Development Trends and Research Frontiers of Preferential Flow in Soil Based on CiteSpace

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Section 3.1 - can authors give the break up in terms of disciplines in the years where there has been a spike in publications on preferential flow?

The quality of figure 3 must be improved. It is difficult to understand the inner flow. 

The results are reported with clarity but the discussion on the ranking of keywords or the cluster analysis and the inferences on future direction of research thrust are not clearly discussed. Authors are requested to rectify this. 

Figures 6, 7 and 8 need to be presented with better resolution. In general, authors can present figures with better clarity. 

 

 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

The revised version of the manuscript (Development Trends and Research Frontiers of Preferential Flow in Soil Based on CiteSpace) has been improved significantly. The authors’ effort in revising the manuscript and addressing my previous comments is satisfying. I believe that this manuscript can be published in its present form.

Good luck

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

The submitted paper collects research literature on preferential flow in soil from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database within 30 years, conducts a statistical analysis on keywords, countries, and research institutions of this literature based on CiteSpace, draws visualized scientific knowledge maps and presents development trends and research frontiers of preferential flow. Results showed that preferential flow is a multi-scale coexistence phenomenon, and researchers from different disciplines study preferential water flow movement and pollution at different research scales. Comments: Please, justify if the form of this manuscript is a review or a research article. The quality of all the figures should be improved. It will be a good idea to use the source file of all the figures, if possible. What lessons should be drawn from this analysis? The main achievements of this review should be presented and underlined in the conclusion. In what way this review will help the research community?  In what way the publications were chosen to perform the analysis? Are they indexed in Wos or Scopus? The abstract should be improved in a more precise style (a review of literature, how many publications?). It should be expanded to include the important results. 

Author Response

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Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

The submitted paper collects research literature on preferential flow in soil from the Web of Science (WoS) core collection database within 30 years, conducts a statistical analysis on keywords, countries, and research institutions of this literature based on CiteSpace, draws visualized scientific knowledge maps and presents development trends and research frontiers of preferential flow. Results showed that preferential flow is a multi-scale coexistence phenomenon, and researchers from different disciplines study preferential water flow movement and pollution at different research scales. Thank you for your answers. The current version of the article is a very good research. Last comments: Line 541: The choice of reference should be supplemented with respect to the future research of using the prediction model of implementation of the the landslide triggering by preferential flow in fractured soil under rainfall conditions, and established a preferential flow infiltration prediction model reflecting this mechanism( e.g. Ref. Modelling water distribution network failures and deterioration, 2017, IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management 2017-December, 924-928. DOI 10.1109/IEEM.2017.8290027. Please, explain about choosing WoS and not taking decision of conducting this study with using the Scopus repositories? Or maybe in future make some comparison of these two repositories. What is your point of view?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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

This manuscript is of an interesting topic and I believe that can be considered for publication in Sustainability after some revisions. The authors’ effort in conducting such research is kind of impressive and I admire them to do such invaluable work. However, there are many rooms for further improvements that should be certainly addressed before acceptance. My main comments are as follows:

1. Please highlight one of the main recommendations of the research in the end of abstract section.
2. The main original contribution of this research to the body of knowledge should be mentioned in the end of introduction section.
3. I recommend the respected authors to highlight the differences between this research and the previous and similar researches of the literature.
4. Please divide your main objective into some specific sub-objectives and/or mention the most important questions that this research was trying to answer to.
5. In methodology section, please mention the main inclusion and exclusion criteria for the studies.
6. Please represent your research methodology in the form of a FLOWCHART. This can help the authors better understand the methodology and procedure of your research endeavor.
7. Results section has been written very well in my opinion.
8. The discussion of the results needs to be improved by comparing the results of this study to the results of other researchers.
9. Please try to put your recommendations in an international scope. This can improve the applicability and attractiveness of your work for a larger readers oof Sustainability.
10. Please highlight the main take-home message of the paper in the end of conclusion section.
11. The authors have presented the list of references in suitable way.

In general, I believe that this manuscript can be accepted for publication sustainability after MINOR RIVISIONS.

Good luck

 

Reviewer 2 Report

1. section 2 - on what basis have the authors selected or narrowed down the topic terms?
2. Have the authors analyzed the impact of selecting different topic terms in the subject area?
3. p.3, lines 113-114 - can the authors point out the reason for the greater interest and increase in publication in preferential flow in the recent ten years?
4. Section 3.5 - can the authors explain the significance of the contribution from each country and its impact on the development of research in preferential flow?
5. Section 4.1 - this discussion is very superficial and needs improvement specific areas identified relating to the literature collected by the authors or from the survey done using CiteSpace
6. Table 5 needs better explanation - authors can add on the inferences from the clusters with respect to specific problems identified in the table 5 in relation to cross-disciplines
7. By water repellent soils do authors mean soil with very low permeability?
8. In general, authors should consider improving the discussion section to identify areas of where research needs to be done and differentiate it from areas where lot of work is done. 
9. Authors should add their significant findings from their literature survey.
10. Authors should analysis their findings in section 3 and discuss in terms of areas of research and its state for the manuscript to be meaningful.