A Scientometric Analysis of Research Trends and Knowledge Structure on the Climate Effects of Irrigation between 1993 and 2022
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments on manuscript 2431971. “A scientometric analysis of the research trends and knowledge structure in climate effects of irrigation between 1993 and 2022”.
Detailed comments
Lines 27 : Where is (or are) cited the author(s) ?
Lines 30-31: “ as stated in United Nations Environmental 30 Program (UNEP).” give references.
Lines 34-35: “..significant impact..”, give references.
Line 38: “Previous study shows …”, which study? give references!
Lines 47-48: This sentence, particularly the last part, is unclear. Please reformulate.
Lines 84-85: References?
Line 85: What is DI?
Lines 90-91: “… because the impacts … is mutual..” / … are mutual.
Lines 103-108, title and abstract: You use indifferently the words “bibliometric analysis” and “scientometric analysis”, the later being the more frequent in this manuscript. Please define the term “scientometric”, which is more recently used in the literature. Also give the added value of its use with respect to the use of “bibliometric”.
Lines 114-115: What do you mean exactly by “To avoid duplicate literature of many mainstream databases…”.
Lines 132-137: Give more references.
Lines 137-150: The concepts and terms of “time slicing”, “scale factor k in g-index”, “good betweenness centrality”, “communication bridge” role, etc. are not really defined by the authors and the general meaning of the text remains very nebulous for some one who has never used CiteSpace.
Lines 127-156: More generally all the section 2.3 describing the “Data analysis methods and tools” must be rewritten on a more explicative way for an ordinary reader.
Lines 174-184: Table 1, which is commented within these lines, uses the terms stage which is not explained or defined in the caption of the table? More generally, all the Figures and Tables must be autonomous, i.e. one has not to refer to the text to understand its meaning, and therefore all the expressions used must be defined in their caption.
Tab S1: Authors name of the quoted papers are missing, and you give only the name of Chen, why?
Lines 182-184: Unclear, reformulate.
Lines 188-216: § 3.1.2 Discipline trajectory and domain contribution analysis & Fig. 3: Is Fig. 3 essential? Because it is hardly understandable, as the used concepts are rather new but insufficiently explained, but also because the presentation, particularly the labeling is too profuse and often unreadable. Finally, if the figure is impressive, the deduced comments are rather poor and evident.
Fig 4a: The explanation of what is its ordinate is particularly unclear as well as the general meaning of this Figure. More particularly what is the meaning of “published quantity classification components”. Reformulate more clearly.
Fig 4b: You mention with an * the countries with a “high “citation burst, but we have no information’s on their rating and more generally on the citation rating of the various countries, a table or a figure is may be requested?
Fig 4b: The origin of the abscise of 4b is duplicated and magnified inside the same figure. However, if one inspects in details and compare both figures, one can state that they do not coincide, particularly for years 2008, 2012, etc.?
Lines 242-244: Sentence such as: “Institution cooperation study choses the “institution” 242 node with the scale factor k=23 by pruning sliced networks, the institution co-authorship generates 489 nodes 243 and 1361 links (Fig.5).” are deeply unclear for peoples who have never used nor been formed to CiteSpace. Intuitively, I think they represent most of the potential future readers of this paper, I think that you must find a way to give these precisions (in annexes for examples) to lighten the text. In summary, the lambda reader is not obliged to endure a training on CiteSpace before reading your paper.
Fig 5 is also hardly understandable as one cannot make a clear connection between the symbols in the figure and the name of the corresponding institutes. May be a simple labeling with numbers for these institutes and a listing of them next door could improve the presentation.
Table 2 Caption’s must be corrected. Also refer to my remark on Table 1 to define the terms used “strength, spans, freq, etc.
Lines 284-286: Incomprehensible for the lambda reader! To be transferred in annex.
Figure 7: The meaning of the symbols used is not indicated in the caption, also the red color is used but defined in the caption? There are labeling corresponding to no symbols and symbols without labeling, the meaning of the size & position of the symbols with respect to the other symbols is not given.
Figure 8: Links and on the left side: color-scale & texts are illegible.
Figure 9: Translate “The purple circle is the turning point with good betweenness centrality (no less than 0.1).”
Figure 10: Incomprehensible!
Line 357: “In Fig.9, there revealed the timeline chart of intellectual base of CEI field”. It is not Fig. 9, but Fig. 10. The text & the figures are already hardly understandable, if in addition you use a wrong numbering, all becomes completely incomprehensible.
Lines 396-399: This paper in Agronomy is a bibliometric analysis of what you call CEI research, it will be read by specialists in Agronomy. The referees of the article are also specialists in Agronomy, and they are not qualified to judge about the accuracy of the bibliometric methods used to perform this analysis. If you want to address this question, you must publish it in a journal specialized in bibliometric, else remove all the allusions about the “supposed superiority” of the used bibliometric method.
Line 400: A quick division give an average value of 23 citations per paper, it is few, is it more important than for other similar questions?
Line 433: “The scientific direction also in line with Chen et al (Chi Chen et al., 433 2019).“ What does it means ?
Line 437: “making traceability of this field clear and feasible”, It is not really the feeling of the reader!
General Comments
This paper is ambiguous as it pursues two main goals i) a bibliometric analysis of what it calls “CEI” and destined to Agronomists, and an analysis of the bibliometric methods about research in CEI destined to bibliometric researchers. However, the will to publish it in Agronomy indicate that the Agronomist side is the most important. Therefore, the “scientometric” jargon used for the latter must be suppressed and replaced by comprehensible sentences, also understanding by basic agronomists. Also, the Figures and the Tables are often “copy-paste” from the screen of the used bibliometric-analysis software and are not adapted to the publication in a scientific journal, an adaptation effort on this side is requested. There are many errors and imprecisions which are listed in the detailed comments, which must be corrected. The important points highlighted by this study must also be more clearly evidenced.
No comments
Author Response
dear editor:
I am so sorry that I have exceeded the scheduled 7 days to submit a revised paper. I got COVID-19 three days ago, so I haven't revised the literature for two days, please forgive my mistake and give me a chance to review. Here follows my revised paper and comment response. Please see the attachment.
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Lines 27 : Where is (or are) cited the author(s) ?
Response 1: Yes, I have added the authors citation in top of page one.
Point 2: Lines 30-31: “ as stated in United Nations Environmental 30 Program (UNEP).” give references.
Response 2: Yes, in the line of 37.
Point 3: Lines 34-35: “..significant impact..”, give references.
Response 3: Yes, I have added in the line of 41.
Point 4: Line 38: “Previous study shows …”, which study? give references!
Response 4: Yes, I have added in the line of 44.
Point 5: Lines 47-48: This sentence, particularly the last part, is unclear. Please reformulate.
Response 5: Yes, I have changed in lines of 50 to52.
Point 6: Lines 84-85: References?
Response 6: Yes, I have added in the line of 85.
Point 7: Line 85: What is DI?
Response 7: DI has changed as drip irrigation in line 85.
Point 8: Lines 90-91: “… because the impacts … is mutual..” / … are mutual.
Response 8: Is” has changed to “are” in line 91.
Point 9: Lines 103-108, title and abstract: You use indifferently the words “bibliometric analysis” and “scientometric analysis”, the later being the more frequent in this manuscript. Please define the term “scientometric”, which is more recently used in the literature. Also give the added value of its use with respect to the use of “bibliometric”.
Response 9: In this paper, all of the use of “bibliometric” has been altered by “scientometric”, The scientometrics research is approached by mining data about the scientific literature of the topics or other media, often extracted from citation databases and typically focusing on journal articles, papers in conference proceedings, theses, and other types. In the scientometrics research domain, other terms related to scientometrics are used as well, for example bibliometricand informetrics. Together, these are known as the “3-metrics” in the discipline of information and library sciences. However, the terms do not have clear boundaries in practical research, with terms often used interchangeably.
Point 10: Lines 114-115: What do you mean exactly by “To avoid duplicate literature of many mainstream databases…”.
Response 10: A major problem arising from searching across bibliographic databases is the retrieval of duplicate citations. using a fully indexed single database instead of multiple databases is beneficial for eliminating duplicate literature. In the mainstream citation database, such as such as Web of science and Scopus, the full text databases such as ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, and ProQuest, Google Scholar, PubMed, and other data sources. , Web of Science and Scopus are the most widely used ones in scientometric mapping research. These two databases are commercial (subscription-based) bibliographic databases, with a higher data quality than other comparable databases. Web of Science (WOS) was founded by Eugene Garfield in the 1960s and currently owned by Clarivate Analytics. The Web of Science platform has integrated several bibliographic databases, with nearly 33,000 + science/social science/ arts and humanities journals having been indexed in the database since 1900. Compared with other databases, WOS has played an important role in the history of scientometric analysis, and has had a profound effect on the evolution of scientometric research, by making literature searches easier and more comprehensive. Scopus is a comparatively recently developed citation database. But in the library of China Agricultural University, there is no permission for Scopus.
Point 11: Lines 132-137: Give more references.
Response 11: Yes, I have added in the line of 133.
Point 12: Lines 137-150: The concepts and terms of “time slicing”, “scale factor k in g-index”, “good betweenness centrality”, “communication bridge” role, etc. are not really defined by the authors and the general meaning of the text remains very nebulous for some one who has never used CiteSpace.
Response 12: Yes, I have explained in lines of 137 to 147.
Point 13: Lines 127-156: More generally all the section 2.3 describing the “Data analysis methods and tools” must be rewritten on a more explicative way for an ordinary reader.
Response 13: Yes, I have rewritten the section 2.3.
Point 14: Lines 174-184: Table 1, which is commented within these lines, uses the terms stage which is not explained or defined in the caption of the table? More generally, all the Figures and Tables must be autonomous, i.e. one has not to refer to the text to understand its meaning, and therefore all the expressions used must be defined in their caption.
Response 14: All the tables and figures has checked and defined individually. And tab 1 has been changed.
Point 15: Tab S1: Authors name of the quoted papers are missing, and you give only the name of Chen, why?
Response 15: I have changed the references format by number and location in line 195 and reformed the lines of 190 to 193. The tab S1 has been insert as tab 2.
Point 16: Lines 182-184: Unclear, reformulate.
Response 16: Yes, I have adjusted the order of these lines in lines of 187-193.
Point 17: Lines 188-216: § 3.1.2 Discipline trajectory and domain contribution analysis & Fig. 3: Is Fig. 3 essential? Because it is hardly understandable, as the used concepts are rather new but insufficiently explained, but also because the presentation, particularly the labeling is too profuse and often unreadable. Finally, if the figure is impressive, the deduced comments are rather poor and evident.
Response 17: Based on your suggestion, I am so sorry that I cannot completely remove it. Because it is the disciplines’ history evolution of CEI research and it supported this paper’s structure. But I have simplified this section and Fig.3. and then I have reformed it and enhanced its readabilty in the lines of 197-212.
Point 18: Fig 4a: The explanation of what is its ordinate is particularly unclear as well as the general meaning of this Figure. More particularly what is the meaning of “published quantity classification components”. Reformulate more clearly.
Response 18: I added some minutia in Fig 4a.
Point 19: Fig 4b: You mention with an * the countries with a “high “citation burst, but we have no information’s on their rating and more generally on the citation rating of the various countries, a table or a figure is may be requested?
Response 19: the high citation burst is computed by Citespace, and I have statistics all of the burst nodes (country) in this top ten countries by mark *. And I have added all the burst nodes in Tab.3.
Point 20: Fig 4b: The origin of the abscise of 4b is duplicated and magnified inside the same figure. However, if one inspects in details and compare both figures, one can state that they do not coincide, particularly for years 2008, 2012, etc.?
Response 20: I have readjusted the range of values for the vertical axis in Fig 4b.
Point 21: Lines 242-244: Sentence such as: “Institution cooperation study choses the “institution” 242 node with the scale factor k=23 by pruning sliced networks, the institution co-authorship generates 489 nodes 243 and 1361 links (Fig.5).” are deeply unclear for peoples who have never used nor been formed to CiteSpace. Intuitively, I think they represent most of the potential future readers of this paper, I think that you must find a way to give these precisions (in annexes for examples) to lighten the text. In summary, the lambda reader is not obliged to endure a training on CiteSpace before reading your paper.
Response 21: Thanks for your advice. I have added the explaination of nodes and links in lines of 138 too 145.
Point 22: Fig 5 is also hardly understandable as one cannot make a clear connection between the symbols in the figure and the name of the corresponding institutes. May be a simple labeling with numbers for these institutes and a listing of them next door could improve the presentation.
Response 22: Yes, I have adjusted the node position so that each displayed label starts appearing in the middle of the node.
Point 23: Table 2 Caption’s must be corrected. Also refer to my remark on Table 1 to define the terms used “strength, spans, freq, etc.
Response 23: Yes, I have corrected all the Tables title and special prefix noun in this paper.
Point 24: Lines 284-286: Incomprehensible for the lambda reader! To be transferred in annex.
Response 24: I have changed the references, and made it clearly.
Point 25: Figure 7: The meaning of the symbols used is not indicated in the caption, also the red color is used but defined in the caption? There are labeling corresponding to no symbols and symbols without labeling, the meaning of the size & position of the symbols with respect to the other symbols is not given.
Response 25: I have deleted the Fig.7 according to the content.
Point 26: Figure 8: Links and on the left side: color-scale & texts are illegible.
Response 26: Yes, I have redrawn Fig.8.
Point 27: Figure 9: Translate “The purple circle is the turning point with good betweenness centrality (no less than 0.1).”
Response 27: It listed in the lines of 155 to 156.
Point 28: Figure 10: Incomprehensible!
Response 28: I have simplified the information in Fig. 10 as Fig.9.
Point 29: Line 357: “In Fig.9, there revealed the timeline chart of intellectual base of CEI field”. It is not Fig. 9, but Fig. 10. The text & the figures are already hardly understandable, if in addition you use a wrong numbering, all becomes completely incomprehensible.
Response 29: thanks for your advice, I have restructured the timeline chart of the intellectual base in CEI field.
Point 30: Lines 396-399: This paper in Agronomy is a bibliometric analysis of what you call CEI research, it will be read by specialists in Agronomy. The referees of the article are also specialists in Agronomy, and they are not qualified to judge about the accuracy of the bibliometric methods used to perform this analysis. If you want to address this question, you must publish it in a journal specialized in bibliometric, else remove all the allusions about the “supposed superiority” of the used bibliometric method.
Response 30: Yes, I have deleted all the “supposed superiority” of the used bibliometric method in this paper.
Point 31: Line 400: A quick division give an average value of 23 citations per paper, it is few, is it more important than for other similar questions?
Response 31: In this paper, 23 citations per paper is relatively high in the field of human activities impacts on climate. In the aspect of land use and land cover change effects on climate, the average citations of the per paper is about 27.3, and that one in irrigation is about 23.9. And as a method land management, the publications of the irrigation effects on climate are increasing. Therefore, it is important for us to study it.
Point 32: Line 433: “The scientific direction also in line with Chen et al (Chi Chen et al., 433 2019).“ What does it means ?
Response 32: According to context, I have removed it.
Point 33: Line 437: “making traceability of this field clear and feasible”, It is not really the feeling of the reader!
Response 33: Based on your suggestion, I have deleted it.
Reviewer 2 Report
1) The work carries out a review of the trend of the research works carried out in the field of climate change and irrigation.
2) It is important from the point of view of directing future research work.
3) The review of the research works carried out in the last 30 years, referring to climate change, water and irrigation
4) They could include the work carried out on this subject. Example in Brazil
5) The conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented .
6) The references are not appropriate. The authors must be cited following a sequential number, within square brackets.
7) Increase the font size of the letters in figures 3, 8 and 9. Delete the point "Supplementary Materials Catalog", and place the tables listed inside the article.
Figures 3, 8 and 9 are illegible. Improve presentation.
Supplementary tables should be in the main body of the article
Author Response
dear editor:
here follows my response to your comments and please see the attachment below.
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: The work carries out a review of the trend of the research works carried out in the field of climate change and irrigation.
Response 1: Thank you for your comments.
Point 2: It is important from the point of view of directing future research work.
Response 2: Yes, I have added corresponding space in the 3.3 Keyword co-occurrence analyses section of this article.
Point 3: The review of the research works carried out in the last 30 years, referring to climate change, water and irrigation.
Response 3: Thank you for your comments.
Point 4: They could include the work carried out on this subject. Example in Brazil.
Response 4: Thank you for your comments. I have added some example of the irrigation effects on climate in Brazil in the section of 3.2 Academic impacts and cooperation analysis.
Point 5: The conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented .
Response 5: Thank you for your comments.
Point 6: The references are not appropriate. The authors must be cited following a sequential number, within square brackets.
Response 6: I have changed all the references with sequential number in this article.
Point 7: Increase the font size of the letters in figures 3, 8 and 9. Delete the point "Supplementary Materials Catalog", and place the tables listed inside the article.
Response 7: Yes, I have changed the fontsize of figures 3, 8 and 9 and added all the "Supplementary Materials Catalog" in the appropriate position in this text.
Point 8: Figures 3, 8 and 9 are illegible. Improve presentation.
Response 8: This figures has replaced with high-definition images. But according to the dural-map structure, some content cannot be displayed completely. Please understand.
Point 9: Supplementary tables should be in the main body of the article
Response 9: Yes, I have modified the supplementary table.
