Assessing and Understanding Arsenic Contamination in Agricultural Soils and Lake Sediments from Papallacta Rural Parish, Northeastern Ecuador, via Ecotoxicology Factors, for Environmental Embasement

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Sustainability

Manuscript Number: sustainability-2106835-peer-review-v1

Title: Assessing and understanding arsenic contamination in agricul-2 tural soils and lake sediments from Papallacta rural parish, 3 Northeastern Ecuador, via ecotoxicology factors, for environmental embasement

 

The thematic of the paper is moderately in accordance with the aims and scopes of this journal.

It is very well written in understandable and scientific language.

However some aspects need to be discussed in more depth.

 Comment 1. Authors used CF, EF and Igeo. Conclusions differ among different applied methods. How to extract overall final conclusions and recommendations from all results – please elaborate?

Comment 2. S1-S4 samples, from the aspect of EF indicate on arsenic origin “From bedrock”. This indicate that irrigation is not additional sours of arsenic input in soli, but that the land use is inadequate, and should not be agricultural. Please elaborate this more in detail; I understand the segment “The population of Papallacta is considered exclusively rural, with a high dependence on food and water from local sources.”, but it must be included in discussion about soil that must be intended for farming.

Comment 3. Only pseudo total As content was performed for samples. Did authors considered   sequential extraction analysis and establishing As amounts in different soil/sediment phases? This will also better indicate real arsenic consecrations that are more available to enter the environment. Also did the authors considered determining arsenic amounts readily available for plant intake?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript is interesting and I would like to recommend it to be accepted by the current journal. However, the manuscript can be better connected with the current journal.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments, changes and improvements have been made to the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Paper have potential . But also need some  improvments. They are given in the  additional file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

"Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Sustainability

Manuscript Number: sustainability-2106835-peer-review-v2

The authors should consider more concise title, that is easier to perceive.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your suggestion and comments. The authors consider the title as a first understanding as this is the first study of this type carried out in Ecuador, and it encompasses the whole concept and objective proposed in this work.