Accumulation and Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metal(loid)s in Soil-Crop Systems from Central Guizhou, Southwest China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Before its publication some little changes are suggested.
Lines 105-109 about the study area are not really relevant and could be reduced.
Line 116: Why did the authors wait 4 years to publish these 2018 data?
The number of tea and plum samples are too small. Why was this short sampling considered when corn samples reached 55?. This is a limitation to the study to be discussed.
Tables 1,2 and 3 should add the cross reference to the BCF, Igeo, RfD levels. What institution or regulatory body set them?
Lines 252-255 may be repeating previous info. Could you delete them?
Lines 297-298 about HM toxicity seem to be too short and with very few cross references. I would suggest to make these section bigger.
Conclusions are much better than the abstract. Conclsuions add the numeric results for mean concentrations, HMs Igeo index values and % of accumulation. I suggest to also add this results in the abstract.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Lines 105-109 about the study area are not really relevant and could be reduced.
Response: Thanks very much for reviewer’s mention. In the revised manuscript, irrelevant descriptions have been reduced.
Point 2: Line 116: Why did the authors wait 4 years to publish these 2018 data?
Response: This comment was highly appreciated. This is a question worthy of our deep thinking, which has a good enlightening effect on our future research work. However, please allow me to explain that, on the one hand, the publication of data was delayed due to work changes and childbirth, and on the other hand, data analysis also took a lot of time for researchers, resulting in the lag of data publication. Your question has a urging effect on our future research work. Thank you again.
Point 3: The number of tea and plum samples are too small. Why was this short sampling considered when corn samples reached 55? This is a limitation to the study to be discussed.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. This is indeed a issue we have ignored before. The small number of plums and tea samples is the deficiency of this study. If enough samples can be collected, it will be useful for our study. In this study, a large number of corn samples were collected, as well as a small number of tea and plum samples, mainly based on the following considerations:
The planting area of plum and tea in the study area is less than that of corn, but the local residents have the habit of drinking tea, and plum is the main fruit that local residents eat in summer. Therefore, we also collected samples of tea and plum to understand whether eating these two crops will cause risks to human health.
Point 4: Tables 1,2 and 3 should add the cross reference to the BCF, Igeo, RfD levels. What institution or regulatory body set them?
Response: This comment was highly appreciated and we accept the reviewer’s suggestion. Reference sources for levels/ classification and values of BCF, Igeo, RfD have been added to the revised manuscript.
Point 5: Lines 252-255 may be repeating previous info. Could you delete them?
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. Relevant text has been deleted.
Point 6: Lines 297-298 about HM toxicity seem to be too short and with very few cross references. I would suggest to make these section bigger.
Response: This comment was highly appreciated and we accept the reviewer’s suggestion. Some descriptions of HMs toxicity and related references have been added to the revised manuscript. It is revised to “Due to the rapid bioaccumulation and long biological half-life, HMs metabolize slowly in the human body, and may cause damage to the human body if they accumulate for a long period of time[1, 2, 9, 11], which has attracted great attention around the world. Many studies have confirmed that food is the main source of people exposure to HMs [1, 2, 47], and continued exposure to HMs even at low concentration levels, can cause HMs to accumulate in vital organs and pose long-term threat to human health [48]. ”
Point 7: Conclusions are much better than the abstract. Conclsuions add the numeric results for mean concentrations, HMs Igeo index values and % of accumulation. I suggest to also add this results in the abstract.
Response: This comment was highly appreciated and we accept the reviewer’s suggestion. Corresponding results have been added to the abstract section.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is well written and presented the data on accumulation and health risk assessment of HMs metal(loid)s in soil-crop systems. The study seems novel and have studied multiple crops with several samples to generate the data on status of HMs pollution in soil, bioaccumulation factors, and geoaccumulation index. The findings were used to assess the human health risk by corelating with the target hazard quotient.
However, few minor comments are given below:
1. Line 47: “Hg will accumulate ……” sentence can be revised in present tense form
2. Line 59-61: “…HMs in agricultural soil not only adversely affect the growth of crops but 60 also accumulate in crops through roots [21], and ultimately jeopardize people's health 61 through the food chain [20, 22, 23]”. In the above sentence, accumulation author can include the HMs accumulation on various parts of the plants especially to the parts that are consumed or edible for humans. A sentence can further be included to connect with the food chains.
3. Line 134: typo error “……..soil sample swas digested using……….”
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: Line 47: “Hg will accumulate ……” sentence can be revised in present tense form
Response: Thanks very much for reviewer’s mention. It is revised to “ The accumulation of Hg in adipose tissues after long-term exposure and can damage the brain, vision and human central nervous system[11, 12]”.
Point 2: Line 59-61: “…HMs in agricultural soil not only adversely affect the growth of crops but also accumulate in crops through roots [21], and ultimately jeopardize people's health through the food chain [20, 22, 23]”. In the above sentence, accumulation author can include the HMs accumulation on various parts of the plants especially to the parts that are consumed or edible for humans. A sentence can further be included to connect with the food chains.
Response: This comment was highly appreciated and we accept the reviewer’s suggestion. It is revised to “Many previous studies have shown that excessive HMs in agricultural soil not only adversely affect the growth of crops but also accumulate in crops through root absorption, and transport to different parts of crops organs [21], especially to the parts that are consumed or edible for humans, and ultimately enter human body through the soil-crop-human body food chain and pose a potential threat to human health[20, 22, 23]. ”
Point 3: Line 134: typo error “……..soil sample swas digested using……….”
Response: Thanks for the reviewer’s detailed examination. It has been revised in the manuscript.
