Sustainability Analysis of Soil Erosion Control in Rwanda: Case Study of the Sebeya Watershed
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is very important topic, and the manuscript was well written.
Specific comments are in attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you, Dear Reviewer, for appreciating our manuscript's relevance and writing.
Your important comments and suggestions about improving this manuscript's grammar, readability, clarity, and presentation style were copied from your commented referred manuscript and addressed in the attached file within 8 steps.
As a result, the revised manuscript is an improved one.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is aiming to study the rate of soil-erosion and shows a detailed study, how to summarize the loss of soil, regarding the various soil-use and the main crops at the studied sites.
The loss of soil is a key-important issue throughout the World, so such studies might show the risk, and to demonstrate what are the methods of assessing its rate.
The abstract is rather short and do not contain what methods was used in the study. The abstract must be restructuring, i.e.: introduction, objectives, materials, and methods, some of the results and the conclusion. The potential reader should be informed already in the abstract how the study was done and what is the main conclusion? The abstract part is very important and should reflect the whole study.
The keywords are not so informative, it would be improved for instance with the used methodology, and “the sustainability” could be omitted, due to the fact, that it is the title of the journal, so it is evident.
The authors are using several acronyms, which is generally usual in the literature, however in this case it seems to be not necessary everywhere and always. At some cases it is not so evident why it is created and difficult to find out. potential readers need to look for the meaning again and again and this fact might reduce the clear and fast understanding. It is not so easy also to find out how they create it, for instance the Rwanda Water Resources Board is RWB and not RWRB (page 3, last sentence in 1st paragraph)? In the text the authors are using the acronym of LULC, however they are sometimes using it in an opposite way, i.e. at Figure 6, they use it as LCLU…?
They ought to be clarified, reduced the use and perhaps a list of the meaning of the tremendous acronyms should be involved.
Authors are using Figures and Tables for demonstrating the rates of the erosion, and it is the usual way of the demonstration. Regarding the conclusion the list for the crops, about the improved rates of yield is involved and stated. It would be nice, however, to comment, why those rates are so variable and different among the studied crops…?
Summarising the opinion, the case study can show mainly a local interest of the problem in soil-erosion and a fewer international one. However, the reader must be learn, how the erosion is assessed and calculated the soil-loss…etc. The simplification can be suggested in the text, of reducing the acronyms and the number of various subchapters, that make some difficulties to follow the results.
Author Response
Thank you, Dear Reviewer, for appreciating our manuscript's relevance and writing.
Your important comments and suggestions about improving this manuscript's abstract, methodology, and results presentation and discussion.
As a result, the revised manuscript is an improved one.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript entitled “Sustainability analysis of soil erosion control in Rwanda: Case study of the Sebeya watershed” presents a relevant theme with potential contributions to knowledge in the scientific literature and sustainability practices that minimize soil degradation in the Sebeya watershed. The introduction is well written and the rationale and issues are clear. However, the manuscript needs revision and substantial improvement in several aspects, among which I emphasize that the methodology must be sufficiently described and clear, and must even be included in the methodology topic, and not randomly inserted in the results. Another important issue is the results, which were little explored and little discussed.
Other considerations for corrections, tweaks and suggestions are listed below:
1. Every time an acronym appears for the first time in the text, it must be described in full, this happened, for example, with: USLE, LULC, among others. Review all!;
2. The location figure should be improved in the following aspects: a) insert geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude, in degrees); b) as the authors are analyzing soil erosion, a factor that greatly influences is the difference in altitude, therefore, it is interesting that the altimetry of the region is presented; c) for a publication with an international reach, it is suggested to make clear the location of the study area on the continent of Africa;
3. Better describe the following aspects of the study area: a) annual climatology and the period of the wettest season; b) predominant types of land cover; c) predominance of soil types. These are important characteristics of the study area;
4. Why were only two strokes considered? These temporal data (2008 and 2018). It is not appropriate to do linear regression with only two data points for each variable. To review!;
5. Reinforcement that the results must be substantially improved, explored and well discussed;
6. In topic 3.1, the analysis needs to be redone and more in-depth: a) the authors can replace Table 1 with a graph and add information on monthly precipitation variability (it can be a boxPlot); b) do these averages represent the entire Sebeya watershed?; c) how to analyze soil erosion for the entire basin with only one precipitation data point?; d) the authors consider "a long dry period (May-September), a short rainy period (October-December), a short dry period (January-February), and a large and heavy rainy period (March-May)", however, the month of september (considered dry) is rainier than the month of december (considered rainy). In addition to considering the months from March to May as a great and intense rainy season, September-October-November are more intense. Review Affirmations!!;
7. It should not be included in the topic of the results how they were achieved, that is methodology, therefore, it should be included in the topic “methodology”, including the equations with the respective descriptions of the parameters and/or symbols. This was identified in several subtopics of the results (3.3, 3.3.1, 3.3.2, 3.3.3, 3.3.4, among others). Put these descriptions into methodology. In the topic of results, authors should focus only on the results of the work and the discussion. To review!;
8. On the first line of page 14 there is the following statement: “Year after year, soil erosion has increased significantly from 65 t/ha/y in 2008 to 100 t/ha/y in 2018”. How to say that such a loss occurred year after year, from 2008 to 2018, if there are only two data per variable (one for each year)? How to say it was significant? Was any statistical test performed to verify significance?;
9. In topic 4.3 there is the following statement: “This study evaluated the performance of the site-based recommended SECM to alleviate the excessive soil loss rates (Table 8).” Did the authors evaluate performance? Like? With which method? What is the level of statistical confidence?
In view of the above, my opinion is: Major Reviews.
Author Response
Thank you, Dear Reviewer, for appreciating our manuscript's relevance and writing.
Your important comments, suggestions about improving our manuscript's methodology, and results presentation and discussion were addressed.
As a result, the revised manuscript is an improved one.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors have done nice job addressing the concerns and suggestions of the reviewer. The paper is looking much improved.
Author Response
Thank you, Dear Reviewer, for appreciating the authors’ efforts in improving the previous version of this manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors could make clear corrections of the previous version of the manuscript. The study gives well-defined data about the erosion of soil and the changes of those soil-loss at several years and at different soil-use methods and crops. Regarding the more sustainable way of management the authors was able to show a much better erosion control. Regarding the previous suggestion the high number of different acronyms were reduced considerably, but still it is used. However, the authors are using the full meaning before they first are using those shortened versions. In case of figures and Tables still it would be advisable to write the full meaning to understand them easily. The rule is, that all the Tables and Figures can be understandable independently from the text, so in this case no acronyms could be suggested to use in the legend of them. …It is the authors decision in this case because the information can be found at the Materials and Methods part.
Summarising the opinion, the manuscript shows a good example how the wrong management can result comprehensive soil loss, and it is providing clear suggestions about the more sustainable solutions.
It can be suggested for publication on its present form.
Author Response
Thank you, Dear Reviewer, for appreciating the authors’ efforts in improving the previous version of this manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
After checking the revisions made to the manuscript entitled “Sustainability analysis of soil erosion control in Rwanda: Case study of the Sebeya watershed”, issues were identified that have not yet been satisfactorily achieved.
1. The abbreviations USLE and SECM appear for the first time in the topic “Introduction”, precisely in the fourth paragraph, they must be described and then named in parentheses, for example Universal Soil Erosion Equation (USLE);
2. It was suggested that the location figure be improved with more relevant information, although it is important to keep the description requested in the text, some information is more accurate when it is also spatially represented on the map. The variability and unevenness of altitude are better understood when they are represented on maps. Below is reinforced what was requested:
I. The location figure should be improved in the following aspects: a) insert geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude, in degrees); b) as the authors are analyzing soil erosion, a factor that greatly influences is the difference in altitude, therefore, it is interesting that the altimetry of the region is presented; c) for a publication with an international reach, it is suggested to make clear the location of the study area on the continent of Africa;
3. On page 16 there is still a methodological description in the topic of results, with the linear regression equation. This had already been requested to review. Still on this issue, it is not statistically recommended to use linear regression with little data. The authors kept only two data points for the dependent variable and two others for the independent variable. This is statistically not recommended! I suggest that authors review statistical concepts and applications!! For a more consistent and appropriate analysis, it is suggested that the authors replace the regression graphs with a graph with the total variables. For example, in Figure 8a, the 4 soil erosion data for 2008, 2015, 2018 and 2022 (represented by bars) and the same for the Maize harvest (represented by lines), with two axes of Y (one for each variable). The same applies for Figure 8b through 8i. Authors must mention each figure throughout the text, this did not happen with Figure 8, for example. To review!!
Author Response
Thank you, Dear Reviewer, to appreciate the authors’ efforts in improving the previous version of this manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
My suggestion is to accept for publication.
