Quantitative Assessment of Environmental Soil Functions in Volcanic Zones from Mexico Using S&E Software
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The topic presented in the manuscript is of high interested for the scientific community and also for the society (e.g. policy makers and farmers). However, the way the authors presented and wrote the results and in general the whole manuscript is of low quality.
The title does not fit the topic of the manuscript. It is a case study in volcanic soils. This should be mention in the title.
The abstract does not explain the main results and conclusions in a correct way (clear and concrete).
The introduction is too short. The authors do not say anything about the area (e.g. other studies carried out in the area, similar studies in other areas...).
Why do authors explain only the valuation of the heavy metals dynamics in the methods? Why not other properties? The degradation and conservation scenarios were very poor described.
I do not understand why soil description appears in the results, since the authors show the results of the properties assessed in the laboratory. They should be shown in the materials and methods section.
The evaluation of the environmental soil functions was summarised in a table that is really dificult to read and that does not help the reader to better understand and to get an overview of the results. The authors should have included a figure explaining the results. On the other hand, the whole section is more focused on describing the results rather than discussing them. The just described one by one, but without giving an overview or discussing them or comparing them with similar studies in the area or in other areas.
Conclusions are too general.
In summary, the scientific quality of the manuscript is really low. Therefore, the authors should improve it a lot (writing, graphics, structure...) to be published in this journal. I would like to say that using a specific software is not enough to publish a manuscript. The manuscript must be well presented from a scientific point of view.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
I’m asking for the authors. I ask that the authors specifically address each of my comments in their response.
Major Comments:
The approach outlined in source [7] has been used in this article (L 124). Evaluation of the three parameters using five gradations of the factor (from 1 to 5) is acceptable only if these three indicators are equivalent. Otherwise, they must have weights. The same comments also apply to other indicators in the more important Table 5. The simple arithmetic addition of 13 values of factors actually turns strict quantitative measures into qualitative ranks (grades), which makes the estimates very conditional. As a result, the question arises. What did the relatively small differences show (34-42) in Total? For example, if three parameters have values of factor 1 (in Cherán-004 and Zacapu-001), then 34 (minimal) and 37 (average) in Total are obtained, then it turns out that summation is a bad way of obtaining an integral estimate. Limiting factors better reflect, for example, the calculation of the geometric mean value.
Specific Comments:
L 6 Why is the text not in English?
L 7-8 Logical, if swapped.
L 26 It is not clear about Degradation and Conservation. What are we talking about? L 50 - models by degradation or conservation of soil profiles - can this be the answer?
L 35 references [4-6], which are impersonal. There are authors of this postulate?
L 59 Soils such as Vertisols and Durisols are never mentioned in the text.
L 73 Н2О
L 74-75 «cation exchange capacity» + Head Table 3 «Exchangeable bases». Why different terms in methods and results?
L181 The abbreviation SEC does not contain the word Effective
L 75 cations are given incorrectly, in Table 3 – true
L 86 (TUSEC) 13.
L 87 Overweight «the lowest (very low)»
L 97 «oil oily»: «organic carbon content in the soil, which estimates the organic carbon content of the soil»
L 106 and L 179 Compare terms apparent density and BD = Bulk density
L 112, 118 particle size in fine earth?
L 117, 119, 121, 122 COSi
L 124 twice: kg m-2
L 141-142 Here is the place Table 3
L 147-148 Here is the place Table 4
L 167-168 Here is the place Table 5
Table 3 There is no explanation of the symbols in the note. Texture
L 179 and head Table 4. Why different units of measure for SES?
L 238-239 – this is not the result!
L 251 Modelling и L 18, 24, 304, 307, 317= Modeling
Таблица 5 HV given in two layers. And other indicators in which layer? It turns out that the weight of the HV factor doubles1?
L 318 Where 5. Patents ?
L 327 Where is the gap?
L 342 see an example in the requirements:
Chum, O.; Philbin, J.; Zisserman, A. Near duplicate image detection: Min-Hash and tf-idf
weighting. In Proceedings of the 19th British Machine Vision Conference (BMVC 2008), Leeds,
L 345, 378 see an example in the requirements:
Desiraju, G.R.; Steiner, T. The Weak Hydrogen Bond in Structural Chemistry and Biology, 2nd
ed.; Oxford University Press: New York, NY, USA, 1999; pp. 10–25, ISBN 978-01-9850-970-7.
L 361 check out Assofu
L 396 specify page numbers
L 426 the
L 429 1231–1250
L 430 Bio/Technology
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have done a lot of work on the bugs. The article in its current form can be published, but only under one condition - the authors will use “ English editing service from MDPI”, as they promised to the Reviewer.
Author Response
Thank you for your comment, we already sent the manuscript to the English edition service of MDPI.
We attach the certificate in the author's response.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
