Transformation of Soils and Mire Community Reestablishment Potential in Disturbed Abandoned Peatland: A Case Study from the Kaliningrad Region, Russia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Transformation of soils and the mire community reestablishment potential in the disturbed abandoned peatland: a case study from the Kaliningrad Region, Russia
Here are some suggestions for minor revisions to improve this manuscript on soils and mire restoration in an abandoned peatland:
Abstract
Add a sentence highlighting the novel integration of detailed soil data and hydrology to assess revegetation potential. This emphasizes the key contribution.
Introduction
Briefly note the geographic location (Kaliningrad Oblast) in the first paragraph.
Clarify that the study focuses on a specific abandoned cutover peatland as a case study.
The introduction could be strengthened by more clearly situating the work in the context of previous studies. Here are some suggested recent research’s:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-27554-5
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11242915
Methods
Consider adding a photo of the study area to help readers visualize the site.
Mention the total number of soil profiles examined (50) early in the field survey section.
Results
Make sure all soil type abbreviations (e.g. HS-f1) are defined on first usage.
Discussion
Explain acronyms for international soil classification (WRB) on first use.
Add a sentence reiterating how the soil data were linked to rewetting potential classifications.
Conclusions
Summarize how the integrated approach addressed knowledge gaps in one of the bullets.
Include a statement on how the findings could guide restoration in other disturbed peatlands.
Figures
Enlarge and improve resolution/crispness of the maps, if possible, for readability.
Consider adding more photos e.g. to show the vegetation types and soil profiles.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your valuable notes to our manuscript. Our comments are in the file attached.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
The manuscript was significantly improved, but in my opinion it is still not suitable for publication, mainly because I do not agree with your answer to my comment about soil mapping procedure. In my opinion the mapping method used, based on an expert’s estimation, is outdated. The description of the procedure (and the resulting soil map) is now even less clear than before. Even if your work “does not focus on cartographic issues and detailed precision of the mapped contours”, an assessment of “the degree of the soil transformation” without any information about the accuracy of the produced maps makes no sense to me from a scientific point of view. The information provided is not sufficient to replicate the research, and the readers have no chance to judge the goodness of the performed assessment…
There are plenty of algorithms to interpolate measured points, relatively easy to use, that can provide also a value for estimation error, e.g. Inverse Distance Weighting, available also on ESRI ArcGIS 10.0 software.
Moreover, if you affirm you intend to study the spatial heterogeneity of the soils, a basic spatial analysis should be performed in a proper way. You answered that “the spatial heterogeneity of the area is reflected on a number of new maps related to the soil contours”, but in the Results section I can see only one map – the others are presented into the Discussion section, but I think they are results, too. To overcome this problem, I suggest to merge the two into a Results and Discussion section, as it was in the first version of the manuscript.
Finally, about one third of the references are in Russian: this is not acceptable for an international Journal.
English language and style still need some minor improvement.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your notes to our manuscript. Our comments are in the file attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
The manuscript was significantly improved.
In my previous review, I did not mention DSM techniques in any way; I simply suggested to use a mathematical interpolator to give to the readers a measure of the uncertainty, since ArcGIS provides plenty of them. You are free to not follow my suggestion, but I remain convinced that in this way the scientific soundness of your work is lower. Anyway, please don’t say that you are going to study the spatial heterogeneity of soils (line 71), because the readers should expect a different type of analysis – better to speak about an evaluation of the spatial heterogeneity.
Figure 1 should be moved into the Materials and Methods section, in the description of the study site.
Insufficient information is provided to find the references no. 18, 19 and 37.
For all the references in other languages than English, the language should be indicated in brackets at the end (e.g. reference no. 38 is in German, I suppose).
English language and style were improved, only a minor editing is required before publication
Author Response
The notes are in the file attached.
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
I have reviewed the manuscript titled " Spatial heterogeneity and ecological characteristics of the soil cover in the Rossyanka Carbon Polygon (Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia)".
I do not find it suitable for the Land and I have the following observations on this MS.
First of all, the manuscript does not look like a research paper its more likely to be a review paper or a report taking surveying/historical data and evaluating based on these datasets. The analysis is performed in are very simple and old. Therefore, I do not recommend this paper to be published into the Land journal.
The MS does not contribute new in terms of methodology - a set of well-known methods have been applied for soil in term of land ecological and carbon polygon and these methods are important as well.
I fail to see any fruitful discussion on the generated datasets. The study area map needs to be improved for better representation.
The introduction must be improved and the scientific problem has to be clearly identified and addressed.
I do not see little novelty in both scientific findings and methodological improvement. First, the authors should clearly state the scientific significance of soil mapping, rather than saying something very broad.
The introduction is weak, and the method section is trivial and vague at places. More recent literature work is required.
I don't feel qualified to judge the English language and style but the English language needs improvement.
In Discussion, "Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and the working hypotheses.
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is not well written, its scientific soundness is poor and the novelty and the importance of the research are not clear.
The title does not properly reflect the content of the article, since from it I would expect a spatial analysis of the soils in the area.
Introduction is too concise, few more words should be spent in describing the research, its importance in an international context, and how it improves the current knowledge. Not clear which is the research hypothesis, and aims and scope of the study are not clearly stated.
The information provided is not sufficient to replicate the research. The study area description is also insufficient, no information is provided about the climate, for example. And a figure with the location of soil and water samples should be useful.
The soil mapping procedure is unclear, anyway of old conception, there is no chance to know anything about the mapping error. With the declared number of georeferenced samples, a geostatistical interpolator - or at least a deterministic one - could be used, providing also an evaluation of the error. ArcGIS software provides several good mapping tools, considering also the auxiliary information available.
The first paragraph of the section 3.1 is not a result, and should be move into the study area description (section 2.1).
Table 7, 8 and 9 are not scientifically sound: the values of parameters are given without any other information about their accuracy – if they are averages, what about the standard deviation?
Lines 119-120: I cannot see anywhere in the text any statistics.
Line 363: what is a “general sampling”?
Conclusions are only a summary of the observations – that seem to be just the description of the soil profiles and of the rough characteristics of water.
References are insufficient, and most of them are in Russian.
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Some spelling mistakes have been observed the text need correction.
2. Make paper relevant to everyday science by removing irrelevant sentences.
