PONE-D-21-34995The use of spatial data and satellite information in legal compliance and planning in forest managementPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lindenmayer,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

please revise the ms according to the concerns of the reviewers.

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: This is an interesting paper which presents a very detailed applied study concerning the application of digital terrain analysis, specifically topographic slope angle, to forest management prescriptions. The results are novel in terms of the context, namely, the efficacy of differently grained DEMs and the slope derivative to inform the monitoring and evaluation of forest management prescriptions designed to protect water catchments. The paper presents an extremely thorough empirical analysis as well as providing an in-depth discussion of the practical relevance of the results. The paper warrants publishing in PLOS ONE subject to a minor revision to take account of the following points.

L60 - “isn’t” should be “is not”

L62 – remove brackets as this is a key point, not an aside

L72 does “best” = “most cost effective”? What are criteria for assessing what is “best” here?

L74 – strictly speaking a DEM is not remote sensing data. It is a spatial data layer modelled from a satellite-based or otherwise air-borne active sensor.

L77-78 – this sentence needs to be rewritten to make clearer the meaning given it is the basis for the relevance of the paper’s analyses.

L 105-108, 109-112 – these read more like conclusions, rather than introductory statements, as they are anticipating the results.

L 192 – how was slope calculated in Arc GIS? I.e. different functions can be used to calculate gradients in the X and Y direction.

L221 – can the authors clarify that there were Lidar shots for every grid cell? If not, then some interpolation would have been required.

L224 – was there a rationale behind the class intervals?

L268 – it is not clear why you would need to test for spatial autocorrelations given all the data being analysed are DEMs on a regular grid, it is not clear why autocorrelation would be an issue?? What was the autocorrelation of concern?

L346 – I think the differences between the values of the differently scaled slope grides are better described as differences and not errors. I say this because slope can be accurately calculated at a range of scales for the same location and differ in their values.

L360 - clarify that this result was found from all three scaled slope grids, or if not, which scale was used.

General comments:

1. It would be helpful if the authors could clarify if all three scales are relevant to the scale at which the forest management guidelines are intended to be applied. For example, I don’t think that forest management prescriptions are meant to be applied at a 1m resolution. Wouldn’t the appropriate scale of analysis be the slope calculated at a scale that captures the variation within a logged coup; which I assume is equivalent to what the authors call a cut block? In any case, some discussion is warranted of the scale at which slope is calculated compared with the scale at which forest management prescriptions are applied. It is not clear from the methods what the scale of the neighbourhood analysis used to calculate slope (e.g. 3x3 moving window?), so perhaps this point could be dealt with by providing further details in that section? This also applies for the field measurements form the transects. It is not clear how slope was calculated along the 12-32.5m long transects (was the entire length of the transect used?) nor how this scale related to the scale at which forest management prescriptions are intended to be applied in a forest block.

2. If length is an issue for the editor, the section titled "Comparisons with analysis of steep slopes by VicForests" could be edited back as it provides a lot of detail about the authors communications with the agency which is not essential to the paper's important findings.

Reviewer #2: This study addresses an important aspect of environmental management that is open to misuse, clarifying critical details with sound data. It’s important that it is published, but I think it could be improved with some minor changes.

The main issue is that the framing of the study needs to be clearer. Given that DEMs have been use for decades for similar purposes, it’s unclear why this is an important question until the reader reaches the Discussion. The core of it is in line 564, where the OCR claimed that these DEMs overstated the slope. I think that needs to be up-front in the Intro – concerns have been expressed that DEMs overstate the slope.

A second although not essential issue is that the paper would be stronger if it investigated a mechanism, so that the findings are more widely applicable. I can see two possible options from the findings:

1. Lower resolution DEMs (larger cells) smooth the landscape by averaging the contents of the cell. Where there is greater change in slope within a cell (eg gullies), you could expect the DEM to underestimate the slope (eg the 30m DEM).

2. The accuracy of point heights used in a DEM can cause errors in slope calculations, but unless such errors have a systematic trend, this should just create noise rather than bias (eg the 10m DEM)

You could either test these as hypotheses or summarise them as key findings.

Other minor issues:

60: Delete ‘locating’

82: Saying that DEMs are already considered essential seems to conflict with the idea that you’re presenting something novel. That needs to be said in context – “The use of DEMs is essential for forest management planning to identify steep slopes and exclude logging from these areas, however, some have contended that…”

88: Add comma between ‘LiDAR and’

109: Unless this is the primary aim of the paper, maybe state it after the other aim(s). The first of these should be to investigate whether DEMs distort slopes as claimed.

152: Practice, not practices

202-205: Seems to be repeating earlier parts of the paragraph a bit, maybe simplify the paragraph as a whole.

212-214: A minimum patch size should be clearly specified that breaches the code. If there is no published value, make this clear and say that you’re using 5m because there isn’t a standard. That could also feed into the Discussion, highlighting that systems are open to abuse if no patch size has been specified.

272: Drop the final ‘the’

367: ‘Consisted of’ implies that it was all 1m patches. Perhaps change to ‘included’.

468: Lose the period after the first ‘the’

568-570: This is the core finding and is important. I’d open the results with this.

630ff: It’s unclear how this section fits the paper overall. While they seem like questionable actions, I’d only include them if you can show clearly how they breach your findings.

683: Such ‘data’

701: “compliance with laws preventing logging on steep slopes is require[d]”

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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The use of spatial data and satellite information in legal compliance and planning in forest management

PONE-D-21-34995R1

Dear Dr. Lindenmayer,

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.

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Kind regards,

RunGuo Zang

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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Reviewers' comments: