Review of Soil Salinity and Sodicity Challenges to Crop Production in the Lowland Irrigated Areas of Ethiopia and Its Management Strategies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General Comment
The article makes a good attempt to describe the problem of salinity of the Ethiopian soils but does not avoid the generalities around the problem. Thus the well-known effects of the salinity problem are repeated in many parts of the article. As a result, the article looks like a general article on salinity. I would suggest to the authors to present in more detail the tables with the data from Ethiopia and to avoid the generalities.
Specific Comments
l.120-129 Same text as above l.41-50.
Please remove the same text at one of the two points
line.167. 4.1. Influence of salt affected soils on crop production.
Please refer only to the situation of your country which arises from the data
l.424-427 very old data. It would be better to mention if there are more recent data on the salinity problem
l.427-430. Give, if any, specific characteristics of the drainage systems e.g. Depth of drainage pipes, distance of the pipes or other characteristics of the drainage systems
Author Response
We have tried our best to improve the English language and style required. All comments and suggestions were given by the reviewer incorporated. Concerning the subsurface drainage system this data clear it is old data because the only data was done on subsurface drainage in Ethiopia.
Point 1: The article makes a good attempt to describe the problem of salinity of the Ethiopian soils but does not avoid the generalities around the problem. Thus the well-known effects of the salinity problem are repeated in many parts of the article. As a result, the article looks like a general article on salinity. I would suggest to the authors to present in more detail the tables with the data from Ethiopia and to avoid the generalities. 

Response 1: We have thoroughly reviewed the paper and unnecessary or repeated text has been deleted. Since it is a review paper, we need to keep general information on the process so that reader can understand the similarities and differences in our results in Ethiopia and the findings of research in other areas.
Point 2: Specific Comments
120-129 Same text as above l.41-50.
Please remove the same text at one of the two points
Response 2: Revised and duplicated text is removed.
Point 3: line.167. 4.1. Influence of salt affected soils on crop production.
Please refer only to the situation of your country which arises from the data
Response 3: Excess text has been deleted and the remaining is modified as per reviewer instructions.
Point 4: l.424-427 very old data. It would be better to mention if there are more recent data on the salinity problem
Response 4: Unfortunately, no recent data is available. However, the situation has not much changed since then. Text has been modified.
Point 5: l.427-430. Give, if any, specific characteristics of the drainage systems e.g. Depth of drainage pipes, distance of the pipes or other characteristics of the drainage systems
Response 5: It was a subsurface (tile) drainage system. Text has been modified.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
In this ms, the salinity and sodicity challenges facing the crop production in Ethiopia, as well as the management strategies, were reviewed well, and future researches were also proposed. A good job was done, and I would like to recommend its publication after a careful revision on format and grammatical errors, such as:
Line 34: …soils is à soil are. The same error should be revised thoroughly for the whole ms.
Line 60: a biotic stress à abiotic stress
Line 117: … is very important…
Line 256： is affected ？
among others……
The use of punctuations should be also edited carefully.
Author Response
We have tried our best to improve the English language and style required. All comments and suggestions were given by the reviewer incorporated.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors
With the changes made the article has improved significantly and I think it is now ready for publication in the Journal
Author Response
Point 1: Line 34: …soils is à soil are. The same error should be revised thoroughly for the whole ms.
Response 1: Revised and edited
Point 2: Line 60: a biotic stress à abiotic stress
Response 2: edited
Point 3: Line 117: … is very important…
Response 3: Revised and edited
Point 4: Line 256： is affected? among others……
Response 4: Yes
Generally, we have tried our best to improve the English language and style required. All comments and suggestions were given by the reviewer incorporated.
Author Response File: Author Response.doc
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.
