PONE-D-24-06627Efficient Population Size of Urban Agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from a Financial PerspectivePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Xiao,

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 Jun 13 2024 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,

Baojie He, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. 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 

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2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: 

"This research was supported by the Major Project of the National social Science Foundation of China (20&ZD066)."

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" 

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Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

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Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-minimal-data-set-definition).

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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

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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: The paper can be accepted after making the following minor revisions.

(1) The innovation of this paper needs to be highlighted in the abstract.

(2) The article lacks an important discussion link, in which the author should focus on describing the differences between the article study and other scholars' studies, thus highlighting the relevance and academic value of the article, the following literature should be helpful for your research: (1)Reduction pathways identification of Agricultural Water Pollution in Hubei Province, China. (2) A differential game of water pollution management in the trans-jurisdictional river basin. (3) Coordination of the Industrial-Ecological Economy in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China.

(3) The article was not written following the correct journal's guidelines to be considered for publication. INTORDCUTION→MRTHOD→RESULTS→DISSCUSION→CONCLUSION

(4) How can your study inspire studies on other regions? The results should be further elaborated to show how they could be used for the real applications.

(5) What are the managerial insights/policy implications of this study? Compared with available literature, what are the theoretical contributions and application values of this study? It is suggested to enhance the corresponding discussions in the conclusion part.

Reviewer #2: The study quantified the effective population size of three urban agglomerations from a financial perspective. By reading the manuscript, I have the following comments and questions:

1.Line 57 of the manuscript fails to provide a detailed elaboration of the universal laws mentioned therein. Furthermore, the text refers to "Western researchers," yet the subsequent cases presented are all Chinese scholars and studies.

2.The introductory section of the manuscript provides a comprehensive overview of existing studies, yet lacks the requisite summaries and generalisations. Furthermore, the necessity, importance, innovativeness, and significance of the study are not adequately addressed in the introductory section.

3.It is recommended that the reasons for the selection of the study area be included in the manuscript. Furthermore, it is advised that the authors provide an overview map of the study area, indicating the location of the cities and their spatial extent.

4.Line 176-Line 183: This section of the statement appears superfluous and lacks any meaningful connection to the study.

5.The figures and their accompanying labels in the manuscript are too small to facilitate the acquisition of the requisite information. Furthermore, the names of the urban agglomerations are incorrectly labelled. It is recommended that the authors incorporate the contents of Figures 2, 3, and 4 into Figure 1 in order to enhance the visual presentation of the results.It is recommended that the authors provide the goodness of fit in Figure 5.

6.The Conclusions and Discussion section, which is largely identical to the results, should be summarized as part of the conclusions. Furthermore, the extended discussion and analysis of the results in the existing manuscript is inadequate to highlight the value of the study.

7.Furthermore, the outcomes of linear/non-linear fitting based on a single factor are frequently characterised by uncertainty and ambiguity. It is therefore recommended that authors consider a multifactor combined analysis in order to enhance the accuracy and representativeness of the results.

In summary, it is recommended that the manuscript be given a major revision.

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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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[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.

PONE-D-24-06627R1Efficient Population Size of Urban Agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from a Financial PerspectivePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Xiao,

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 Aug 12 2024 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,

Baojie He, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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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 #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 #2: Yes

**********

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

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 #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 #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 #2: The author has responded to and revised the comments in question in a satisfactory manner, thereby enhancing the quality of the article. However, one minor suggestion remains. With regard to the initial question, the authors have misinterpreted it. It is not a summary and generalisation of this study (Line 118-Line 147), but rather of previous related studies. The authors should therefore revise accordingly. Following further revision, the manuscript can be accepted.

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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 #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.

PONE-D-24-06627R2Efficient Population Size of Urban Agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from a Financial PerspectivePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Xiao,

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 Sep 08 2024 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,

Xu Xin, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr. Xiao,

Greetings!

Thank you very much for your submission to PLOS ONE.

I am pleased to inform you that Reviewer 1 recommended a "minor revision" during the first round of revisions. Therefore, the academic editor (AE) did not invite him to the subsequent review. Reviewer 2 has already recommended a "accept" at the second round of revision (R2). I agree with their comments and think that this manuscript is basically ready for acceptance. However, after my careful assessment, I still have some concerns about this manuscript. I think it is necessary for the author to emphasize the following before this manuscript is accepted.

Comments:

1. The author's correspondence email address should be an institutional email address. Please try to use the university official email instead of Outlook email.

2. Abstract is very boring. Please hit the pillars of academic abstract (i.e., background information, methods, important results, implications in brief). The current abstract lacks background information, the methods are not clearly presented, and the results and significance are too lengthy.

3. Introduction: Please don't start by arguing about China. This is an international journal. Please start by giving some background information suitable for international readers. The format of "Wang et al. [5] - [8]" is incorrect.

4. The introduction section should end with a paragraph describing the organization of the subsequent sections. The research processes for this manuscript should be given (see Figure 1 of the reference given below).

5. Some sentences are so strange that the authors need to find a professional agency to proofread them. For example, Line 187, "The data required for this study involve the populations of urban agglomerations, fiscal revenues, and fiscal expenditures, among other data.", What do you mean by among other data? The figure of the study area needs to be redrawn, and the source and type of data need to be organized in tables (see Table 1 in reference attached below).

6. Line 208: Based on Nakamura and Kanauchi’s [12], This way of writing is wrong.

7. In equations 1 and 2, all parameters/variables (i.e., N, Y, C and E) need to be italicized. Meanwhile, I don't understand the meaning of functions f1 and f2. Line 215: "By deriving N in Equation (2), the maximum value of Y/C can be calculated." I find it hard to understand what this sentence means.

8. Line 254: R2 should be deleted.

9. Line 301: There is a problem with the format of the formula. All equations in the manuscript should be edited using software such as Mathtype.

10. Discussion section should be improved. It should present core results that emerge from the study, interprets and discusses them (by the authors). The discussion section needs to compare this study with other key studies, emphasize the significance of this study, provide implication for academia (theoretical) and policy and decision makers (managerial) (what benefit should be gained out of such result, what does it mean to port managers and policy makers). If I read the study, what is the benefit I gain as new thing? Readers, researchers and policy makers, should leave with a bunch relevant implication not only results. Some of the management insights given so far are so obvious that they can be obtained even without conducting this research. For the specific writing method of this section, the author can refer to the reference attached below.

11. The conclusion should be organized better. That is, provide a summary of the study, brief results, in addition to proper limitations and future research areas. The conclusion currently lacks the simple introduction and specific conclusions of this article. For the specific writing method of this section, the author can refer to the reference attached below.

12. The formatting of the references in this manuscript needs revision. I often see inappropriate citations. The autorh should also cite some articles in this journal.

13. The number of cited literature is relatively small (only 27 literature), which is also related to the insufficient literature review. I suggest that the author strengthen his/her review of existing literature in the introduction section.

In addition to the problems I pointed out, the author also needs to carefully sort out the flow of the manuscript and try to make the manuscript clear and fluent. At the same time, I think the format of the following article is more reasonable for the author's reference.

Reference:

Zhang, T., Xin, X., He, F., Wang, X., & Chen, K. (2023). How to promote sustainable land use in Hangzhou Bay, China? A decision framework based on fuzzy multiobjective optimization and spatial simulation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 414, 137576.

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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 #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 #2: Yes

**********

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

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 #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 #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 #2: (No Response)

**********

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 #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.

Efficient Population Size of Urban Agglomerations in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from a Financial Perspective

PONE-D-24-06627R3

Dear Dr. Xiao,

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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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,

Xu Xin

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE