2. Please highlight the key points in the abstract.

3. The introduction should further highlight what is the motivation of the paper.

4. Material and Methods: 2.2 should be "Methods", "Application of complexity measures based on information entropy of

remote sensing images" etc. should be 2.2.1.

5. Results and discussion: The results should be better described, discussed and justified using references.

6. Conclusion mostly looks like a summary of the work done and the results obtained. No interpretation of the results in given as well as no recommendation for the government and policy makers as to how the results could be used. Also, there should be some content in the conclusion regarding the limitations of the current research and future work possibilities.

7. The format of the manuscript is chaotic. It is recommended that authors make adjustments according to the submission guidelines.

8. The picture pixels in the manuscript are too low.

Some literature to consult:

Influence of urban morphological characteristics on thermal environment, Sustainable Cities and Society (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103045.

Coupling Coordination Relationships between Urban-industrial Land Use Efficiency and Accessibility of Highway Networks: Evidence from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, China. Sustainability 2019, 11, 1446. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051446

Understanding land surface temperature impact factors based on local climate zones, Sustainable Cities and Society (2021), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.102818.

Demand prediction and regulation zoning of urban-industrial land: Evidence from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration, China. Environ Monit Assess 191, 412 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7547-4

Reviewer #2: The work "LANDSCAPE COMPLEXITY METRICS BASED ON INFORMATION ENTROPY" calculates and spatially expresses the complexity of landscape indicators for different regions of interest (ROIs) selected in the satellite image based on the scripts CompPlex HeROI and CompPlex Janus, aiming at revealing the impact of land use change and its fragmentation on landscape complexity. In my opinion, the work is interesting and worthy of publication, however, it requires some clarifications.

1.In the "Introduction" section, "information entropy" is simply mentioned, but as the main content of the research, the background and current related researches of information entropy should be added.

2.In the "Material and Methods" section, López-Ruiz, Mancini, and Calbet (LMC)和Shiner, Davison, and Landsberg (SDL), as key measures, have not been explained clearly, and need to be further clarified.

3.The names of ROIs are inconsistent in the text, Figure 7, Table 2 and Table 3, so it is suggested to unify them.

4.In Table 2 and Table3, the meanings of different colors are best explained in the legend.

5.The clarity of pictures in the manuscript needs to be further improved.

6.Results and discussion are expressed together in the manuscript, but the content expressed is mostly the description of the results, which lacks in-depth discussion. It is suggested that the discussion be set up as a separate part to discuss some key issues, such as:

(1) What are the reasons for the differences in the complexity of different landscapes? How changes in land use and the consequent fragmentation affect the complexity of the landscape?

(2) The manuscript mentioned that“the complexity algorithms are robust”, but how to prove it?

(3) What are the limitations of the research?

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

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Metrics based on information entropy applied to evaluate complexity of landscape patterns

PONE-D-21-31069R1

Dear Dr. Mattos,

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,

Jun Yang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: 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 adequately addressed the comments raised in a previous round of review and I feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication.

Reviewer #2: An interesting and valuable study paper, the authors have made progressive revisions, I do not have much too many comments about the study. The paper is suitable for publication after minor revision on grammar mistakes.

**********

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 #2: No