Ecosystem Services of Kettle Holes in Agricultural Landscapes
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Somehow the line numbering does not appear throughout the manuscript. Fortunately, this manuscript is one of the most thorough and almost ready to publish manuscripts I have ever reviewed. A small amount of rewriting would be useful as described below.
The main comment I have is that the purpose of the study needs to be a bit clearer, and additional thought is needed in the conclusion. Beginning with the purpose, currently it is listed as follows:
Bottom of page 2: “ To assess the sustainability of agricultural management options in the areas surrounding kettle holes, it is necessary to consider the ecosystem services supplied by kettle holes and the effects agricultural management has on them. While many studies have analyzed effects from a limited number of specific agricultural management practices on selected ES, no paper has yet provided an overview of all ES supplied by kettle holes and assessed the full range of management practices affecting them, and recommended next steps. This paper contributes to closing this gap through the following objectives:
- Review which ES supplied by kettle holes are addressed in scientific research to assess the state of knowledge of the value of kettle holes in agricultural landscapes;
- Review which ES supplied by kettle holes are addressed in German policy documents as an exemplary test case to assess which ES society perceives as important and worth protecting;
- Review the state of knowledge about the interactions between ES supplied by kettle holes and agricultural management on adjacent fields.”
Switching around the bulleted sentences would make clearer what the purpose is, such as given below:
- Assess the state of knowledge of the value of kettle holes in agricultural landscapes by conducting a review of scientific literature about which ES are supplied by kettle holes;
- Assess which ecosystem services society currently perceived as important and worth protecting related to kettle holes by reviewing national (European) to local (German – subregional) policy documents as an exemplary test case;
- Assess the state of knowledge about the interactions between ES supplied by kettle holes and agricultural management on adjacent fields by conducting a review of scientific literature.
We conclude with recommendations for next steps to support the sustainability of kettle holes located in areas of agricultural management.
In the conclusions section, make clear that your conclusions result from your review of the scientific literature.
For example, right at beginning of conclusion and recommendations section
L54 – The body of scientific literature we reviewed indicates that kettle holes supply multiple ecosystem services. There is a strong focus on four services ….
Generally the conclusion section needs to be rewritten a little to discuss policies and their impacts. Authors of research papers make recommendations, but decisions. So lines 75-76, it is strong to say providing information is a prerequisite, but one can say information is needed for policymakers to make decisions based on evidence.
Based on the information from the reviews, it appears that policies do not currently protect ES of kettle hole. [NOTE: There are no direct analyses presented in this study proving that lack of policies are allowing agricultural practices that are endangering the sustainability of kettle holes or that the existence of policies is effectively protecting kettle holes. But this work still has much to offer] The summary of the scientific literature presented in this study, and identification of knowledge gaps create a strong foundation for areas of future research as well as considerations for policymaking regarding sustainability of kettle holes in agricultural landscapes.
A secondary point: giving additional recognition in the introduction to the study by Brinson and Eckles as an earlier work like this one but focused on all types of wetlands in the US, would show the state of the science and application at that time in one large nation.
With a small amount of re-writing, mostly in the bullets presented above, and in the conclusion section, this publication could be a solid contribution to the scientific literature.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Pleas find my comments in detail in the attached pdf file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors,
The subject of the paper “ Ecosystem services of kettle holes in agricultural landscapes” is interesting in the context of agricultural land management. The paper reviews the literature on one of the most important issues for the sustainability of agriculture, the relationship between ecosystem services and agricultural management.
The paper is well structured but it is incomplete in some parts, especially in methods where criteria used for bibliography analysis are missing, the target topics are also not full reported in results This limits the comprehension and effectiveness of the information the paper gives.
Bellow some specific remarks which I hope be helpful.
Materials and methods
In the description of the method used for the review the process of paper search by keywords is well described, but later it is indicated that "Abstracts of all identified papers were reviewed". It is not specified if all the manuscript was analyzed and what methods and criteria were used in the analysis.
Was any information coding system used to address information concerning the three considered topics (e.i. ES supplied by or influenced by kettle holes, Agricultural or climate change related threats to kettle holes, Policies and conservation programs aimed at agricultural management in the vicinity of kettle holes)? If not what kind of survey system was used to analyze the total 36+87 papers?
Another aspect concerns how the above topics feed the result obtained. Results on “Policies and conservation programs aimed at agricultural management in the vicinity of kettle holes” topic seems not to be described in the results. This also because this seems to be something different from the analysis of “ policies and conservation programs” which constitute a different step in the study.
Moreover, the strategy used for the definition of time interval considered in papers search is not clear. In results the rise of dedicated publications is reported, but is this an effect which came from the time line definition (method) or is it derived from the literature (result) analysis?
Results and discussion
Each ES is described on the base of its consideration in the literature reviewed. But it is not clear if in the section “linkages between ecosystem service and agricultural management” information reported are derived from that literature or not. My question is: are linkages between ES and agricultural management a topic in the literature on kettle holes in agricultural landscape? The question raise because it is not clear what part is result (based on the literature reviewed) and what is discussion (based on other literature).
Chemical composition of atmosphere and oceans highlight kettle holes as net producers of greenhouse gases. Authors should comment further this aspect as disservice, as well as the potential effects of wet-dry cycles. Potential links with artificial drainage are only nominated, a deeper explanation would be necessary.
The analysis of policies and conservation programs is is a separated step of research which is focused almost only on environmental point of view. Only few lines are dedicated to Agricultural Policy and its application at national and local level. Authors would consider that this is a relevant topic for the readers for the journal Agronomy.
Greening represents one of the components of the Direct Payments Scheme which entered into force in 2015 following the start of the 2014-2020 Programming. It consists in the obligation for farmers (> 15 ha of arable land)who receive the basic payment to respect beneficial practices for the climate and the environment. Agricultural practices indicated for the climate and the environment are: diversification, maintenance of permanent grasslands and maintenance, or creation, of areas of ecological interest in the farm area(Efa). Ecological ponds fall into this last category. I think that the analysis of the role played by instruments available for agricultural land and landscape management as Rural development plans or Greening to support the kettle holes conservation can improve greater the quality of the paper.This would give the opportunity to highlight links between nature conservation tools and development policies of sustainable agriculture representing an added value.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Authors, the manuscript was revised and improved in those parts highlighted as weakness improving its readable.
However you reply about the use of coding systems or other in the method in the cover letter ("Where we encountered information pertaining to either of the three topics, it was directly transferred to our manuscript draft. No formal information coding was applied") but you didn't clarify this point in the text for the readers. To define the graph in figure 1 you need a table and so a criteria to interpret the contents of papers read to fill the table. In the revised version of the paper only the Review of policy documents reported clearly this step (Where texts were considered relevant, ES listed as reasons for protecting kettle holes were recorded)
I think that transparency in the method description is very important for the readers so please update this aspect with a simple sentence.
Best regards
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comment. We have added a sentence to make it clear for the readers that we extracted all information relevant to our three topics and also recorded the location of the kettle holes that the respective publications referred to.
