Short-Term Artificial Revegetation with Herbaceous Species Can Prevent Soil Degradation in a Black Soil Erosion Gully of Northeast China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Pls be aware that you want readers to understand as easily as possible your research; only then they will appreciate and cite it. Jargon and extensive abbreviations w/o explicative tables are contraproductive.

Pls consider my suggestions 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

see text attached

Author Response

[Reviewer #1 Comment 1] Insert paragraph in line 89

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. The paragraph has been inserted.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 2] change herbaceous to herb in line 92

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have changed it.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 3] Add species in line 92

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have added.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 4] Delete vegetation in line 93

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have deleted.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 5] Could you include marks of your sample/study plots? In Figure 1.

[Response] Thanks. The sample plots have been marked in the new Figure 1.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 6] There are some spelling mistakes, missing blnaks, ambigious capitals and common names. Pls check carefully in line 114 to 125

[Response] Thanks. We have revised the text.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 7] what does “Poales Small” mean in line 118

[Response] Thanks. We have simplified them and deleted the“Poales Small” to make it clear.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 8] Delete the “r” in line 122

[Response] Right. We have deleted it.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 9] either you plant or you sow, please be clear and specific! In line 125.

[Response] Right. We have changed to make it clear in line 134.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 10] How long, be precise? 16 MAS (months after sowing)? In line 134

[Response] Thanks. We have changed the sentence according to your suggestion.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 11] In sci. publications you have not to repeat the genus when it has been given before, only give first letter. The use of fulls names or codes seems to be arbitrary w/o any logic. Pls. harmonize througout text line 249-259

[Response] Thanks. You are right. But we have two similar first letter. Elytrigia repens (L.) Desv.ex Nevski and Elymus dahuricus Turcz. have the same first letter. To separate the two pieces, we used the abbreviation with two letters.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 12] Add the sediment yield and erosion rate in line 372

[Response] Thanks. We have added.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 13] pls give the 3 sp. names as a service to the reader in line 446

[Response] We have added them in the sentence.

[Reviewer #1 Comment 14] EN of revised paragraph needs polish in line 481 to 489

[Response] Thanks. We have polished the EN of the revised paragraph.

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The content of this manuscript is suitable for the Land Journal. Soil erosion is a global issue, which seriously affects agricultural production and the environment, that is why I believe the paper written by Jielin Liu et al. is practical and offers important insights into agricultural practices, in particular in a black soil erosion gully of Northeast China.

Abstract

1. In the article, some physical and chemical properties are abbreviated, please show the full name and abbreviation in the first appearance;

2. The format of plant names should be standardized; please check

Materials and methods

3.The format of plant names should be standardized; please check

Result

4.Some significant digits should reduce

5.Please add the significant value in line 272

6. The Latin of chart annotations should be standardized;

7. P-value should be italicized;

8. Please simplify the presentation of results that are not related to the conclusion;

Discussion

9. Some titles in the discussion are too long, please simplify them;

Conclusions

10. Authors are recommended to highlight important findings and include a research outlook for this work;

References

11. References should conform to the journal's citation style guide, please check.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Reviewer 2:

Abstract

[Reviewer #2 Comment 1] In the article, some physical and chemical properties are abbreviated, please show the full name and abbreviation in the first appearance;

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have checked and corrected.

[Reviewer #2 Comment 2] The format of plant names should be standardized; please check

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have checked and corrected.

Materials and methods

[Reviewer #2 Comment 3] The format of plant names should be standardized; please check

[Response] We have checked the plant names and corrected.

Results

[Reviewer #2 Comment 4] Some significant digits should reduce

[Response] Thanks. We have reduced the significant digits in line 260-272

[Reviewer #2 Comment 5] Please add the significant value in line 272

[Response] Thanks. We have added the significant value.

[Reviewer #2 Comment 6] The Latin of chart annotations should be standardized;

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have corrected the Latin in the tables.

[Reviewer #2 Comment 7] P-value should be italicized

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have corrected.

[Reviewer #2 Comment 8] Please simplify the presentation of results that are not related to the conclusion;

[Response] We have revised some parts to make them clear and focus.

Discussion

[Reviewer #2 Comment 9] Some titles in the discussion are too long, please simplify them;

[Response] Thanks. We have simplified the titles.

Conclusions

[Reviewer #2 Comment 10] Authors are recommended to highlight important findings and include a research outlook for this work

[Response] Thanks. We have corrected the text in the conclusion.

References

[Reviewer #2 Comment 11] References should conform to the journal's citation style guide, please check

[Response] Thanks. We have corrected the style according to the journal.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Erosion and soil erosion are a global phenomenon that is becoming increasingly important, especially in the context of climate change. Such research initiatives in the field are therefore extremely important.However, it is a great pity that the authors do not draw the reader's attention from the start to the fact that the experiments are parallel or subsequent studies to the data already published by Yan et al. (2021). This should be explicitly pointed out in the introduction and the differences should be clearly addressed. 

Calculation methods with 10 formulas are presented. Nevertheless, certain calculations are not comprehensible to the reader, e.g. line 148 ‘flow discharge was set at 0.94 L s-1’. With an area of 2m² and 75mm h-1 this should result in 0.042 L s-1?

Line 162 is even more incomprehensible: ‘It was calculated as the product of the surface flow velocity (us, m s-1) and a correction factor (α = .67).’
What is meant by ‘It’? The correction factor is also insufficiently explained (also by Yan et al.)

 The measured values in Table 2 are not compatible with the text, as they do not refer to the depth step averages, as shown in Figure S1. It may therefore be better to refer Table 2 to the depth 0-10 cm. The mean value of the vegetated treatments should also be included in the table.

For the evaluation (Table 3), it is essential to clearly show how the weighting of the individual values leads to the respective evaluation scores.

Line 355: Soil water content and Field capacity using volumetric water content(V/V).

It would be interesting for the reader to be able to better recognize the differences in observed runoff in Figure 4. Q and w should also be listed in Table S3. The measured values from BARE soil are also missing there.

Table S1: Gramineae is not a plant family! Poaceae

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Typing errors should be corrected, e.g. line 122 Trrifolium

Author Response

Reviewer 3:

[Reviewer #3 Comment 1] Erosion and soil erosion are a global phenomenon that is becoming increasingly important, especially in the context of climate change. Such research initiatives in the field are therefore extremely important. However, it is a great pity that the authors do not draw the reader's attention from the start to the fact that the experiments are parallel or subsequent studies to the data already published by Yan et al. (2021). This should be explicitly pointed out in the introduction and the differences should be clearly addressed.

[Response] Thank you. We have revised the introduction according to your suggestion.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 2] Calculation methods with 10 formulas are presented. Nevertheless, certain calculations are not comprehensible to the reader, e.g. line 148 ‘flow discharge was set at 0.94 L s^-1’. With an area of 2m² and 75mm h^-1 this should result in 0.042 L s^-1?

[Response] We are very sorry for the careless omission. We have checked the original data in the notebook. The 0.24 L s^-1 was typed as 0.94 L s^-1. We have corrected the value. The 0.24 L s^-1 is right. The flow discharge was got according to the average rainfall intensity, runoff coefficient and the standard runoff plot area in the region.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 3] Line 162 is even more incomprehensible: ‘It was calculated as the product of the surface flow velocity (us, m s^-1) and a correction factor (α = .67).’ What is meant by ‘It’? The correction factor is also insufficiently explained (also by Yan et al.)

[Response] We are very sorry for the confusion. We have revised the sentences to make it clear. The reference about the correction factor has been added.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 4] The measured values in Table 2 are not compatible with the text, as they do not refer to the depth step averages, as shown in Figure S1. It may therefore be better to refer Table 2 to the depth 0-10 cm. The mean value of the vegetated treatments should also be included in the table.

[Response] Thanks. We have revised the Table 2 according to your suggestion.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 5] For the evaluation (Table 3), it is essential to clearly show how the weighting of the individual values leads to the respective evaluation scores. [Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the weighting of the individual values in Results 3.5.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 6] Line 355: Soil water content and Field capacity using volumetric water content(V/V).

[Response] Thank you. We have deleted the sentence.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 7] It would be interesting for the reader to be able to better recognize the differences in observed runoff in Figure 4. Q and w should also be listed in Table S3. The measured values from BARE soil are also missing there.

[Response] Thank you for your suggestion. We tried to show the differences in observed runoff. But the differences were not significant (P>0.05). So we think it is not necessary to show. The Q and w have been listed in Table S3. The measured values from BARE soil are also added.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 8] Table S1: Gramineae is not a plant family! Poaceae

[Response] Thank you. We have corrected according to your suggestion.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 9] Comments on the Quality of English Language

[Response] Thanks, we have improved the English, especially for some revised parts.

[Reviewer #3 Comment 10] Typing errors should be corrected, e.g. line 122 Trrifolium

[Response] Thanks. We have checked the whole paper and corrected.

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

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

See in text comments and suggestions

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf