Sensitivity Analysis and Determination of the Optimal Level of Water Use Efficiency for Winter Wheat and Barley under Different Irrigation Scenarios Using the AquaCrop Model in Arid and Semiarid Climatic Conditions (Case Study: Dehloran Plain, Iran)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author, I am sorry that your manuscript must improved before publication in any journal, there are some of my comments:

 

1. all references are not labeled.

2. line 65 what are RMSE, D, E, CRM, the authors didnt define them. Same problem happened in line 69

3. line67 wrong spelling  draught irrigation or drought irrigation ?

4. line 69 The amount of NRMSE in simulated grain yield was less than 10% of the calibration and validation of 2/6 and 7/7 in germination, tillering, growth and maturity, milky growth and dough 1/2, 9/4, 7/9 and 8.9%, respectively. 

I didnt get what is 2/6 and 7/7, 1/2, 9/4, 7/9?

5. Line98 Qinsi (2020), in a study entitled “Performance assessment of the AquaCrop model for 98

film-mulched maize with full drip irrigation in Northwest China from 2014 to 2018”  

Is it necessary to show the title of the reference when citing?

6. In the introduction part, the author did a lot of review,however, these references were not well organized, its not necessary to put each citation as a sole paragraph. Moreover, the logicality is too bad.

7. Line125-end of the manuscript.  All variables in the manuscript should be italicized.

8. Line 144 “carbon plants 3 or 4” should be C3 or C4 plants

9. Line129 I think the author didnt well describe the Aquacrop Model in this part. The inner mechanism is lack.

10. Line 176 the duration of each growth period is integer multiple of 10, is it true or estimated numbers, I doubt the accuracy of the data.

11. Line186-189, how did the author define full irrigation. This manuscript was based on a two year experiment, therefore when estimating the crop water requirement by Cropwat,  crop water requirement of 2 years should be given.

Moreover, the experiment design is not given in the methods part.

12. Line 230 observed and simulated data and comparison with the 1:1 line. However i didnt see the 1:1 line in the figures  of the result part.

Line 225 in the 2.8 part, the author didnt explain each parameter, whats the range of EF , how can you define the model is well performed, whats your e null hypothesis (H0) ? why use F test? I feel puzzled

13. Line 260 what did Pe mean in the table?

14. Figure 1. the figure is poor

15. Figure 2 and 3 showed that the model simulate poorly in Y biomass and especially in WUE. How did you explain the slope of WP is a negative value? It means you failed in simulating WUE

16. Figure 4 to figure7 . I didnt see any method description in the method part, how did the author generate these figures.

17. Figure 12 is a screenshot, which is not unbelievable, you should show the results by your own way

18. The manuscript lack of discussion part

19. The result is too long which is a fail too.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thanks a lot for the time you spent on our paper and sending us your valuable comments. We implemented all your comments in the paper and highlighted the changes in the text by green color. The answer to your comments are as follow as:

Best Regards

Mohsen Najarchi

 

1. Tried to improve and fix the issue. Line 25-45 is used from reference 3.
2. I did it.
3. I did it.
4. It was corrected.
5. It was corrected.
6. It was corrected.
7. I did it.
8. I did it.
9. I did it.
10. I checked again, the reason it is presented as 10 day by 10 day is that the planning of growth and irrigation is considered as 10 days regard to Irrigation interval at the location area research.
11. The experimental design used in this research is considered as completely random blocks; the output of Cropwat results is annual, but the calculations are related to 2 years, which exactly corresponds to the period of 2 years of crop cultivation.
12. In this manuscript, for a more accurate comparison between the observed and simulated data a comprehensive statistical test is needed, and among the available statistical tests, F-test was preferred test.
13. I did it.
14. The impression became bigger.
15. It was corrected.
16. Brief explanations are presented in the results section. (Figure 4 illustrates the production yield of wheat and Figure 5 that of the production yield of barley with……) & (for Fig. 6-7: By examining and comparing the coefficient of efficiency for performance of the product, for ……..)
17. I did it.
18. I did it.
19. It was corrected.

 

 

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

1- In Keywords,  AquaCrop Model repeated!! Remove it as it has already been mentioned in the Title.

2- The introduction section looks very weak. The hypothesis, novelty, and objectives are not explained clearly. Also,  Lines 27-41 did not include references, and related references must be added. Here you need to highlight the importance of crop models in general which may include different models alongside AquaCrop, then state why you selected this model. For help, you can use the following references:

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fcr.2022.108638

https://doi.org/10.3390/land10121375

3- Lines 49-56 look like results,  not an introduction!!? Please rewrite

4- I an not satisfied with Introduction section!! This section must be rewritten again to ensure the following points:

A- What is the issue in general?  

B- What are contributions from literature to solve this issue to present (time before you start your research)? Don't forget to cite recent papers from high-impact journals here.

C- What is your novelty to this aspect?

D- The study objectives.

Please use such highlights to improve the Introduction.

5- Line 188, CropWa!!! Please check.

6- Increase the caption of all figures to explain what is in the figure.

7- Tables 8 and 9, what is Pe? Explain in footnotes

8- Add error bars for Figures 10 and 11.

9- AquaCrop can simulate the water balance, why you did not add it on your findings??

10- Line 250 (Results and Discussion), I did not see any discussion in this section!!!. Please add a separate title as Discussion to discuss your results in detail. This is a mandatory part, otherwise, the paper could not be accepted for publication in its current status.  Also, don't forget to remove the word " Discussion" from line 250. 

11- Highlight the study limitations on discussion and conclusion and how can avoid that in future directions. For example, a multi-model ensemble is much better than an individual model, why you used here single model;? 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thanks a lot for the time you spent on our paper and sending us your valuable comments. We implemented all your comments in the paper and highlighted the changes in the text by green color. The answer to your comments are as follow as:

Best Regards

Mohsen Najarchi

 

1. I did it.
2. Improved.
3. I did it.
4. It was done as much as possible.
5. It was corrected.
6. I did it.
7. I did it.
8. Due to the combination of charts, it is not possible to create an error bars.
9. In this study, AquaCrop was used to estimate yield and different growth periods, and the water balance method was not needed to this manuscript.
10. It was modified using new reference.
11. I added in main body manuscript (Conclusion).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

your paper still more revision. i labeled them on the pdf file. 

in the next round, please answer me one by one in detail!!!! instead of "i did it , it was corrected"

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thanks for your valuable comments about our paper. We tried to do our best to implement your comments in our paper and answer to the questions properly in the pdf file. The main changes have been highlighted in the word file by blue colour.

Best Regards

Mohsen Najarchi

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The improved after addressing all comments. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thanks for your acceptance recommendation of our paper.

Best Regards

Mohsen Najarchi

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

you have made some improvement on the manuscript, 

however, the conclusion part should show your results, not discuss the model. therefore, more detail about your result should be covered in conclusion, for my opinion the following discussion part should not be showed in the conclusion:

"Due to the high cost of operational operations and field measurements, as well as time and place limitations, in this article, it has been tried to calibrate the AquaCrop model by using measurement data inside the farm and finally after calibration   

,Also the Acoacrop model is easy model  for computing scheduling irrigation requirement, water consume and irrigation interval."

please rewrite the conclusion part.

you mistyping "acoacrop" for at least 2 times.

figure10 and figure11 need to re draw,  unit of horizontal ordinate is wrong. 

for the equation 2-5, you didnt explain each varible in the equation,

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

 

First and foremost, we would like to take this opportunity to appreciate the efforts of the respected reviewers. We have attempted to follow the points carefully and modify the paper accordingly. Through a checklist as below, we have included these modifications.

 

Best Regards

Mohsen Najarchi

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1. We explained all the variables from equations 2 to 5 and added them in the main body of the manuscript (p. 7).
2. Figures 10 and 11 were modified.
3. We again rewrote the conclusion.