Suitability of Selected Plant Species for Phytoremediation: A Case Study of a Coal Combustion Ash Landfill
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review on Manuscript Number: Sustainability-1729688-peer-review-v1
Title: Suitability of selected plant species for phytoremediation: a case study of a coal combustion ash landfill
Overall opinion
The topic addressed in the manuscript is of interest to researchers and decision makers, in the process of design/implementation/ development of environmental management programmes.
The study has a simple design, but adds information into bioremediation/phytostabilisation research field. However, it is not yet prepared for publication.
The manuscript needs to be improved. The English language needs deep revision and editing before publication, related to parts of the text that need to be clarified, organised and remove repeated ideas/text.
General comments
Abstract “Combustion waste landfills effect on environment abiotic parameters as well as on organisms.” This sentence does not have a verbal form
Aims of the study and hypothesis – need to be organised. The last sentence (Lines 65-66) is also an aim of the study?
Line 47 information repeated
Line 63 “We hypothesised…”
Study site description – should have a map with location.
Lines 84-86 are part of site description
Fig. 1 is not necessary, it does not add any information to, or illustrate the text
Line 108 – herbs?
Line 116 - “Chemical analyses”: need to include reference material, accuracy, repeatability of analyses
Line 126 BCF and TF - acronyms must be spelled out the first time they are mentioned (this was done in line 183)
Lines 175-177 the paragraph mentions eluates, but these were not described in the analyses section
The presentation of fig. 4 and table 4 needs to be improved.
Author Response
General comments
Abstract “Combustion waste landfills effect on environment abiotic parameters as well as on organisms.” This sentence does not have a verbal form. Improved in the manuscript.
Aims of the study and hypothesis – need to be organised. The last sentence (Lines 65-66) is also an aim of the study? Improved in the text. Yes, we would like to treat the hypothesis as a part of the aim.
Line 47 information repeated Deleted. Improved in the manuscript.
Line 63 “We hypothesised…” Rewritten. Improved in the manuscript.
Study site description – should have a map with location. Improved in the text.
Lines 84-86 are part of site description. Pasted to the 2.1. Study site description chapter.
Fig. 1 is not necessary, it does not add any information to, or illustrate the text. Sir or Madame, we would like to disagree. The figure shows the relationship: the sampling area, sampling plots and sampling points. The Reviewer 3 has also suggestions to figure 1. She or he wanted us to clarify the experiment scheme.
So our answer is:
- Add figure 1. With location of the landfill,
- Leave former figure 1 as Figure 2 but correct the caption to stress the relationship between: the sampling area, sampling plots and sampling points,
- Send to Reviewers the detailed scheme of the experiment but do not paste it into the manuscript (due to the size of the figure). Please see the attachment. Yours sincerely Paweł Mundała
Line 108 – herbs?
Improved in the text.
Line 116 - “Chemical analyses”: need to include reference material, accuracy, repeatability of analyses. Improved in the text.
Line 126 BCF and TF - acronyms must be spelled out the first time they are mentioned (this was done in line 183)
Improved in the text. Please mind BCF and TF acronyms are spelled for the first time in the Abstract. Lines 16 and 19. We hope it is acceptable.
Lines 175-177 the paragraph mentions eluates, but these were not described in the analyses section Improved in the manuscript. This information was taken from our previous study. The citation was improved.
The presentation of fig. 4 and table 4 needs to be improved.
Table 4. Improved in the text. Sir or Madam we are confused, we do not have figure 4.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
It would be great to add an estimation of the amount of heavy metals in the landfill and calculate how much of the heavy metals could be stabilized via phytoremediation.
Author Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for the revision of our manuscript. And also thank you very much for the task /comment you gave us. The question about pollutant load is an important question to a researcher who undertakes the problem of waste landfills.
The landfill, was crated with violation of the environment rights. Simply the landfill is older than, the environment protection low. So we don’t know the shape/surface of the bottom of the landfill. We know, the landfill is located in The Vistula River oxbow, which is full of lakes, pounds, ditches and depressions. We know, the clay and sand quarries were placed here. The Village where the landfill is placed is named from verb to dig a hole. In our imagination the bottom looks like a surface of sea during storm. We guess the coal ash may be transported and illuviated into the parent soil. We are cooperating with geotechnics and we would like to use georadar to see the depth and surface of the bottom. We think support from mathematician will be needed to calculate the volume.
- the second reason, in our opinion more important is the possible heterogeneity of the ash composition. For instance in the root layer the concentrations of heavy metals is lower due to phytostabilisation or stabilised by microbes. Unlike the bottom layer may have higher concentrations due to illuviation.
The second part of your task is the loads of heavy metals in plants. Here we have got following obstacles:
- We do not have contents of heavy metals in plants growing on the top of the landfill. As well we don’t have plant composition (plant associations) of the top. We don’t know the concentrations of heavy metals in the root of trees.
- We don’t know the biomass of plants growing on the landfill.
- The biomass of plants is not constant. It has been changing during the vegetation period. Now (may 2022 year) we have got very strong drought in south of Poland. The crop of biomass on the landfill now is much lower, than usually.
So we have to ask you to let us not to do the task/ the estimation you ask us to do. Please let us do it in our next research. We ask you to accept our manuscript without those estimates.
Yours sincerely Paweł J. Mundała
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
It's an interesting article; figure 1 of the sampling plan needs further clarification on how the samples were collected; also the caption needs changes and a better explanation. Other than this the article is well written and well structured.
I would like to accept this article after the suggested changes.
Author Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you very much for the revision of our manuscript. Figure 1 was turned into figure 2. The caption was improved. We hope, the relationship between sampling area, sampling plot and sampling point are more clear to the Reader. We also add a figure, the detailed scheme of the experiment. The figure itself is too large to paste it into the manuscript so we are submitting it as a separate file. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Review on Manuscript Number: sustainability-1729688-peer-review-v2
“Suitability of selected plant species for phytoremediation: a case study of a coal combustion ash landfill”
Comments for the revised manuscript
During the reviewing process the authors clarified the issues raised by the reviewers and in this revised version of the manuscript adequate modifications were made. The quality of the manuscript was improved by the authors. Therefore, I suggest it can be accepted for the publication after final checking and formatting of text, tables and figures.
Author Response
Dear Sir or Madame,
Thank you very much for yours revision, the manuscript was corrected. Additional information is written in attached file, please see the attachment.
Yours sincerely Paweł Mundała
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
