Using a Rainfall Simulator to Define the Effect of Soil Conservation Techniques on Soil Loss and Water Retention

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, please, see my pdf with some suggestions to improve the paper.

Best regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for reading and reviewing our manuscript. Your recommendations helped to clarify and correct the manuscript. Please see attached document with our replies. We tried to implement all recommendations. Authors.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

In general it is interesting research; however, some points are not clear or well write. Thus, the authors must attend to the points raised, for a subsequent publication.

GENERAL COMMENTS

Abstract:

The abstract of the manuscript does not bring the main results of the study. If the title of the manuscript brings the theme of soil conservation techniques, the abstract does not contain these results. For example, for an advance of knowledge it is much more important to know the impact of the techniques than the coefficient of variation. Thus, authors must present the most important results.

Keywords

Check the maximum number that can be used.

Introduction

The authors raise the issue of soil conservation practices (e.g., lines 38-39; 45; 52-53; 68-70), however, in research question #4 they bring up the issue of difference in the C-factor. For clarification, C-factor (cover-management factor), P-factor (support practice factor). From the introduction, everything suggests that the authors would work with the P-factor and not cover-management (C-factor); perhaps the authors are working with the combined effect of these factors (C and P factors)? Thereupon, I suggest a total redirection of the introduction.

Objectives

The manuscript brings the main questions (my understanding is what one seeks to understand), but does not bring the objects of the manuscript. Once the authors are clear on the objectives, they can restructure the introduction. Without a well-defined objective, it does not have a clear conclusion (perhaps that is why there are no conclusions in the abstract). Clearly define your aims!

Hypotheses

What are the study hypotheses? Please define and insert in de manuscript.

Material and methods

After the complete reading of the manuscript, the doubt remained whether the experiment was indoor or outdoor. The methodology leads to the understanding that it was outdoor, but in lines 310-311 the authors report: "Despite the difficulty of performing outdoor experiments..." thus, doubts arose as to how the experiment was conducted. Make the information clear in the methodology.

Conclusion

What is written in the conclusions is a continuation of the Discussions. Thus, this whole part should go into the discussion topic.

Conclusions should be written based on the objectives that have yet to be formed.

SPECIFIC COMMENTS

Line 42 - LANDUM is an acronym for model? What model? Land Use and Management model? Define correctly!

Line 43 - What does CORINE mean? Coordination of information on the environment? Define correctly!

Line 86 – Material instead of Materials

Line 119 - the authors report the weight of the rolling press, but what is the contact area? The pressure applied by 30 kg m^-2 is very different from 30 kg cm^-2. Pressure is weight over area. In the international system of units, you must use Pascal (N m^-2).

Line 136 – “Error! Reference source not found”. Please, verify

Lines 162-166 - For each test, the precipitation amount was checked by gauge and by water pressure at the fist nozzle. In cases of values different from the forecast, was the rainfall kinetic energy recalculated?

Line 206 – Equation 5 - the formula for the calculation is wrong, as the SLRi is multiplied by Ri, after completing all periods “I” the value must be divided by Rt. C = (SLRi x Ri) / Rt

Is the error just typing the formula or was it really calculated that way? If so, redo all results!

Line 222 - Units must be in the International System of Units. Therefore, t ha^-1 must be replaced by Mg ha^-1. Check this out throughout the rest of the manuscript.

Line 239 - Units must be in the International System of Units. Since, liters is “L” and not “l”. Check this throughout the remainder of the manuscript, including figures and tables.

Line 246 (subtopic 3.3) - In the wet experiment, there is more runoff generation and less (or similar) sediments flux. Why does this occur? Wouldn't it be due to the sediments that are more easily disaggregated have already been removed in the dry experiment? Mainly in the bare soil experiment, where the soil was plowed and compacted.

Line 257 (subtopic 3.4) - Are the authors changing cover-management or support conservation practices? Is this impacting the C-factor, P-factor or combine CP-factor?

Lines 269-276 - I see two possibly miscalculated points in that paragraph. The first could be a typo: it should be 960 instead of 966, that is 60 L m^-2 h^-1 x 16 m² = 960 L h^-1). The second possible error is related to the time of the experiment (30 min); thus, the real applied volume was half, that is, 480 L per plot instead of 960 L h^-1.

Lines 309-312 - In the methodology it was not clear that the experiment was not outdoor. Furthermore, in Table 3 it is not possible to observe what the authors are indicating about similar and stable results.

Line 312 – (Table 3) instead of (see Table 3).

Lines 421 and 422 – t/ha should be replaced by Mg ha^-1

Line 423 – kg/h and kg/ha should be replaced by kg ha^-1

Lines 434-437 - Delete this part, this is inherent to the type of study, and should not be highlighted, even because this was not the object of your study.

TABLES

Table 1

1.       What would the “other” crops be? Does it not matter to the country? region? At least mention them at the bottom of the table

2.       What does "Risuty" mean? Was it crops? Use the term in English.

Table 2

The Ri should be used in each experiment, that is, the rainfall erosivity value of a 30-minute rainfall with an intensity of 60 mm h^-1. If all events/tests were conducted with the same rainfall erosivity, it makes no sense to use this correction factor (Ri for correct the C-factor). Why was this correction made by Ri? Was the rainfall erosivity of the event/test disregarded and the % of the distribution of rainfall erosivity in the country or region considered? Could you explain me better why? Each crop has a development time, how was this worked? Please, insert this information/explanation in the material and methods of the manuscript.

Table 3

What does 1Q and 3Q mean? It was not clear, and this an important information for the discussion of the results. Including to understand the Figures.

Table 4

1.       Maize variants: conventional, contour farming, shallow tillage, direct seeding, is this a C-factor or a P-factor?

2.       This error or misunderstanding can be related to Equation 5, cited above. As the C-factor is a weighted average (correction for rainfall erosivity –Ri and Rt), the C-factor values are possibly wrong. For example, contour farming had a C-factor value of 0.28; but how can this value be if the partials values (SLR) were all less than 0.28? And so on for the other practices!

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for reading and reviewing our manuscript. Your recommendations helped to clarify and correct the manuscript. Please see attached document with our replies. We tried to implement all recommendations. Authors.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors，

I read with interest your manuscript micro-Using a rainfall simulator to define the effect of soil conservation techniques on soil loss and water retention.

The manuscript describes the effects of soil conservation techniques on soil loss and water retention, assisted by a rainfall simulator. A large number of experiments have been done to verify the comparability of rainfall experiments and the effectiveness of soil conservation techniques, and the value of c factor has been derived, which is an interesting topic. This manuscript contributes to state-of-the-art and deserves publication, however, some issues should be addressed before this paper can be published, as follows:

(1) I suggest the authors to rewrite the abstract with a focus on background, objectives, methodology, main findings and conclusion. Please add a sentence which shows the necessity of the study.

(2) Eliminate multiple references. After that please check the manuscript thoroughly and eliminate all the lumps in the manuscript. (Line 59, 68) This should be done by characterizing each reference individually. This can be done by mentioning 1 or 2 phrases per reference to show how it is different from the others and why it deserves mentioning.

(3) What method is used to process the test data in section 2.1?

(4) Figure 6 is not clear enough and does not have the same style as the context image. Please replace it with an appropriate image.

(5) Line 136 appears (Error! Reference source not found.), what does that mean? Please check it carefully.

(6) It is mentioned in section 2.2 that this paper measures parameters and variables that are not the main concern. Why should they be measured?

(7) Please answer each of the four questions raised in the introduction in your conclusion.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for reading and reviewing our manuscript. Your recommendations helped to clarify and correct the manuscript. Please see attached document with our replies. We tried to implement all recommendations. Authors.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors addressed all my comments. Congratulations.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1, 

thank you for your kind words.

Sincerely, 

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The work had a considerable improvement, being able to be published. However, I see no need to repeat the work's questions in the conclusion. Authors can leave only the answers to these questions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2,

thank you for your words. We removed questions from the conclusion question.

Sincerely, 

Authors