Tackling Salinity in Sustainable Agriculture—What Developing Countries May Learn from Approaches of the Developed World

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript (sustainability-572529) is an interesting work on important and current issues related to soil salinity, which are common problems of developing and developed countries. The article is logically written and the purpose of the review has been correctly outlined. The manuscript consists of an introduction, 3 chapters describing problems related to soil salinity in developed and developing countries and review of ways how to deal with these problems. The article ends with the Conclusion chapter. The rich literature review deserves to be emphasized (129 items). However, some shortcomings should be corrected before publication.

I would like to ask the authors to correct and unify:
- line 34 (1.1 Classification and global saline valleys) and line 85 (1.1 Basic classification of salinity and global distribution),
- line 41 (3. Approaches from the developed world) and line 214 (3. Approaches in developed countries),
- line 43 (3.2. Genome-wide associations for marker-trait associations) and line 248 (3.2. Genome-wide studies for marker-trait associations)

In addition, in my opinion, the Conclusion chapter could be extended.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1,

Please find submitted online the revised version of our manuscript sustainability-572529 entitled “Tackling salinity in sustainable agriculture – what developing countries may learn from approaches of the developed world” by Sajid Shokat and Dominik K. Großkinsky.

We would like to thank all of you for the generally positive evaluation of our review paper and constructive comments to improve it. We addressed your comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript as outlined in detail below. We hope that the revised manuscript meets the standards of the journal and is now acceptable for publication in Sustainability.

Please do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions regarding our manuscript submission.

Sincerely yours,

 Sajid Shokat & Dominik Großkinsky

Reviewer 1:

I would like to ask the authors to correct and unify:

- line 34 (1.1 Classification and global saline valleys) and line 85 (1.1 Basic classification of salinity and global distribution),

- line 41 (3. Approaches from the developed world) and line 214 (3. Approaches in developed countries),

- line 43 (3.2. Genome-wide associations for marker-trait associations) and line 248 (3.2. Genome-wide studies for marker-trait associations)

            Thank you for indicating this. We revised the manuscript accordingly.

In addition, in my opinion, the Conclusion chapter could be extended.

            We revised the conclusion chapter and added aspects related to gene editing

Reviewer 2 Report

Shokat et al. Reported an interesting review on some strategies to tack soil salinity both in developing and developed countries.

The manuscript is well written and easy to follow.

I have some suggestions:

1)      Line 51. Add a reference.

2)      Line 52. Specify the threshold value.

3)      Line 65. Add a reference.

4)      Line 66. Add a reference.

5)      Line 90. Add a reference.

6)      Lines 91-104. This part might be allocated in a more appropriate section regarding irrigation water quality.

7)      Section 1.1. should be improved.

8)      Line 112. Remove (Grattan and Grieve, 1992).

9)      I suggest to add a section regarding the effects on fruit quality. As reported in the review (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2019.01.042) salinity can affect fruit quality.

10)   Line 142. Add a reference.

11)   When the name of a crop appears for the first time in the manuscript, the authors should report the corresponding scientific name, as in line 166.

12)   Authors should report the complete scientific name of the crop like Salicornia europaea L.

13)   Authors should add a little section on the climate change as well as on irrigation management and plant growth retardants.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Please find submitted online the revised version of our manuscript sustainability-572529 entitled “Tackling salinity in sustainable agriculture – what developing countries may learn from approaches of the developed world” by Sajid Shokat and Dominik K. Großkinsky.

We would like to thank all of you for the generally positive evaluation of our review paper and constructive comments to improve it. We addressed your comments and suggestions in the revised manuscript as outlined in detail below. We hope that the revised manuscript meets the standards of the journal and is now acceptable for publication in Sustainability.

Please do not hesitate to contact us in case you have any questions regarding our manuscript submission.

Sincerely yours,

 Sajid Shokat & Dominik Großkinsky

Reviewer 2:

I have some suggestions:

1)      Line 51. Add a reference.

            We added a reference for this point.

2)      Line 52. Specify the threshold value.

            We added a threshold value. Thank you for making us aware of the missing information.

3)      Line 65. Add a reference.

            We added a reference for this point.

4)      Line 66. Add a reference.

            We added a reference for this point.

5)      Line 90. Add a reference.

            We added a reference for this point.

6)      Lines 91-104. This part might be allocated in a more appropriate section regarding irrigation water quality.

We divided this section into two separate parts

7)      Section 1.1. should be improved.

            We improved by adding the effect of climate

8)      Line 112. Remove (Grattan and Grieve, 1992).

            We removed the in-text citation.

9)      I suggest to add a section regarding the effects on fruit quality. As reported in the review (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2019.01.042) salinity can affect fruit quality.

            Thank you for this interesting suggestion. We included a short paragraph on fruit quality in the context of salinity in the introduction.

10)   Line 142. Add a reference.

            We added a reference for this point.

11)   When the name of a crop appears for the first time in the manuscript, the authors should report the corresponding scientific name, as in line 166.

            We revised the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

12)   Authors should report the complete scientific name of the crop like Salicornia europaea L.

            We revised the manuscript according to the reviewer’s suggestion.

13)   Authors should add a little section on the climate change as well as on irrigation management and plant growth retardants.

We added information on the effect of changing climate, underground and canal water on global distribution of salinity.