Evaluation of Pedotransfer Functions for Estimating Soil Water Retention Curve of Ap Horizon Soils for Various Soil Series of Reclaimed Tidal Flat Soil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study entitled “Evaluation of Pedotransfer Functions for Estimating Soil Water Retention Curve of Ap Horizon Soils for Various Soil Series of Reclaimed Tidal Flat Soil” is interesting and promising for the rational use of water, but I noticed some points that need to be corrected/reviewed, presented below:

Lines 23-38: At the abstract you should give a brief summary of the study, explaining the scope, the methods and the findings of your research. You can’t use acronyms without telling the reader what they refer to. All the acronyms should be first explained descriptively and afterwards put the acronyms in a parenthesis for future use into the text (e.g. define what RTFL means and put RTFL in a parenthesis beside).

Line 32: Delete “(figure 4)”. This should be noticed at the results section, not at abstract.

Line 47: Use either “the importance of soil characteristic curves”, or “the importance of soil water retention curves”.

Line 48: correct as follows: “to develop the best method in order to estimate the soil hydraulic properties”.

Line 78: correct as follows: “…when measured soil water content, along with soil water retention data are available”.

Lines 129-137: It would be useful and informative to the reader to give a schematic diagram, or a photo of the experimental procedure.

Lines 156-167: You may add that: Also, α parameter refers to a parallel shift of the retention curve, while parameter n affects the scheme of the retention curve (Angelaki et al  2021).

Lines 198-200: You may add that: Soil structure affect hydraulic parameters (Guellouz et al 2020). 

Table 3: At the 3^rd column, you should add θ (cm³/cm³), so that the reader can understand better the content of the table (the relation between h and θ).

Figure 3: You should mention at the caption, whether the curves refer to wetting or drainage.

Figure 4: Please explain the types of curves (wetting or drainage).

Lines 329-340: At the conclusions section, you should give first a brief summary of the research and then the concluding remarks.

References

 Angelaki, A., Sihag, P., Sakellariou-Makrantonaki, M., Tzimopoulos, C. (2021) The effect of sorptivity on cumulative infiltration, Water Science and Technology: Water Supply 21(2), pp. 606-614

 

Guellouz, L., Askri, B., Jaffré, J., Bouhlila, R. (2020) Estimation of the soil hydraulic properties from field data by solving an inverse problem. Scientific Reports, 10 (1), art. no. 9359

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

SWRCs were measured and estimated using 150 undisturbed samples from Ap horizon of five soil series. RB-PTF was used for the estimation and its applicability was discussed in the manuscript. Valuable data from the undisturbed samples are obtained. Although the experimental results are described in a matter of fact, superior points of the proposed method to other methods are indistinct. Moreover, applicability and limitation of the methods should be discussed. Followings are comments to revise the manuscript.

1. Abstract: The abstract seems to have already revised because of red colour. However, the reviewer thinks this is too specific to understand for general readers because many technical symbols are used without explanation. Therefore, only general aspects should be described in the abstract with less technical symbols.

 

2. Table 2: Please explain the definition of OM (Organic matter).

 

3. Page 5, line 132 to 133: Please explain why those matric potential values were chosen in the study, especially -33 is odd fraction.

 

4. Page 12, line 335: The sentence is strange. Please confirm the description of "for sandy loam and silt loam. of sandy loam and silt loam."

 

5. Please summarise the following points: 1. Good and bad points of RB-PTF comparing with other methods, 2. Applicability of this method to the wide range of soils.

 

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The reviewer has carefully checked the manuscript again. The manuscript has been revised in some parts according to the reviewer's comments. However, some items have remained with insufficient correspondences. Followings are the comment to revise the manuscript.

 

1. Abstract: Abstract has not yet become a general summary: e.g. theta_s, theta_r, alha, and n are too specific symbols for general readers who first read this abstract.

 

2. Conclusions: Estimation methods of SWRC are summarised based on the results from only limited soil types in this study. Please discuss the applicability of the present results, i.e. what kind of soils can the present results be applied to? That information is important for readers.

 

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment." 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Soil water retention characteristics are critical for water management or land management. The estimation of SWRC by pedo-transfer functions is commonly used as direct measurement of soil water content under varied suction is time-consuming and expensive financially. This MS only compared observed SWRC and estimated SWRC by RETC code. RETC is an universal used code to estimate SWRC by observed values of soil water content. I do now think it is important to compare the measured and estimated values of soil water content. But it would be a strong complement to soil hydraulic pedo-transfer function development if this paper can develop an alternative pedo-tranfer function of SWRC for Ap horizon soils of RTFS by soil basic properties (such as bulk density, organic matter, sand and silt and clay content). So, I suggest to reject this MS and it is possible for further reviewing if it can be resubmitted after re-writing.

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been revised twice (second revision and submission). Authors have improved the manuscript. 

Comment: The conclusion should have practical outcome for the readers.

Author Response

 "Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

As I mentioned in the previous review comments, there is no worth to compare measured soil moisture with estimated SWRC by RETC. I suggest authors to develop specific pedo-transfer functions of soil hydraulic properties by soil basic properties, such as soil bulk density, soil organic matter content , contents of sand, clay and silt, etc.. However, I do not think the revised MS have dealed with this. So I am sorry but I persist my previous comments on this MS.