Buffer Green Patches around Urban Road Network as a Tool for Sustainable Soil Management

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors considerably improve the manuscript both intellectually and technically, submitted this time as a "review" compared to the first submission as a "paper"

 

L45-46: delete “and to the increase of road accidents number” or o explain how polluting air influences traffic accidents

L55: reported

L90-93: why only focus on grasses? There is a great diversity of forest species that have great potential for phytoremediation. It would be interesting to be mentioned in this review, or the authors could carry out a second review focused on forest species such as green patches in urban areas

Dadea, Claudia, et al. "Tree species as tools for biomonitoring and phytoremediation in urban environments: A review with special regard to heavy metals." Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 43.434 (2017): 155-167.

Gawronski, Stanislaw W., et al. "Plants in air phytoremediation." Advances in botanical research. Vol. 83. Academic Press, 2017. 319-346.

Omasa, Kenji, et al., eds. Air pollution and plant biotechnology: prospects for phytomonitoring and phytoremediation. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.

Kaewtubtim, P., et al. "Heavy metal phytoremediation potential of plant species in a mangrove ecosystem in Pattani Bay, Thailand." Applied Ecology and Environmental Research 14.1 (2016): 367-382.

 

L145-147: Is there no metabolism? Metabolism is one of the main pathways of pesticide detoxification by plants and Lolium is precisely one of the species with the highest metabolization capacity.

Casida, JOHN E., and Louis Lykken. "Metabolism of organic pesticide chemicals in higher plants." Annual Review of Plant Physiology 20.1 (1969): 607-636.

Hoagland, R. E., R. M. Zablotowicz, and J. C. Hall. "Pesticide metabolism in plants and microorganisms: an overview." (2001): 2-27.

Van Eerd, Laura L., et al. "Pesticide metabolism in plants and microorganisms." Weed science 51.4 (2003): 472-495.

Zhang, Jing Jing, and Hong Yang. "Metabolism and detoxification of pesticides in p:lants." Science of the Total Environment 790 (2021): 148034.

 

L322: highlight the ability of Lolium to metabolize pesticides

Author Response

We have revised our manuscript according to the referees’ comments as follows:

 

Reviewer 1 recommendations:

The authors considerably improve the manuscript both intellectually and technically, submitted this time as a "review" compared to the first submission as a "paper"

 

 

L45-46: delete “and to the increase of road accidents number” or o explain how polluting air influences traffic accidents

Authors’ reply: This phrase was deleted

 

L55: reported

Authors’ reply: This word was corrected

 

L90-93: why only focus on grasses? There is a great diversity of forest species that have great potential for phytoremediation. It would be interesting to be mentioned in this review, or the authors could carry out a second review focused on forest species such as green patches in urban areas

 

Dadea, Claudia, et al. "Tree species as tools for biomonitoring and phytoremediation in urban environments: A review with special regard to heavy metals." Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 43.434 (2017): 155-167.

 

Gawronski, Stanislaw W., et al. "Plants in air phytoremediation." Advances in botanical research. Vol. 83. Academic Press, 2017. 319-346.

 

Omasa, Kenji, et al., eds. Air pollution and plant biotechnology: prospects for phytomonitoring and phytoremediation. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.

 

Kaewtubtim, P., et al. "Heavy metal phytoremediation potential of plant species in a mangrove ecosystem in Pattani Bay, Thailand." Applied Ecology and Environmental Research 14.1 (2016): 367-382.

 

Authors’ reply: Thank you very much for your valuable recommendations. We agree that trees could perform an effective phytoremediation. This is a good idea for another review. In our paper we focus only on herbs as their root system is situated in the surface soil layer and this is the most polluted part of urban soils. Furthermore, we have planned to publish such data of our field experiment as a research article.

 

 

L145-147: Is there no metabolism? Metabolism is one of the main pathways of pesticide detoxification by plants and Lolium is precisely one of the species with the highest metabolization capacity.

 

Casida, JOHN E., and Louis Lykken. "Metabolism of organic pesticide chemicals in higher plants." Annual Review of Plant Physiology 20.1 (1969): 607-636.

 

Hoagland, R. E., R. M. Zablotowicz, and J. C. Hall. "Pesticide metabolism in plants and microorganisms: an overview." (2001): 2-27.

 

Van Eerd, Laura L., et al. "Pesticide metabolism in plants and microorganisms." Weed science 51.4 (2003): 472-495.

 

Zhang, Jing Jing, and Hong Yang. "Metabolism and detoxification of pesticides in plants." Science of the Total Environment 790 (2021): 148034.

 

Authors’ reply: Thank you very much for your valuable recommendations. We agree that pesticides are among the main toxic substances in soil but such problem is expressed rather in agricultural than in urban soils. So, we focus on possibilities for phytoremediation of potentially toxic trace elements, especially in urban soils.

 

 

L322: highlight the ability of Lolium to metabolize pesticides

Authors’ reply: Thank you very much. The ability of Lolium for phytoremediation of potentially toxic elements was described on L 296-316. According to the recommendation, we have added some references concerning the ability of Lolium to metabolize pesticides on L 315-321.

 

Thank you very much for the review of the 1^st and 2^nd versions of the manuscript. We have carefully reviewed and considered the all reviewers’ criticism, correction, suggestions, and opinions. These have benefited us a lot for this one and for future contributions.

Reviewer 2 Report

I consider that the paper has been radically improved, its specifics of review have been clarified. As a result, I recommend accepting the paper for publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much

Reviewer 3 Report

the authors have greatly improved the paper compared to the previous version, having accepted the suggestions of the referees and having transformed the paper from article to review. 

Lines 50-51: please change "stidies" with "studies"

Author Response

Thank you very much. We have corrected this word.

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

The paper "Buffer green patches around urban road network as a tool for sustainable soil management" considers technological solutions for the use of some perennial grasses for the creation of urban lawns and buffer green areas and for weed control. The paper is very interesting, although some aspects should be clarified. As set up, the paper seems more a review than a research article. In fact, in the "materials and methods" section all the methods part is missing and in the "results" section a series of techniques are listed without experimentally showing how the authors arrived at the proposed solutions, apart from some photos. Why are some values ​​suggested and not others? has a trial not previously reported in the article been carried out? If intended as a review, that is a description of guidelines for the adoption of a solution for urban lawns, the paper requires few changes by rearranging the text and therefore can be accepted with minor revisions. If seen as a research article, the paper lacks the description of the whole experimentation (how do you get to the proposed solutions?) and therefore cannot be accepted.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is very interesting and contributes to the development of knowledge, in a field with serious environmental problems.

I read the paper with interest. However, I did not understand well, if it is a review or are their own results presented?
I understood very well the purpose, the analysis of some species with phytoremediation potential and the proposal of some technological solutions for the urban spaces.

But I don't understand if the results in weed control (Weed control is realized through pelargonic acid, acetic acid, nitric acid, boric acid and the organic product Segador, aiming to reduce the amounts of conventional herbicides used) are the authors' own research?. If it is the authors' own research, I think the climate and soil conditions where the experiments were made should be introduced.

The material and method present the botanical characteristics of the species, but no references are presented regarding their phytoremediation capacity of polluted soils.

The pictures with the analyzed plants can be grouped in pairs, and the tables must have explained all the abbreviations used.
The abstract presents many generalities and little of the purpose of the paper (technological solutions for urban spaces). I recommend introducing more synthesized results.

Reviewer 3 Report

In manuscript land-1550337, Petrova et al. address an interesting issue about the potential of perennial grass varieties developed by the Institute of Forage Crops - Pleven, Bulgaria, for use as buffer green patches in urban road network as a tool for sustainable soil management. However, the manuscript has a scientific article structure, but from my point of view it seems more like a literature review. The authors did not develop experiments; therefore, they do not present or discuss ORIGINAL results, that is, the information in the RESULTS AND DISCUSSION sections is meaningless. In the way that the manuscript is currently organized, it will hardly be published by any scientific journal. Therefore, I suggest that you reorganize the text and present it as a literature review. In addition, the authors must clearly state that the objective of the work is to gather available information on the subject.

ABSTRACT

L12: was to evaluate

L18-25: In these lines, details of the methodology are described, but no relevant results of the research were presented. The authors need to reduce details of the methodology of the study, and present the main findings of the work. which was the most appropriate species? What attributes were relevant to the adaptability of the species? etc.

INTRODUCCION

L29: Although the introduction is over-referenced, some statements lack appropriate references to scientifically support them.

L36-38: add a reference

L40-45: which countries? ambiguous statement. Support your statements with appropriate references

L47, 50,52, 77, 80, 84: Why do you indicate so many references (4 or more) for simple statements? Select one or two appropriate references (not exactly the newest ones) for each statement. It is not always necessary to place a new reference for each declaration, you can reuse references that were already cited in previous declarations.

L68-90: Very long paragraph to talk about the characteristics of perennial grasses. Reduce the size of the paragraph by being shorter, more specific and more selective of the information

L72: perennial grasses

L91: delete ‘cereal’

MATERAIL AND METHODS:

L100-193: The text presented in this section does not correspond to materials and methods. The authors presented descriptions (in several cases very broad) of the perennial grass varieties of various species. However, in no case do they describe the type of experiments they carried out, experimental design, how the varieties were cultivated (in controlled conditions or in field conditions), what were the germination and growth conditions, what parameters they evaluated, type of statistical analysis.

The authors need to be shorter in the general descriptions of the varieties of perennial grasses tested, and more specific in relation to the procedures on how they handled the study elements.

L104-110: any reference that informs about the characteristics of these varieties? This information seems unnecessary, therefore I suggest that they be eliminated, because in the following lines each variety of grass that was evaluated is described individually.

L117: integrate figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 into one by presenting them in panels as sub-figures. Are the photos the authorship of the authors?

RESULTS

This full section does not present the authors' own results (ORIGINAL). It is information collected by them, but they do not provide the sources (references). Many are general descriptions of the environmental conditions in some places, planting schemes, fertilization programs, planting density, and theoretical strategies for the management of chemical and non-chemical weeds. Although some references are mentioned in some paragraphs, since the authors did not mention anywhere in the manuscript that the objective of their work was to collect the information available in the literature on the subject of this work, it is not appropriate to indicate references in this section. (RESULTS), since they had to focus solely and exclusively on describing their most relevant results obtained by their own experiments.

DISCUSSION

In this section, the authors are supposed to explain or highlight the relevance of the authors' ORIGINAL results. However, since the descriptive information in the previous section does not present the authors' own results, this section does not make sense, since nothing specific is discussed. Only the theoretical information on the subject of the manuscript is expanded (literature review), but the authors make few or no ORIGINAL interpretations about them that merit any intellectual contribution from their part to justify the publication of the paper. In addition, this section also presents problems similar to the introduction. It is over-referenced, but there are many statements that lack adequate scientific support

L431-448: very long paragraph with many statements without scientific backing

L543: the conclusions do not respond to the objective set out in the study, as there are no original results to support them