Water and Salt Balance in Agricultural Lands under Leaching with Shallow Subsurface Drainage Used in Combination with Cut-Drains
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript entitled “Water and Salt Balance in Agricultural Lands under 2 Leaching with Shallow Subsurface Drainage Used in 3 Combination with Cut-drains” (Reference number Water-978219) authored by Y. Okuda, J. Onishi, Y.I. Shirokova, I. Kitagawa, Y. Kitamura and H. Fujimaki describes the results from the implementation of a low cost system of subsurface drainage in Uzbekistan that has been compared to the common system in the region. Authors concluded that the proposed system reduced the amount of water infiltrated in the field and remove a considerable amount of salts. Indeed, this manuscript fits well within the scope of Water.
The experiment seems to be correct and the results are interesting; however, the main concern that I have is the fact that authors did not apply any statistical analysis to their data in order to obtain reliable results. Therefore, I think that this needs to be addressed in a revised version of this work.
Finally, language needs revision all over the manuscript.
Therefore, I recommend a minor revision of this manuscript prior to its eventual acceptance for being published in Water.
Specific comments to the authors:
Abstract:
Lines 21-22: “even where construction of conventional tile drainage system is difficult owing to cost”. Please, check English and re-phrase.
Lines 25-26: This sentence can be removed. It does not add anything to the work. In any case, you should have stated earlier that you worked on a dryland. Moreover, English seems to be incorrect.
Lines 26-27: This sentence needs more details. For instance, what do you mean by “experimentally introduced”? What was the experimental design? What was the control treatment to which your system was compared? What do you mean by “analyzing water”? Did you determine water quality?
Line 29: This sentence is unclear. Please, re-phrase it.
Line 30: Re-phrase to “Therefore, the proposed system can enhance salt removal from the field”.
Keywords:
Please, avoid the use of words that already appear in the title. (“Cut-drain”, in this case).
Introduction:
This section is well organized and focuses the readers to the main objective of this work, while setting its relevance. The references used are relevant and updated.
Line 38: You can remove “hereinafter”.
Line 39: “malfunctioning” instead of “malfunctioned”.
Lines 45-46: Re-phrase to “However, drainage systems are still in a state of disrepair in some areas [8]”.
Line 50: Remove “hereinafter”.
Line 54: “systems” instead of “system”.
Lines 55-56: Please, check this sentence and re-phrase it.
Lines 57-58: This sentence is confusing. Please, re-phrase it.
Line 63: “the current study presents” instead of “we would present”.
Line 64: Remove “hereinafter”.
Line 67: Re-phrase to “excessive water accumulation in the root zone”.
Line 68: Include “the” before “surface layer”.
Lines 70-74: This is unclear. Please, check English and re-phrase.
Materials and methods:
The experiment has been well designed and implemented in the field.
Line 80: Please, provide the geographical coordinates of the study area.
Line 81: Remove “report in”.
Line 85: Please, check English and re-phrase.
Line 91: Re-phrase to “Furrow irrigation is mainly used in this region [21]”.
Lines 100-101: Please, re-phrase this sentence.
Line 106: “parallel” instead of “parallels”.
Figure 1: It is difficult to see the location of the study area when the reader is not from Central Asia. I suggest including a map of Central Asia in which the country is pointed out.
Figure 2: The caption is not self-explanatory. Please, re-phrase it.
Lines 142-143: This sentence is unclear. Please, re-phrase it.
Line 144: How many soil samples did you collect?
Line 156: Please, indicate the model and brand of the barometer used.
Line 160: Please, improve this caption, which is not self-explanatory.
Line 201: “was” instead of “were”.
Lines 207-208: This sentence is confusing. Please, re-phrase it.
Line 213: “estimated” instead of “estimate”.
Lines 215-216: This is not sufficiently clear. Please, describe further.
Lines 219-221: Please, include the number of days.
Line 229: How was TDS volume analysed?
Information on the statistical methods employed is missing.
Results and Discussion:
The discussion is almost inexistent.
Line 235: This sentence is unclear. Please, re-phrase it.
Line 237: Include “the” before “entire”.
Line 253: “were” instead of “was”.
Figure 5: The caption is not self-explanatory. Please, re-phrase it.
Figure 6: The caption is not self-explanatory. Please, re-phrase it.
Lines 274-275: What do you mean by “mean design drainage discharge”?
Lines 277-278: This sentence needs English revision.
Figure 7: The caption is not self-explanatory. Please, re-phrase it.
Lines 292-294: “indicate” instead of “indicates”. Anyway, the sentence is confusing and needs to be re-phrased.
Line 298: “due to the absence of upward flow” instead of “due to no upward flow”.
Figure 8: The graph in the middle contains only 4 points. Is this number of points significant to obtain a relevant correlation that can be used later for estimation TDS from ECw?
Line 307: Remove “layer” after “upper”.
Line 309: “with each value”? Do you mean “with the corresponding value”?
Lines 312-316: English is confusing here. Please, re-phrase.
Line 329: This sentence is confusing. Please, re-phrase it.
Figure 9: In the caption, you should indicate the meaning of the numbers between parentheses that appear in the graphs. No statistical analysis has been performed for comparing the effects of the treatments.
Table 2: The title of this table is not self-explanatory. Please, re-phrase it. The meaning of the abbreviations used must be given in the foot of the table.
Conclusions:
From my viewpoint, this section should be shorter and highlight the main findings of the current work instead of being a sort of discussion of the results presented in the former section. In that case, it should be called “Discussion”, which is a part that does not exist in the former section that you entitled “Results and Discussion”.
Line 349: Remove “be”.
Line 351: Remove “would”.
Lines 354-387: This repeats results and adds some discussion but, definitely, these are not conclusions.
Table S1 and Figure S1: Why are this table and this figure not included in the main text? To me, it does not make sense to use them as supplementary materials.
References:
References seem to be edited according to journal guidelines.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for the excellent revision work.
We revised the manuscript.
Please see the attachment. It is response to your comments.
Best regards,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is very weak right now
There is not a proper discussion, and the rationale is poor
The conclusion section is far too long and can be updated into a discussion
Right now the paper needs a first (not the last) update
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for the excellent revision work.
We revised the manuscript.
Please see the attachment. It is response to your comments.
Best regards
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
probably my attached file did not reach the authors earlier
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your revision work.
I send you the response for your comments. Please see the attached file.
I also send the revised manuscript with change history to the editorial office.
In addition to the response to your comments, I have changed some minor points. Those were shown in the last part of the file and the change history.
Best regard,
Yukio OKUDA
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is fine now
