Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Paper have to be reconsidered Authors have to rethink title due to described risk assessment in the text, not exactly in accordance with the risk assessment, suggestion below

line 70 - soil types are well defined e.g. World Reference Base for Soil Resources 2014

line 70-75 more detail must be added to the Material and Methods

Table 1 Authors have to add some additional information to this table  and add references, from which references are  threshold data in Table 1 come from?

Table 2 how many replicates were used in measurements n=?, precision is extremly high in all data especially for pH and SOM, latter one determined with oxidative method gave such high precision? Line 125 solid - liquid ratio? I think soil to which solution KCl, CaCl₂  or water lack of information in scientific paper it must be explain precisely

 

Lines 98-99 what is area of soil on which rainfall was applied, and how wide-mouth botle can collect runoff? more detail needed

Lines 115-120 it is not described clearly it must be reconsidered and correspond to results  in paragraph 3.2. The characteristics of Cd leaching loss in soil with different pollution levels it is difficult to find out how leacheates were collected from bottom or from Rhizon soil solution sampler this and placement of samplig port must be clearly described

Lines 140-151 formula is evaluated by Authors ?

 

Lines 152- 156 references have to be aded, Cd evaluation standard how it is defined?

Table 3 P value - add references

 

Lines 101-102 IPCC report lack of references, same with the China's Technical Specification for Land Use Status Investigation, there are country specific data so Authors must  add more information

Figure 1 The figures presented here can lead to misunderstandigs, because for example all pollution comprises only one slope Fig. 1a), in Fig1b) only low pollution and in Fig1 c) only low pollution and one slope. In my opinion the ANOVA procedure must be applied and after adequate post-hoc test the homogenous groups should be presented for more informative value in the table, or divide all material into 3 groups low, medium and high pollution for more clear presentation

Figure 2 First axis 0Y must be the same scale, on the axis 0X correct title  - Slope, whether the statistical comparison applies to each slope separately or all together?

Figure 3 Well soil profiles are divided into 3 layers due to rhizon placement? How to explain very high raise of Cd concentration ?

Figure 4 It is better to present correlation in numbers in Fig 4 correlation Rainfall intensity and time with Cd conc. is 1? I am afraid that is due very low nN of sample.

Lines 274 it is not degree of soil pollution but how much of Cd per mas unit of soil can be moved out  from polluted soil dawnwards

Figures 5 a and b are not present risk directly but amount of contaminant,

 Due to scarse information to Table 1 interpretation of results in Table 4 and 5 is difficult, but also lack of statistics. Maybe graphically presented data with lines represented class of pollution will improve reading?

 

 

 

Author Response

We sincerely thank you for your comments on our manuscript. The author has revised the manuscript according to your comments. Please refer to the attachment for the revised contents.

Thank you and best regards.

Yours sincerely

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Simulation Study on Characteristics of Cadmium Loss through Runoff and Leaching in Contaminated Soil

This manuscript concerns an experimental and modelling work on Cadmiun transport through runoff and leaching. The research herein presented is certainly within the scope of Sustainability.

The manuscript is in good shape and I just leave the authors with a list of short comments. My current decision is minor revision. I will be happy to review a revised version of the manuscript.

Comments

1.       Line 73. Which is the cause of such high Cd concentration value?.

2.       Lines 103-104. The authors need to justify the selected rainfall intensities and slopes. Which was the criterion?

3.       Line 119. “lasted 8, 16, 24, 32, 40 and 48 days”. Please, modify it. Also, which was the criterion to impose such temporal duration for the experiments.

4.       Figure 2. There is a typo in the Y axis with “Slope”.

5.       Figure 5. There is a typo in the Y axis with “Slope”.

6.       Lines 319-324. The migration of sediments and related Cd attached to sediment particles should be further explained and acknowledged. It is said that the Cd concentration is higher during the early rainfall stage. Nonetheless, this assumption needs to be slightly modified or explained. This Cd concentration is also related with the internal storage of sediments (and consequently, Cd) within each watershed. The combination of internal storage of sediments and external sediment supply due to rainfall modulates the migration of sediment particles and thus, the migration of Cd (regardless the Cd loss by leaching, which is also relevant). I advise the authors to read and acknowledge the following work [1].

Bibliography

[1] The origin of fine sediment determines the observations of suspended sediment fluxes under unsteady flow conditions. Juez, C. et al. WATER RESOURCES RESEARCH. 2018.

Author Response

We sincerely thank you for your comments on our manuscript. The author has revised the manuscript according to your comments. Please refer to the attachment for the revised contents.

Thank you and best regards.

Yours sincerely

All authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Present form after improvements I accept

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

All the authors sincerely thank the reviewer for review of our manuscript. These suggestions have helped us improve the content of the manuscript. Finally, we sincerely thank you for your approval of our work.

Thank you and best regards.

Yours sincerely

All authors