PONE-D-24-49768Analysis of growing season drought characteristics and driving factors for vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in XinjiangPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Li,

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This research was funded by Major Project of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (2023A02002-1),National Natural Science Foundation of China(41762018), Open Project of Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Water Conservancy Engineering Safety and Water Disaster Prevention (ZDSYS-JS-2021-09), 2023 Research project of Xinjiang Key Laboratory of Water Conservancy Engineering Safety and Water Disaster Prevention (ZDSYS-YJS-2023-10) and The Belt and Road Special Foundation of the National Key Laboratory of Water Disaster Prevention (2020491611). 

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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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

Reviewer #3: 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: 1. The introduction of the manuscript emphasizes the insufficiency of current research in integrating human activities with drought issues. However, the discussion on the impacts of land use changes and human activities on drought remains superficial, lacking an in-depth exploration of the underlying driving mechanisms. Furthermore, the study fails to adequately address the core questions raised in the introduction.

2. While the paper employs the TVDI indicator, which is suitable for areas with substantial vegetation cover, its applicability in regions with sparse vegetation or bare soil is debatable. The manuscript does not sufficiently address the limitations of this indicator or its potential impact on the results. A more thorough discussion of these limitations would enhance the credibility of the findings.

3. The study primarily relies on annual temporal resolution. Although seasonal variations are mentioned, the analysis does not capture critical short-term drought fluctuations within key growth periods, which diminishes its direct applicability to agricultural production and water resource management. Additionally, the use of a 30-meter spatial resolution, though appropriate for large-scale regional analysis, may obscure local heterogeneity in small-scale irrigation areas, reducing its utility for precise monitoring and strategy development.

4. Although the manuscript employs the GeoDetector model to reveal the independent and interactive effects of various driving factors, the explanations of these interactions remain qualitative, lacking robust scientific reasoning. Specifically, the paper identifies the interaction between elevation and temperature as having the strongest explanatory power for drought distribution but fails to elucidate the underlying physical mechanisms behind this phenomenon.

5.The introduction highlights the large-scale impacts of drought and critiques the limitations of large-scale studies in integrating human activities and regional heterogeneity. However, the research itself is focused on the Santun River Irrigation Area, a small-scale region, analyzing local drought characteristics and drivers. This shift between the research objectives and study scope lacks clear logical coherence, resulting in a degree of inconsistency in the manuscript.

6.The correlation analysis between TVDI and soil moisture does not report p-values to verify the strength of the relationship. The GeoDetector model results, including single-factor (e.g., temperature, NDVI) and interaction effects, lack significance tests to confirm the robustness of the q-values. The Mann-Kendall trend analysis for seasonal and annual TVDI variations omits the significance levels (e.g., p-values) of the identified trends.

7.In the discussion of seasonal drought variations, the reasons for the intensification of spring drought and the alleviation of summer drought are not analyzed in depth. The explanation is limited to temperature changes or irrigation water use, without considering factors such as precipitation distribution or adjustments in crop planting structures. Additionally, for the spatial heterogeneity where drought is more severe in the northern region, it is merely described as being "close to the desert with sparse vegetation," without a detailed analysis of human activities (e.g., over-extraction of water resources, urban expansion) or natural factors (e.g., soil water retention capacity).

Reviewer #2: 1. What is the difference between the canopy temperature in VSWI and LST?�

2. Are there any other similar studies examining the small scales other than the study area mentioned in the paper?

3. There are a number of abbreviations in the text, and it is recommended that a table or an appendix be added listing all abbreviations and their full names.

4.

Line 130: amax and bmax should use suffix notation.

Line 131: amin and bmin should use suffix notation.

Line 281: 2020 should be 2023

5. Reference 34 and 42 are the same

Reviewer #3: This paper focuses on the analysis of growing season drought characteristics and their driving factors for vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in Xinjiang, a topic of significant scientific and practical value. However, there are deficiencies in data analysis and result discussion that require substantial revision and supplementation.

1. Data sources are not clearly specified. There is a lack of descriptions regarding the time range and spatial resolution of the data sources in Table 2. The authors mention choosing 60 images from 2005 to 2023, but the frequency of the dataset seems low. The authors need to justify whether these calculation results can represent quarterly drought characteristics.

2. Similarly, the soil moisture data in Table 2 need to include information about its spatial extent. If these data are discrete, the interpolation methods also need to be described.

3. The paper focuses on vegetation area, but some areas without vegetation are also included in the statistics, such as urban-rural residential land, water bodies, and unused land. Excluding these areas might yield more accurate results.

4. In section 3.3.1, the paper statistically analyzes the annual average TVDI and the percentages of the area with different drought classes from 2005 to 2023. The methodology and its rationale should be explained; additionally, the paper should clarify how the calculated drought areas were validated.

5. The explanation for Fig 11 is unclear, with no introduction of the numbers before the area percentages. Additionally, Fig 11 (a) and Fig 11 (b) are both labeled "Irrigation area transfers," while Fig 11 (c) and Fig 11 (d) are labeled "Irrigation district drought transfers." The descriptions should be consistent.

6. Section 3.4 analyzes the influence of driving factors but fails to explain their rationale and calculation methods. Moreover, precipitation, discussed as an influential factor in sections 4.1 and 4.2, is not mentioned among the driving factors.

7. Some discussions in this manuscript are inadequate. The inference of drought driving factors in section 4.3 and the discussion of drought response strategies in section 4.4 should focus on the drought driving factors studied in this paper. The current arguments seem disconnected from the research content and should be revised to align with the research findings.

8. Some reference formats are inconsistent with the journal’s requirements and should be checked and revised.

In conclusion, this paper has significant deficiencies in data introduction, research method description, data analysis, and result discussion. Major revision is recommended.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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PONE-D-24-49768R1Analysis of growing season drought characteristics and driving factors for vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in XinjiangPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Li,

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 Apr 14 2025 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,

Nguyen-Thanh Son, 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 #4: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #6: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #7: (No Response)

Reviewer #8: (No Response)

Reviewer #9: (No Response)

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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 #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

Reviewer #8: Yes

Reviewer #9: Yes

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

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: N/A

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

Reviewer #8: Yes

Reviewer #9: Yes

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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 #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

Reviewer #8: Yes

Reviewer #9: Yes

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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 #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: No

Reviewer #6: Yes

Reviewer #7: Yes

Reviewer #8: Yes

Reviewer #9: Yes

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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 #4: The study titled “Analysis of Growing Season Drought Characteristics and Driving Factors for Vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in Xinjiang” presents a remote sensing-based assessment of drought trends. The manuscript very well articulated the drought analysis in arid areas of Xinjiang. It also addressed the research applicability and drought management strategies. However, there are certain suggestions that the author should take into account:

• In the introduction section, the manuscript mentioned the study of droughts and its approaches but lacks a clear research gap and objectives that the study aims to address.

• The introduction deals more about the methods, such as TVDI, Theil-Sen trend analysis, etc., which should be appropriate for the methods section. The introduction should focus on the “how” aspect rather than “what” and "why," conveying the novelty of the research.

• Mention briefly why Santun RIA is significant for studying drought characteristics and its driving factors.

• In the methodology section, briefly mention the rationale behind choosing the mentioned methods for easy reproducibility of the work.

• The methodology section outlines various methods but does not justify why these were chosen for drought analysis.

• The study analyzes the drought conditions over a specific period, but it could be improved by exploring the implications for future water resource management and agricultural planning.

• The paper did not analyze the groundwater depletion in detail, which has been discussed as key factors for drought intensification in Xinjiang. Include the suggestion in the future research section.

• The manuscript does not address human-induced factors such as urban expansion, irrigation, and policies.

Reviewer #5: I see articles have been revised well as per comments given in previous review. The topic undertaken is needs of the time and methods applied are relevant. The article is nicely designed and written well but I suggest authors to do a comprehensive language check as at several places English language is poor and sentences are not clear. Also, discussion needs a comprehensive revision as it is lengthy and did not provide a meaningful discussion. My specific comments are as:

Kindly avoid using personal pronouns like ‘we’, ‘you’, ‘our’, ‘I’, ‘us’, etc.

Second sentence in abstract may be revised.

Keywords must be revised. The keyword ‘remote sensing monitoring’ did not make a clear meaning while the full form of TDVI should be written in keyword. Similarly, drought and Landsat are also not reliable as keywords, instead it may be written as ‘drought monitoring’ and ‘Landsat datasets’.

Line 73. Add citation.

Table 1. Kindly add a column for each Landsat satellite data used.

Table 2 may be removed and the full form of each abbreviation used should be mentioned in manuscript at first appearance.

Quality of figure 3, 9 and 10 should be improved.

Some studies have been done to monitor drought using Landsat data and temperature and vegetation indices. Authors should check these studies and compare the findings with these studies in the manuscript. Some of the studies are: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2024.101689, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10028-5, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.110584, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3567-1_4, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2024.112681

Discussion seems to be a summary especially sub-section 4.2-4.5. Authors should try to build arguments based on the findings of this study and comparing it with previous studies. Kindly try to provide causes and effects of major findings and add a sub-section of policy implication at the end. In current form the discussion is lengthy but did not provide a concrete discussion.

Kindly bring whole conclusion in one or two paragraph.

Reviewer #6: I have read the draft “Analysis of growing season drought characteristics and driving factors for vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in Xin jiang” revised based on the comments received earlier from three reviewers.

I have found that the authors have addressed the concerns raised by the previous reviewers. The contexts and arguments placed in the paper are convincing.

Water availability to the requirements of specific crops is the prime production condition, absence of which, could nullify contributions of other inputs. There are specific thresholds of optimal water requirement for every crop, which the precipitation and/or irrigation provisioning need to ensure in case water availability deviates from optimality. Thus, there involves optimization of costs for water provisioning, and all requires precise estimates on the cost and benefits derived from land use. These aspects though are not explicit in the paper, one could relate the significance the paper posits.

The context of the study is thus presented well - a timely and accurate assessment of the drought situation (water availability assessment to the requirements of crops cultivated) is of great significance in sustaining production. The authors are well aware of the developments in the field of GIS and applications, consider a host of factors including the topography and human activities as drivers of drought.

There is high water demand in the study area, though causes of demand are indicated, could be explained further as – water availability declines because of variation of precipitation, and higher water use intensity is because of cropping pattern change driven by the market. and higher human consumption of water in new areas of consumption.

Data sources are well indicated and methodology is well explained in the paper to measure the TVDI. Geodetector model however requires detailed justification on how all the factors act as drivers. If the results show drought reduction and enhancement of drought across various seasons, the explanatory factors need detailed discussion. For instance, the main reason for the gradual increase of drought in summer is temperature and increased need of water for crops, as because it is the prime growing season of crops. Further, the study area has high population density, and the demand for crops would be market driven, and market as a factor to intensify input use to derive higher yield and even change cropping patterns for exotic crops, which may require more water. Detailed discussion on these lines along with crop data could have made the analysis comprehensive.

Drought could be linked to cropping seasons, assessing water requirements for crops cultivated, and drought could be aggravated/reduced by introduction/withdrawal of water intensive crops. Mapping of crops to the seasons could have arrived to derive better results from the exercises. There is scope to have simulation exercises on water requirement on three fronts - cropping pattern to the ecological condition of the study area; introduction of water intensive crops driven by market, and introduction of low water intensive crops driven/compensated by state subsidy; and as indicated technology can complement/aggravate the rest of the interventions to ensure optimality or aggravating the droughts too.

Reviewer #7: The research study provides a detailed, well-structured analysis of drought trends in the Xinjiang Santun River Irrigation District, integrating remote sensing and statistical models. The study effectively identifies spatial heterogeneity, emphasizing that the northern part of the irrigation area experiences more severe drought than the southern part. However, some revisions and improvements are needed in the study before publication. By addressing these suggestions, the study will meaningfully contribute to drought risk assessment, water resource management, and climate change adaptation strategies in arid agricultural regions.

1. The study categorizes drought severity but does not explain the basis and threshold values for these classifications (e.g., what threshold defines “moderate” vs. “severe” drought?)

2. There is a need to discuss the potential bias in TVDI estimates, especially in sparsely vegetated regions where NDVI approaches zero and may fail to represent soil moisture conditions.

3. The study needs to discuss the model uncertainty and how the data limitations (like- cloud cover, sensor errors) may affect the results.

4. Data on groundwater depletion needs to be incorporated to establish the claim of over-extraction.

5. The study needs to discuss how various irrigation policies and water allocation strategies implemented in the area affect drought severity.

Reviewer #8: Author need to check and use concise language to enhance readability for readers. Also needs recheck the PLOS ONE Guidelines thats why requires some minor corrections before it can be accepted for publication.

Manuscript Title: “Analysis of growing season drought characteristics and driving factors for vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in Xinjiang”.

Manuscript ID: PONE-D-24-49768R1

Dear Authors,

I enjoyed reading this work. However, I have just some minor comments which are given section-wise.

The manuscript addresses a very relevant matter on the growing season drought characteristics and driving factors for vegetation. It highlights some pertinent issues in the context of agricultural production and the economic crisis of the global south region. Therefore, The topic is interesting and could be an important contribution to the journal and the discipline of climatic paradigm and agricultural production. However, the manuscript requires some minor corrections before it can be accepted for publication.

General comments:

• Use concise language to enhance readability for readers.

• Research gap needs to be justified with the help of previous literature.

• The methods section should be written clearly and comprehensively to ensure accessibility and understanding for readers. Basically who are without a background of quantitative research.

• Methodology portions needed to be written sequentially and needed to be justified with previous literature review.

• More policy recommendations need to be discussed by underpinning the findings.

Abstract:

The abstract provides an overview of the research topic but lacks of conciseness – by following the structure sequentially like background, objectives, methods, results, and conclusions would provide a standard structure of the abstract.

Introduction:

• Overall, the introduction portion is comprehensive, but the sentences lack of proper linkages.

• Therefore, the suggestion is to critically evaluate the literature to highlight specific gaps by incorporating more recent studies to reflect advancements in the climatic paradigm, including human aspects.

Study Area:

• After replacing this “Study Area, Data, and Methods” authors should write study area only in the line of 96.

• The paragraph needs to include why Xinjiang Santun River Irrigation District is more important than others in the context of climatic chapters with a proxy of drought.

Data and Methods:

• “In line 116 the title “Data sources and Processing” should be corrected as “Material and Methods”.

• In line 130 the title “Methods” should be corrected as “Methods of Data Analysis”.

• Minimal discussion has been done on how the data collection methods ensure reliability and validity. So, the suggestion is to discuss potential biases and how they are allayed in the data collection process by citing previous literature.

Results and Discussion:

To improve the quality of work, findings should be analyzed in reference to a theoretical framework. Include a comparison discussion with similar studies to contextualize the results in the same periphery.

Conclusion:

A concise summary should be included in the conclusion, along with key points from the results and discussion, while also addressing the study's limitations to provide a comprehensive closing perspective for this study.

Reviewer #9: (No Response)

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Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: Yes:  Dr. Shahfahad

Reviewer #6: Yes:  Kalyan Das

Reviewer #7: No

Reviewer #8: No

Reviewer #9: No

**********

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review Comments.docx

Analysis of growing season drought characteristics and driving factors for vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in Xinjiang

PONE-D-24-49768R2

Dear Dr. Qiao Li,

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.

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Kind regards,

Nguyen-Thanh Son, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Reviewer #4: The authors have successfully incorporated all the suggestions I provided. Therefore, I accept the paper for publication in its current form.

Reviewer #5: Authors have revised the MS as per comments. I feel manuscript has been improved significantly and may be recommended for publication now.

Reviewer #6: The authors have addressed all comments explicitly, or implicitly. To address certain questions it is understood that there are data gaps. The authors in such contexts, have led detailed discussion on the concerns raised.

Reviewer #7: The manuscript titled "Analysis of Growing Season Drought Characteristics and Driving Factors for Vegetation in the Santun River Irrigation Area in Xinjiang" presented a comprehensive and insightful analysis of the factors influencing vegetation response to drought conditions in a critical irrigation area. The authors have addressed all the queries raised during the review process and have provided adequate explanations and revisions to enhance the clarity and depth of their analysis. The methodology is robust, and the findings are well-supported by data. The manuscript now meets the standards required for publication and provides valuable information for future research and practical applications in drought management.

I recommend the paper for acceptance in its current form.