Carbon and Nitrogen Stocks in Topsoil under Different Land Use/Land Cover Types in the Southeast of Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors The author put some effort into their study and scientific sampling methods were employed to collect the latest soil property data. However, there were still some issues that the author needs to consider. 1. The data interpretation and manuscript writing have non-negligible drawbacks, which belittles the significance of this investigation down to a regional study or data report and only averaged values of a large number of sampling points given in Table. 2. What is the novelty of this study? The author also mentioned in the article that there are many studies on the impact of land use and management on soil organic carbon and nitrogen, but I failed to see how this study differs from others. 3. The author should further create maps of SOC (Soil Organic Carbon) and SN (Soil Nitrogen) to reflect their spatial differences. 4. The core of this study is the differences in soil organic carbon and nitrogen storage under different land uses. What is the significance of analyzing the differences in other soil properties？ 5. Given that the author has such extensive soil property data, why not consider using these soil properties in combination with variables like climate and topography to map organic carbon and nitrogen, and analyze the spatial differences in different land uses and management? 6. I would like to know specifically about the effects of different land use methods and management on soil organic carbon and nitrogen, and I suggest adding a chapter on the analysis of driving factors. 7. The paper lacks the presentation of statistical charts, such as histograms or bar graphs, which would more intuitively display the differences in carbon and nitrogen under different uses. 8. We are more concerned with how to regulate different land use methods to increase or improve the storage of soil organic carbon and nitrogen. However, this is not described in the discussion. It is recommended to add content related to land use management policies and regulation based on the research results. 9. The conclusion needs to be more concise and refined, and the discussion part in the conclusion should be removed. Best wishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor English editing is required

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript entitled: Carbon and nitrogen stocks in the top soils under different land use/land cover types in the Southeastern Spain touch an interesting topic about soil C and N transformation directions depending on land use/land cover type.

In general the work is interesting, however I have found some flaws and I would like to suggest some modifications / improvements, before it can be published.

1.       I think the work should be rewritten or checked by a native speaker, because there are some problems with proper sentences composition,

2.       (line 16) In the abstract, I think there is no need to include the explanation of exact method used in the study. For the reader more important are the results and conclusion when reading abstract.

3.       In line 46 – which kind of biodiversity do you mean when talking about agroecosystems?

4.       Line 122 – why it was decided to study upper 5cm of the soil instead of e.g. 10cm?

5.       I do not understand the sentence in lines 152-153

6.       In line 161 – I suggest to not use the statement that pH measure soil alkalinity (in the same way we can say that it measure acidity, even though in this exact situation studied soils are calcareous).

7.       In the lines 178-187 – I am wondering if soil nitrogen is the same as soul total nitrogen in this situation, taking into account that Kjeldahl method is not measuring all N existing in the soil,

8.       In line 191 – I would rather state, that means with the same letter create the homogenous group,

9.       In methods In lines 189-192 there is a very short description of statistical methods used, but I would like to ask, whether all the data met the assumptions necessary to perform parametric tests? (e.g. normal distribution, homogenous variances)

10.   In table 1 – I would rather use SD instead of st.dev as a standard deviation abbreviation (and similarly in the whole manuscript)

11.   In the Table 1, all the abbreviations should be explained in the table description caption

12.   In line 235 I suggest to rearrange the sentence, because the reader can think that you mean soil organic carbon and soil organic nitrogen respectively (I would rather use “soil organic carbon, and soil total nitrogen” or just “soil nitrogen”)

13.   In line 262 you probably mean “ratio” instead of “ration” (I suggest to check the whole manuscript by a native sp.)

14.   I can not find in the manuscript how the authors measures soil total carbon (there are some statements about C/N ratio so I suppose the TOC was measured as well or if not, how it was possible to estimate C/N ratio?)

15.   Another problem with presented study is, that authors analyze soil organic carbon, but total nitrogen. I think it can be really useful to measure soil organic nitrogen as well, especially because there are grazing pastures analyzed, and authors mention about organic input from the cattle,

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I suggest to check the whole manuscript by a native speaker

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewer: Comment to Manuscript ID: agriengineering-2773198

Specific comments and questions: 

1- The authors mentioned in 2.2 “Sample” that 24 croplands, 17 grasslands and 17 urban soils were sampled, but the labelling of the sampling points is not clear in Fig. 1. Can it be described more specifically in the figure?

2- In the “Discussion” section, the author cites references in the form of mentioning that relevant studies have been done in many places, and these relevant studies can be listed in the form of a Table so that they can be seen more clearly!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments are presented in attached file in PDF format.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript of the work presented has been significantly improved. Although I still do not fully understand why the authors compare soil organic C to Kjeldahl N instead of organic N,

However I believe that the paper, in its current form, is suitable for publication.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors prepared improved version of the manuscript.