Estimation of Soil Erosion and Evaluation of Soil and Water Conservation Benefit in Terraces under Extreme Precipitation
, Guangju Zhao 1,2 and Zixuan Li 3
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Indroduction
The Indroduction part must be enlarged to meet the demand of article and recent references are needed.
Line 35. Also ecosystem services and biodiversity
- Stefanidis, S., Alexandridis, V., & Ghosal, K. (2022). Assessment of Water-Induced Soil Erosion as a Threat to Natura 2000 Protected Areas in Crete Island, Greece. Sustainability, 14(5), 2738.
- Ma, S., Wang, L. J., Zhu, D., & Zhang, J. (2021). Spatiotemporal changes in ecosystem services in the conservation priorities of the southern hill and mountain belt, China. Ecological Indicators, 122, 107225.
- Rodríguez-Echeverry, J., Echeverría, C., Oyarzún, C., & Morales, L. (2018). Impact of land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Chilean temperate forests. Landscape ecology, 33(3), 439-453.
Line 48-49. Add some comments about recent research concerning the soil loss under climate change and the associated reference.
- Stefanidis, S., Alexandridis, V., Chatzichristaki, C., & Stefanidis, P. (2021). Assessing soil loss by water erosion in a typical Mediterranean ecosystem of northern Greece under current and future rainfall erosivity. Water, 13(15), 2002.
- Hateffard, F.; Mohammed, S.; Alsafadi, K.; Enaruvbe, G. O.; Heidari, A.; Abdo, H. G.; Rodrigo-Comino, J. CMIP5 climate projections and RUSLE-based soil erosion assessment in the central part of Iran. Scientific reports, 2021. 11(1), 1-17.
- Panagos, P.; Ballabio, C.; Himics, M.; Scarpa, S.; Matthews, F.; Bogonos, M.; Borrelli, P. Projections of soil loss by water erosion in Europe by 2050. Environmental Science & Policy, 2021. 124, 380-392.
Line 61. Not only remote sensing, but also the well-established and documented use of geographic information system (GIS) in soil loss modeling lead to the development of automated workflows and toolboxes for soil erosion estimation. Mention some recent advantages and newly toolboxes.
- Abdel Rahman, M. A., Natarajan, A., Hegde, R., & Prakash, S. S.. Assessment of land degradation using comprehensive geostatistical approach and remote sensing data in GIS-model builder. The Egyptian Journal of Remote Sensing and Space Science, 2019. 22(3), 323-334.
- Stefanidis, S.; Chatzichristaki, C.; Stefanidis, P. An ArcGIS toolbox for estimation and mapping soil erosion. Journal of Environmental Protection and Ecology, 2021. 22(2), 689-696.
In the last paragraph clearly mentioned the novelty of the current research and the added values based on the existing scientific knowledge.
- Materials and methods
In the figure 1 replace the Km^2 with the correct Km2 (press SHIFT + F3)
- Results
In this section the damages of terraces have been mentioned. However, a justification for the role of terraces in the reduction of soil loss has to be extensively improved and given in a more clear way.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I have critically gone through the manuscript entitled "Estimation of Soil Erosion and Evaluation of Soil and Water Conservation Benefit in Terraced Fields Under Extreme Rain-storm". The manuscript is focused to investigate the soil erosion, the damage degree of soil and water conservation measures and benefit evaluation under extreme precipitation in Henan Province. I found manuscript interesting and recommend for acceptance with the below suggestive minor changes:
- There are 3-4 line sentences given in the manuscript including abstract. The author should be avoid these and break them into 2 sentence for increase the readability.
- Author should provide the how much global agriculture is prone to rain induces soil erosion. The region specific quantification will be good.
- Author should avoid to use the word like "we" "us" "they" etc.
- The discussion specially comparison of the present investigation with the other similar kind of the research is missing. I suggest to strengthen the relevant discussion part and compare the results with other investigation.
- The conclusion should be modified as per the discussion.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors can concentrate on use of UAV to identify impacts of erosive events on conservation structure either (1) as alternative for remote sensing identification/validation of gully erosion or (2) field method for gully erosion assessment
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The subject matter falls within my research interests and I believe it is of absolute importance for the hydraulic protection of the territory. The article is well structured and is a pleasure to read. However, my curiosity and interest in the topic lead me to make some comments, which I hope will be well addressed by the authors:
1- 2.4.1. Rainfall erosivity factor R: are we sure this is the most appropriate way to evaluate the R factor? It would be interesting to find bibliographic foundations on this topic, is there any recent work you could consult in this regard. (e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology8040171)
2- what do you mean by "biological control measures"?
3- How were field measurements of soil erosion made? I suggest to insert a figure in order to represent the used system (e.g. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116058; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2016.12.016; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2015.10.001; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041991)
4- You have to highlights novelty in conclusions section.
5- References are not sufficient to give consistency to your work.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The author adressed the reviewer commets and the article now can be published
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper has been improved.
