Spatial Distribution of Soil Water and Salt in a Slightly Salinized Farmland
Izabella Olejniczak
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
The paper is well-organized and written. However, it has some revision comments. You can find my detailed comments in the paper. YOu should consider and address them to improve the paper.
Best wishes
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Responses to comments. please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This study used the multifractal method to characterize soil water and salt content in the farmlands in Shaanxi, China. The paper is interesting but lacks a comprehensive literature review and a strong background. The spatial distribution of soil water and salt has been widely predicted or monitored using traditional geostatistical or digital soil mapping method in which remote and proximally sensed digital data is coupled with modelling techniques to rapidly generate spatial dense soil water and salt content information. However, in this paper, I have not seen any information on this. Please add more information on these new technologies and methods and find a reasonable research gap based on that. In addition, the English needs to be improved as some sentences are a little bit wired. The following papers are useful for you to develop a strong and comprehensive introduction and discussion.
Triantafilis, J., Odeh, I. O. A., & McBratney, A. B. (2001). Five geostatistical models to predict soil salinity from electromagnetic induction data across irrigated cotton. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 65(3), 869-878.
Zhao, D., Arshad, M., Li, N., & Triantafilis, J. (2021). Predicting soil physical and chemical properties using vis-NIR in Australian cotton areas. Catena, 196, 104938.
Zhao, D., Eyre, J. X., Wilkus, E., de Voil, P., Broad, I., & Rodriguez, D. (2022). 3D characterization of crop water use and the rooting system in field agronomic research. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 202, 107409.
Zhao, D., Wang, J., Zhao, X., & Triantafilis, J. (2022). Clay content mapping and uncertainty estimation using weighted model averaging. Catena, 209, 105791.
Author Response
Responses to comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
General I found some significant impacts in the manuscript which could contribute to science, however, Authors should consider my comments below for revision.
First of all, please provide a more detailed description of the soils: properties (pH, SOC, N, C:N), systematic position according to the WRB.
Line 80 – What Authors mean writting „soil sand”?
Line 105 – What Authors mean writting „The soil was light saline–alkali…”
Table 1 - Please complete the diameter ranges for granulometric fractionsLine 146 – Please complete particle-size distribution clasification system.
Author Response
Responses to comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript is well-written and looks like a good fit. My concern is only about sampling time. If there is an opportunity to conduct the temporal study, e.g., 2/3 more soil sampling at different times then the findings would so meaningful.
Please find some comments in the reviewed manuscript and the author needs to consider them to improve the quality of the manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Responses to comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
The manuscript is interesting. The authors discuss the spatial distributions of soil water and salt and possibilties of monitoring them. They suggest that monitoring the upper layer of the soil 0-20cm could be a good indicator of changing soil water and salt content. I propose further research conducted in different conditions, covering different types of soils and farming practices
Line 105: Please give information of systematic type of soil
Line 118: Figure 1- The caption under the Figure 1 should be more extensive, e.g. The location of experimental plots due to distributions of the soil water and salt
Line 159: Figure 3 Please provide surface designations in the caption under the figure
Line 280: Please choose more vivid colours to make it easier to read
Author Response
Responses to comments. Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Authors have well addressed reviewers' comments.
Author Response
Thank you for your positive comments on our paper.
