Responses of Soil Labile Organic Carbon on Aggregate Stability across Different Collapsing-Gully Erosion Positions from Acric Ferralsols of South China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors of the paper "Responses of soil labile organic carbon on aggregate stability across different collapsing gully erosion positions from Acric Ferralsols of South China" available to me have written an interesting article which, however, still needs some revisions, especially in terms of methodology, before it is worth being published.

First, I find it very strange that the meteorological characterization of the study area is based on a publication that is more than 6 years old. In times of climate change, I expect current data and precise expression of the same. Are these, for example, long-term (≥ 30 years) mean values and if so, for how long and from when to when........

When describing the vegetation (L. 121) I also expect the scientific (Latin) names of the plants or plant communities.

A soil classification from 1975 is used for the description of the soil type (L. 129)? This must be compared with the latest international classification. In my opinion, it doesn't matter whether the WRB or the FAO is used.

Please explain why you use a sieve with a mesh size of 0.15 mm after sieving the soil with a 2 mm sieve.

The literature source used by Zhang & Gong does not require et al., since two authors are quoted here. et al. is only used from 3 authors. In addition, this literature was written in Chinese and therefore cannot be understood by an international audience. Another source must be consulted here.

Furthermore, it is not clear from the description of the "routine soil analysis" whether the further analyzes all refer to this literature source or not. Here I expect - in a nutshell - the respective procedure and the measuring devices used.

I would like to urge the authors once again to check the terms they use themselves and the associated abbreviations. The abbreviations SOC (L. 177) and OC (L. 46) are used for soil organic carbon; that will not do. Furthermore, OC is also used for soil labile organic carbon (L. 190); that's even less possible. Please revise the whole paper accordingly, it will completely confuse the reader and is not suitable for publication.

Why do you completely mix up the chemical and physical parameters in Table 1? It would be helpful if you followed a corresponding order here.

Starting at L. 256 and continuing thereafter, the symbol "≤" should properly be used for significance limits.

After a complete revision of the syntax used and a correspondingly safe use of it, I am happy to subject the results and the discussion to a review, at this point in time that doesn't make sense yet!

Minor editing of English language.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

 The manuscript titled ‘’ Responses of soil labile organic carbon on aggregate stability across different collapsing gully erosion positions from Acric Ferralsols of South China’’ is looking for changes in soil aggregation affected by labile carbon. The idea is interesting and authors really came over the interpretation of their findings. Methods are well described! However, there are some points needed to be improved before further process. 

Abstract 

Line 23: Soils of Five positions -> …five… 

Line 25: Soil aggregate stability and organic carbon -> These two parameters should be define-abbreviate in parentheses earlier, and then just use the abbreviated. In the first line, you did it for organic carbon. So after that just use OC. 

Lines 34-41: the abstract is too long. But you can make it shorter by reducing these lines. 

Introduction 

Line 46: Soil organic carbon (OC), as an important cement of soil aggregates… -> please remove ‘’cement’’ from hear and rephrase the sentence. 

Line 53: , especially macro-stability -> Do you mean macro-aggregates? 

Lines 60-62: please add this newly published work as well here: https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097158 

Line 126: area is 136 m2 -> make ‘’2’’ superscript 

Line 137: volume 100 cm3 -> make ‘’3’’ superscript -> Check this point throughout the text. 

Discussion 

Some statements in this section are left without reference! 

Line 436: which indicates collapsing gully erosion can reduce soil macroaggregates. -> REF? 

Lines 453-454: On the other hand, rainfall infiltration increases the weight of soil, which is the force driving collapse, further enabling soil leaching and thus reducing soil anti-erosion ability. -> REF? 

The conclusion well-finalized the findings. 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

The article "Responses of soil labile organic carbon on aggregate stability across different collapsing gully erosion positions from Acric Ferralsols of South China" provides relevant material on the influence of labile organic carbon on slope stability and soil aggregate composition.

Observations:

1. The paper presents the results of research carried out on Acric Ferralsols of South China. It is unclear why such collapsing gully was chosen and whether the results can be applied to other ditches.

2. The stability of the ditch is also influenced by its steepness and moisture content. However, this is not discussed in the article.

3. It should be explained how more labile carbon improves the stability of the ditch, what are the ways to increase the carbon content of the soil?

4. The article uses many literature sources. Perhaps references 40 and 48 could be changed with more recent ones.

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors carefully followed the advice of the reviewers and thus significantly improved the quality of the paper.