Impact of Climate Change on the Yield and Water Footprint of Winter Wheat in the Haihe River Basin, China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors have generated good information on the effect of climate change on the yield and water footprints of winter wheat in the coming decades. The research problem has been adequately addressed, and nicely written and discussed. I have some suggestions/queries mentioned in the text which may be addressed/justified before the publication of this manuscript. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

1. In the title “Impacts” should be “Impact”

Re: It was modified.

2. In line 50: “climate changes” should be “climate change”

Re: It was modified.

3. In line 64: “changes” should be “change scenarios”

Re: It was modified.

4. In line 105: “in the flood season” should be “in the monsoon season”

Re: It was modified.

5. In line 120: what is 86 kg? is it total amount of nutrients or N, P, K???.....please clearly mention the nutrient (s) added.

Re: The Ammonium bicarbonate (NH₄HCO₃) was mostly applicated as the fertilizer. In our model the pure N content was used with 172kg per hectare (86kg each time by twice), which was cosistent with the statistical yearbook. The P and K was not simulated in our model. It was modified in the manuscript. Please see Line 114-115, 118.

6. In Table 3: mention the standard units of the weather parameters

Re: The information was added to table 3.

7. In line 149: How the water footprint was calculated?... please mention the procedure in brief.

Re: The method was added in brief in the manuscript. The water consumption of winter wheat were calculated by suming up the simulated daily evapotranspiration during the growth period. The water footprints were calculated by dividing the amount of consumed water by simulated crop yield. Please see Line 144-147.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “Impacts of Climate Change on Yield and Water Footprint of Winter Wheat in Haihe River Basin, China” submitted to atmosphere needs corrections and improvement. There are some major and minor comments for the improvement of the manuscript.

1. The manuscript has some grammatical and punctuation mistakes. Therefore, English language revision is needed.
2. The data used in this manuscript is from 1993-2013; however, it is 2022 now. It is better to insert a 30 years data.
3. It would be better to select the keywords which are not mentioned in the title.
4. Citations need to adjust based on the style of the journal.
5. The first cited abbreviation needs explanation. Ex: L89. HRB. Then use abbreviation.
6. The authors collected data from six stations but in the figure 1, there are 10 stations are marked.
7. L118: how the wheat was cultivated, row or broadcasting? 240 plants per m2 is very dense planting.
8. L120: what kind of fertilizer (86 kg/ha)?
9. Table 1: PH => pH
10. Abbreviations in Table 2, 3 and 4 need explanation.
11. L187: this should be figure 2.
12. Figure 3 is not cited in the text.
13. What is the reason for Shanghai for poor correlation (r2) in anthesis dates and maturity dates?
14. L269: this should be table 6.
15. The references are not following the format of this journal.

Author Response

1. The manuscript has some grammatical and punctuation mistakes. Therefore, English language revision is needed.

Re: We improve the English and grammar of the whole manuscript carefully, and some of grammatical and punctuation mistakes has been revised by the authors, and also a professional English editing service was used to improve the English.

2. The data used in this manuscript is from 1993-2013; however, it is 2022 now. It is better to insert a 30 years data.

Re: Thank you for the advices. We agree that the latest data is very important for the study, however, it is difficult to obtain more data. It is because that the data for crop growth in this study are obtained from the China Meteorological Administration [50], which only offered data for 1993 to 2013, and did not provided data after 2014. It was explained in the revised manuscript, please see Line 109-111.

In this manuscript, although we used limited data (1993-2013) to calibrate and validate the crop growth model. Compared to prior studies, many of which simulated the crop growth using 2~3-year observed data, we believe that this study still made some progress in simulating the yield, water footprint, and crop growth process.

3. It would be better to select the keywords which are not mentioned in the title.

Re: Thank you for the advices. Some of the keywords have been replaced.

4. Citations need to adjust based on the style of the journal.

Re: The references citations are revised based on the style of the journal.

5. The first cited abbreviation needs explanation. Ex: L89. HRB. Then use abbreviation.

Re: It was modified.

6. The authors collected data from six stations but in the figure 1, there are 10 stations are marked.

Re: It was modified. There were 6 experimental stations located in 3 cities in the Figure 1 of the revised paper.

7. L118: how the wheat was cultivated, row or broadcasting? 240 plants per m² is very dense planting.

Re: The wheat was cultivated in rows with spacing of 20cm. The planting density of 240 plants per square may seems too dense, while it is common in the Haihe River Basin or North China Plain. The Haihe River Basin is one of the main grain-producing areas of China, the production is even reached 6.9 tons per hectare in Shijiazhuang. Please see Line 112-113.

8. L120: what kind of fertilizer (86 kg/ha)?

Re: The Ammonium bicarbonate (NH₄HCO₃) is mostly applicated as the fertilizer. In our model the pure N content is used with 172kg per hectare (86kg each time by twice), which is cosistent with the statistical yearbook. It was modified in the manuscript. Please see Line 114-115, 118.

9. Table 1: PH => pH

Re: It was modified.

10. Abbreviations in Table 2, 3 and 4 need explanation.

Re: It was modified in the manuscript. “PIV, PID, P5, G1,G2, G3, PINT” were explained in table 2. “SJZ, BJ, TJ” were replaced by full name. “Obs, Sim” were explained below the table.

11. L187: this should be figure 2.

Re: It was modified.

12. Figure 3 is not cited in the text.

Re: It was modified and cited in the revised manuscript. Please see Line 201.

13. What is the reason for Shijiazhuang for poor correlation (r2) in anthesis dates and maturity dates?

Re: Indeed, it deserves deep consideration. In the model, the anthesis dates and maturity dates mainly depend on the accumulation of heat called “thermal time” or “growing degree-days (GDD)”. Shijiazhuang is in south of the Haihe River Basin, and the temperature differences between spring and summer is smaller than Beijing and Tianjin. (In summer, the temperature is high in the whole basin or even China, while in winter it is large difference among different latitudes.) Hence, in Shijiazhuang the data point of anthesis (or maturity) dates are more centralized, which can also be seen in Figure 2 and Figure 3. That may lead to a relatively poor correlation (r²) in anthesis (or maturity) dates in Shijiazhuang than the other 2 regions. The explainations were added to the chapter “4 Disscussion”. Please see Line 287-294.

14. L269: this should be table 6.

Re: It was modified.

15. The references are not following the format of this journal.

Re: the references were modified according to the format of this journal in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

This manuscript is well prepared. The research objectives, motivation and the originality is well described. It seems both scientific structure and English language has been checked by professionals before submission. 

I would only provide a few minor recommendations. Although it is declared in the title and method, I believe the popular water footprint methodology has not been used in this study. From the water footprint term in this manuscript I understand the water consumption of wheat. The scientic quantifications and discussions provided in this manuscript is sufficiently developed. I would not suggest a radical change to do not damage the overall pattern of the manuscript. However, optionally I may suggest to change the water footprint term with the water consumption. However the authors are not obliged to apply this suggestion. Finally please check this study which is about the water footprint of wheat: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13717-020-0217-1 and cite in your manuscript if approppriate. Please also consider to check the popular water footprint methodology from this paper.  

Author Response

Re: Thank you for your positive comments. We used a professional English editing service to improve the English before submitting the manuscript. As your comments, the concept of water consumption was used throughout the manuscript and we agree that the water footprint term could be changed into water consumption. While to keep a overall pattern of the manuscript, we decided not to change it. Finally, we checked the popular water footprint methodology and cited the paper.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

L129: in Table 2, Explanation [32]? is 32 right here?

L138: delect page number here.