The impact of agricultural water salvation investment on economics development: Evidence from Eastern China

Haofeng Lin; Houyem Zrelli; Noha Hassan abd Algalil Mohamed; Yonghui Li; Mohammad Mahtab Alam; Wei Guo; Yousaf Ali Khan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0267627

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 4, 2021
26 Dec 2021 Decision Letter - Dragan Pamucar, Editor PONE-D-21-35145The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economic Development: Evidence from Eastern ChinaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Khan, 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. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 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 plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ 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 academic 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'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Dragan Pamucar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ 3. Please amend either the title on the online submission form (via Edit Submission) or the title in the manuscript so that they are identical. [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: Yes ******** 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: No ****** 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: No ****** 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: First of all, the paper “The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economic Development: Evidence from Eastern China” aims and scope match those of PLOS ONE, so the paper is adequate for this journal. However based on my opinion it needs substantial improvements to be considered for publication in PLOS ONE. I would suggest a series of changes that in my opinion would improve the paper, in special for the reader. - I suggest the authors to improve the introduction section. Authors should better highlight the objective of their work and to what extent it contributes to close a gap in the existing literature and/or practice. What is the innovative value of the contribution proposed by the authors? - In introduction section authors should provide more information about existing economic evaluation index models used in literature and their benefits/weaknesses. - Why you have used Entropy method for determining criteria weights? Why not CRITIC, BWM, FUCOM or Level Based Weight Assessment (LBWA) methods? These methods should be discussed. The authors need to discuss their contributions compared to those in related papers. The authors must clearly discuss the significance of the research problem in the first section. - Add separate literature review section. You should provide more recent references published in last two-three years. Remove references published before 2017. I suggest authors to read and discuss the following papers in the revised manuscript: Objective methods for determining criteria weight coefficients: A modification of the CRITIC method. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 3(2), 149-161; Specific character of objective methods for determining weights of criteria in MCDM problems: Entropy, CRITIC and SD. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 4(2), 76-105. - Show step by step algorithm for proposed methodology. You should explain in detail this methodology. - Explain in more details in the data used in the case study, the data for the testing, the criterion for the accuracy, and others to claim these points. - Validation section is missing. How we can judge about these results? Comparisons with existing algorithms from the literature is missing. - The conclusion section seems to rush to the end. The authors will have to demonstrate the impact and insights of the research. The authors need to clearly provide several solid future research directions. Clearly state your unique research contributions in the conclusion section. Add limitations of the model. No bullets should be used in your conclusion section. Reviewer #2: The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economic Development: Evidence from Eastern China Agricultural water salvation may have significant effects on farmers’ livelihood economic development, therefore, it is critical to understand and even quantify the potential impacts of agricultural water salvation investment in local regions. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of agricultural water salvation investment-economic development relations by applying dynamic panel model. Overall, this manuscript carries an important and scientific interesting question, however, I have a couple of concerns with regard to this manuscript. 1 Introduction is very weak. I would like to see how water Salvation Investment affects economic Development, and its specific performance, positive or negative. If it is all positive, what is the significance of the study. 2 1989 was a special year, which the economic slowdown was influenced by foreign policies and not necessarily caused by inflation. 3 I encourage the authors compare with existing results of similar studies in other countries. 4 The manuscript not mentions Highlights. 5 Some numbers should be referenced further. 6 The second part should include methods and data. 7 Line 48, It is suggested to explain in more details on the model. How did you choose these models? And why? 8 This manuscript is missing a section on data collection and how data was applied in the models. 9 The results are very weak, and the results needs to be enriched. 10 Discussion does not really present new insights? compared to others, what are the new findings of your 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 [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267627.r001
Revision 1
23 Mar 2022 Author Response Authors' Response to the Editor and Reviewer's Comments We are very grateful to the Editor and the respected reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions that have much improved the manuscript. In the revised manuscript, we have carefully addressed the comments and suggestions of the reviewers. The following is a summary of the main revisions that we have made in response to the Editor's and reviewers' comments: Reviewer #1: First of all, the paper "The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economic Development: Evidence from Eastern China" aims and scope matches those of PLOS ONE, so the paper is adequate for this journal. However, based on my opinion it needs substantial improvements to be considered for publication in PLOS ONE. I would suggest a series of changes that in my opinion would improve the paper, in special for the reader. - I suggest the authors to improve the introduction section. Authors should better highlight the objective of their work and to what extent it contributes to close a gap in the existing literature and/or practice. What is the innovative value of the contribution proposed by the authors? Author Response: Improved the introduction of the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. Furthermore, it highlighted the contribution of the current research to the existing literature. - In introduction section authors should provide more information about existing economic evaluation index models used in literature and their benefits/weaknesses. Author Response: Provided detailed information about economics evaluation index models used in literature and discussed its advantages and disadvantages in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. - Why you have used Entropy method for determining criteria weights? Why not CRITIC, BWM, FUCOM or Level Based Weight Assessment (LBWA) methods? These methods should be discussed. The authors need to discuss their contributions compared to those in related papers. The authors must clearly discuss the significance of the research problem in the first section. Author Response: The entropy method is based on mutual information, and it has advantages over CRITIC, BWM, FUCOM, and LBWA that we can have calculated mutual information even if the parent distribution is not known or if the parent distribution is known but not normal, then still Entropy method is proper whereas, the others are not. - Add separate literature review section. You should provide more recent references published in last two-three years. Remove references published before 2017. I suggest authors to read and discuss the following papers in the revised manuscript: 1.Objective methods for determining criteria weight coefficients: A modification of the CRITIC method. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 3(2), 149-161; 2. Specific character of objective methods for determining weights of criteria in MCDM problems: Entropy, CRITIC and SD. Decision Making: Applications in Management and Engineering, 4(2), 76-105. Author Response: Removed references published before 2017 and added fresh references in the revised manuscript. Furthermore, we included all the suggested papers in the revised manuscript. - Show step by step algorithm for proposed methodology. You should explain in detail this methodology. Author Response: Explained each step of the proposed methodology in detail in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. - Explain in more details in the data used in the case study, the data for the testing, the criterion for the accuracy, and others to claim these points. Author Response: Explained in more details the data used in this research the criteria for accuracy in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewers. - Validation section is missing. How we can judge about these results? Comparisons with existing algorithms from the literature is missing. Author Response: A detail robustness analysis has been carried out for the underline research model, and the results are presented in Table 2 of the revised manuscript. - The conclusion section seems to rush to the end. The authors will have to demonstrate the impact and insights of the research. The authors need to clearly provide several solid future research directions. Clearly state your unique research contributions in the conclusion section. Add limitations of the model. No bullets should be used in your conclusion section. Author Response: Demonstrated the impact and insights of the current research in the conclusion section. Reviewer #2: The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economic Development: Evidence from Eastern China Agricultural water salvation may have significant effects on farmers' livelihood economic development, therefore, it is critical to understand and even quantify the potential impacts of agricultural water salvation investment in local regions. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of agricultural water salvation investment-economic development relations by applying dynamic panel model. Overall, this manuscript carries an important and scientific interesting question, however, I have a couple of concerns with regard to this manuscript. 1. Introduction is very weak. I would like to see how water Salvation Investment affects economic Development, and its specific performance, positive or negative. If it is all positive, what is the significance of the study. Author Response: Improved the introduction of the manuscript in the revised manuscript. Furthermore, the effects of agricultural eater salvation investment on economic Development are discussed in results and explained in more details and in the conclusion section. 2. 1989 was a special year, which the economic slowdown was influenced by foreign policies and not necessarily caused by inflation. Author Response: Explaination:1989 is a special year in many ways, especially for Chinses. By the spring of 1989 there was growing excitement among university students and others in China for political and economic reform. The country had experienced a decade of remarkable economic growth and liberalization, and many Chinese had been exposed to foreign ideas and standards of living. In addition, although the economic advances in China had brought new prosperity to many citizens, it was accompanied by price inflation and opportunities for corruption by government officials. In the mid-1980s, the central government had encouraged some people (notably scientists and intellectuals) to assume a more active political role. Still, student-led demonstrations were calling for more individual rights and freedoms in late 1986. Early 1987 caused hard-liners in the government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to suppress what they termed "bourgeois liberalism." One casualty of this tougher stance was Hu Yaobang, who had been the CCP general secretary since 1980 and who had encouraged democratic reforms; in January 1987, he was forced to resign his post. 3. I encourage the authors compare with existing results of similar studies in other countries. Author Response: Addressed the issue in the revised manuscript. 4 The manuscript not mentions Highlights. Author Response: Included the highlights in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. 5 Some numbers should be referenced further. Author Response: Addressed in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. 6 The second part should include methods and data. Author Response: The second part of the revised manuscript is now Methods and Data as suggested by the reviewer. 7 Line 48, It is suggested to explain in more details on the model. How did you choose these models? And why? Author Response: The test results of AR(1) and AR(2) in Table-2 show that the model has first-order autocorrelation but no second-order autocorrelation and the disturbance term has no autocorrelation. At the same time, the p-values of Sagan's test are all greater than 0.1, indicating that the selection of instrumental variables is effective. Therefore, using the systematic GMM method to estimate the model is feasible. 8 This manuscript is missing a section on data collection and how data was applied in the models. Author Response: The section of data explains the data collection and computational environment in detail in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. 9 The results are very weak, and the results needs to be enriched. Author Response: Enriched the results in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. 10 Discussion does not really present new insights? compared to others, what are the new findings of your research. Author Response: Discussed and presented the new insights in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. We are thankful to Editor and reviewers for their valuable suggestions. We carefully considered the comments/suggestions in preparing our revised manuscript and tried to answer the comments/suggestions. We hope that the revised manuscript will be in the form of publication in this journal. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Author response-Comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267627.r002
13 Apr 2022 Decision Letter - Dragan Pamucar, Editor The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economic Development: Evidence from Eastern China PONE-D-21-35145R1 Dear Dr. Khan, 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, Dragan Pamucar 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 #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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes 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: Yes 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: Yes Reviewer #2: 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 authors have addressed the point of my concern. I am happy with their corrections. Hence, I would like to recommend this manuscript to be published. Reviewer #2: I have no comments. This manuscript can be revised and accepted. The full text needs to be edited in English. ****** 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 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267627.r003
Formally Accepted
1 Jun 2022 Acceptance Letter - Dragan Pamucar, Editor PONE-D-21-35145R1 The Impact of Agricultural Water Salvation Investment on Economics Development: Evidence from Eastern China Dear Dr. Khan: 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. Dragan Pamucar Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267627.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .