Risk Assessment of Potentially Toxic Elements in Agricultural Soils of Al-Ahsa Oasis, Saudi Arabia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript titled “Risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in agricultural 2 soils of Al-Ahsa Oasis, Saudi Arabia” by Alharbi and El-Sorogy used landsat images, several pollution indices, and multivariate tools to examine the land use pattern and hazardous concentrations of PTEs in agriculture soil of the Al-Ahsa oasis in KSA. Assessment outcomes of this study showed that the investigated soil was severely enrichment, highly contaminated, as well as can cause high environmental risk with Hg. Also, the findings showed that the soil samples have moderate PTE risk in general.
The manuscript is organized and good written.
The following minor comment should be addressed in the revision process by authors:
- Please go through the whole paper for correct some English mistakes. Ex. Line 104/page 3 and lines 203 and 211/page 8.
- Please review fig. 2 and title to make sure it is correct in the current form.
- Data of figure 3 is not clear. Please clarify what is x and y axis for.
- Fig. 4: It is best to put the legend of each element under its representing figure in two or three rows to leave the figure clear.
- In title of Table 3: Please indicate the unit of PTEs after the word “value”.
Author Response
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Comment |
Response |
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- Please go through the whole paper for correct some English mistakes. Ex. Line 104/page 3 and lines 203 and 211/page 8. |
Done |
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- Please review fig. 2 and title to make sure it is correct in the current form. |
Done |
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- Data of figure 3 is not clear. Please clarify what is x and y axis for. |
Done |
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- Fig. 4: It is best to put the legend of each element under its representing figure in two or three rows to leave the figure clear. |
Done |
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- In title of Table 3: Please indicate the unit of PTEs after the word “value”. |
There are not units for EF, Igeo, CF, and Eri but the numerical values of these indices are explained in Table 1. |
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Please see the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Comment |
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1. In line 37, please cite the corresponding reference. |
Done |
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2. In lines 104 and 210, please check for subscripts. |
Done |
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3. In line 166, before the starting comparison, it will be easier for the reader that the experimental results with their average values tabulated in Supplementary Table 2. |
Done |
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4. In line 174, please check for the supplementary Table. |
Thanks for your comment. Done |
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5. In line 224, please check for supplementary Table 2. |
Done |
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6. Please rename the supplementary table 1 and table 2 as Table S1 and Table S2, as mentioned in lines 274 and 275. |
Done |
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In ˮMaterials and Methodsˮ section you mention that ˮThe origin of PTEs in the soil was traced using multivariate statistical methods like principal component analysis (PCA), correlation coefficient (Pearson's r), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA).ˮ,
but in discussions concerning
-Figure 3. Showing a dendrogram of the Al-Ahsa soil samples,
-Table 4. Correlation matrix for PTEs of the soil samples,
-Table 5. Principal components for the investigated PTEs or Figure 5. Factor analysis and distribution of HMs in two component plots,
you do not emphasize the information concerning the origin of PTEs in the soil gave by these methodologies. Please detail.
Please mention in what consists the originality of the research presented in the article.
Author Response
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Comment |
Response |
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In ˮMaterials and Methodsˮ section you mention that ˮThe origin of PTEs in the soil was traced using multivariate statistical methods like principal component analysis (PCA), correlation coefficient (Pearson's r), and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA).ˮ, but in discussions concerning -Figure 3. Showing a dendrogram of the Al-Ahsa soil samples, -Table 4. Correlation matrix for PTEs of the soil samples, -Table 5. Principal components for the investigated PTEs or Figure 5. Factor analysis and distribution of HMs in two component plots, you do not emphasize the information concerning the origin of PTEs in the soil gave by these methodologies. Please detail. Please mention in what consists the originality of the research presented in the article. |
Thank you very much for your comments. The integration of PCA, Pearson correlation, and HCA indicated a mixed source for the investigated potentially toxic elements: PTEs with average EF > 2 (Hg, As, Cd, and Zn) showed anthropogenic source related to agricultural chemicals and overuse of fertilizers. The other PTEs (Cr, Cu, Pb, and Ni) may related to natural source belongs to the rock weathering and the use of groundwater from different aquifers. Some natural elements were located in the same principal component and have positive correlations with PTEs of anthropogenic source. Such PTEs may result from mixed natural and anthropogenic sources.
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
