Analysis of Drought Characteristics and Its Effects on Crop Yield in Xinjiang in Recent 60 Years
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have done an Analysis of drought characteristics and its effects on crop yield 2 in Xinjiang in recent 60 years. Interesting paper, extensive Results part, very good potential. Please see below my suggestions:
Keywords. As the title summarises in the best way the content of a paper and considering the most often used terms, I suggest as keywords: drought characteristics; crop yield; Xinjiang; SPEI index; climate changes. From my experience, as many, specific, and relevant are the keywords and the aim of the study , as much will increase the chance for this study to be found by potential readers.
Introduction. Given that all crops in recent years are under the influence of both climate change and fertilizers (used more and more, in an ever-increasing trend), please add a paragraph in which to be debated this correlation. Even the term pedoclimatic emphasizes the extremely close connection between these 2 factors (climate + soil properties) that act on different agricultural crops (Bungau et al. Expatiating the impact of anthropogenic aspects and climatic factors on long term soil monitoring and management. Environ Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 202, 30528-30550. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14127-7 ; Samuel et al. Effects of long term application of organic and mineral fertilizers on soil enzymes, Rev. Chim., 69(10), 2018, 2608-2612. https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.18.10.6590 )
L65-69 Please highlight as better is possible the novelty/aim of the study (as the separate last paragraph of Introduction section, to be more visible for those interested). What makes special this study? What is its novelty character or its special aspects? Why have the authors chosen this topic? What differentiate this paper from others in the same topic? Please make this aim of the study more relevant.
Please mention in the Methods part the computer programs and their variants used for this study.
Discussion. L312-326. It must be included also the orchard management, under the influence of climate changes (Gitea, M.A. et al. Orchard management under the effects of climate change: implications for apple, plum, and almond growing. Environ Sci Pollut Res. 2019, 26, 9908–9915. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-04214-1 ), as worldwide the fruit trees undergo dramatic behavioural changes under the influence of the actual environmental frame/conditions. As the last part of this section, please describe the strengths and limitations of your study, and maybe future directions - if the authors consider some ideas in what can be done further in this field.
L334. 5. Conclusions not 5. conclusion
Maybe the authors could briefly summarising the conclusions part, in just 1 paragraph, part of the text can be moved to the Discussion section.
For Author Contributions, please check the instructions for authors at the link https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/instructions or below:
For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”, please turn to the CRediT taxonomy for the term explanation. For more background on CRediT, see here. "Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Please read the section concerning the criteria to qualify for authorship carefully".
References. Please also check the instructions for authors at the link above mentioned, and write them in the MDPI style (EndNote them is much easier and choosing MDPI style), providing all information for each ref.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article contains correctly conducted analyses, however, I have some small remarks which will help to improve this paper:
The article lacks a specified research objective and research hypotheses. Please add this information. Otherwise, the manuscript will not qualify as a research article.
Sometimes the English of the work is very poor. E.g. in lines 206-211, you use the word "showed" several times in different forms in each sentence. Please work on your English. I recommend giving the manuscript to a native speaker for checking and improvement.
In the paper, it is not clear what statistical test was used to estimate significant decreases/increases in trends. Only the p-value significance level is given. Please complete this. Same for correlation between SPEI and climate yield in Xinjiang.
The list of references is not adapted to the requirements of the journal. Please check the reference list guidelines and improve the list. Please note which words should be in bold and which in italics.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have studied the status of drought and its impact on agricultural yield. I appreciate the efforts of the authors in carrying out the study. However, there are some important suggestions that needs to be included in the paper.
- The paper lacks novelty. Investigating drought situations over a period using SPEI and its impact on agricultural yield is quite well-studied and published. Mentioning novelty in reference to the study area restricts the broad academic credibility of the paper.
- The paper just explains the findings in the discussion, but do not discuss the findings in reference to other studies. Therefore, it is difficult to understand how this study contributes to the already existing knowledge. The authors need to discuss the findings in the Discussion which is the most important part of a paper.
- Conclusion is just a reiteration of the findings with no implications stated.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors responded to my requests.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been significantly revised and is ready to be published.
