A New Method for Estimating Irrigation Water Use via Soil Moisture
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments:
The authors present interesting research on how to derive irrigation water amount from soil moisture changes, which is necessary for agricultural water management. The comparisons of similarity, linear, logistic and soil water balance method is presented with detailed information on fitting parameters and accuracy indicators. The conclusion of similarity model performs the best is useful for further researches. I have some minor comments for the authors to consider in further revision.
Specific comments:
1. Line 93, reference 29 should be the author’s name format.
2. Line 390-392，the sentence for section instruction should be deleted.
3. Can the authors give a irrigation water calculation result of each station in a table or a figure of the results calculated using similarity model.
4. Do the authors think this method is suitable to separate precipitation and irrigation in a different research region? And how to improve the model performances with less observation sites, please add this to the discussion part.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
We appreciate Reviewer 1’s effort in carefully reading our manuscript and providing us with very constructive comments.
- Line 93, reference 29 should be the author’s name format.
Response 1: This sentence has been rephrased. (Line 97 - 98)
“Based on this phenomenon, Brocca et al. (2018) proposed a method to estimate irrigation water amount via soil moisture [29]. ”
- Line 390-392，the sentence for section instruction should be
Response 2: Thanks for your constructive comments.
This sentence has been deleted.
- Can the authors give a irrigation water calculation result of each station in a table or a figure of the results calculated using similarity model.
Response 3: This study only calculate the irrigation water amount at 53990 site due to lack of recorded irrigation water in other sites. This sentence has been rephrased.
“The similarity model was then used to calculate the irrigation water amount at the 53990 site. This is because 53990 in-situ soil moisture site was located was an experimental field. We only have the details of irrigation water amounts at this site. ”
Any way, thanks for your constructive comments. In the future study, we will use more recorded irrigation data to validate the similarity model.
- Do the authors think this method is suitable to separate precipitation and irrigation in a different research region? And how to improve the model performances with less observation sites, please add this to the discussion part.
Response 4: Thanks for your constructive comments.
This comments has been added to the discussion part. (Line 416- 422)
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
the manuscript you have presented is an interesting study on irrigation rate modeling based on soil moisture. This issue is well-known in agricultural practice, so it is necessary to develop solutions that involve new technologies in agriculture and improve decision-making processes and cultivation technologies themselves,
In general, the introduction and methodology are interestingly presented, and contain all the necessary elements of a good scientific paper.
The biggest shortcoming of the paper is the lack of discussion of the results. True, you call one of the subsections that, but you did not compare the results of your own research with the results achieved by other authors. The lack of discussion is the same as not doing a scientific paper versus a restorative one.
Please have a separate discussion chapter, cite a minimum of 20 papers on similar topics from the last 10 years.
Please take care of proper notation of units-with superscript.
There is a lack of information about the type of soils in the study area (at least which ones dominate).
Please specifically state what sensors were used to test soil moisture.
Please add DOI references in the references- where possible.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Authors,
the manuscript you have presented is an interesting study on irrigation rate modeling based on soil moisture. This issue is well-known in agricultural practice, so it is necessary to develop solutions that involve new technologies in agriculture and improve decision-making processes and cultivation technologies themselves,
In general, the introduction and methodology are interestingly presented, and contain all the necessary elements of a good scientific paper.
We appreciate Reviewer 2’s effort in carefully reading our manuscript and providing us with very constructive comments.
- The biggest shortcoming of the paper is the lack of discussion of the results. True, you call one of the subsections that, but you did not compare the results of your own research with the results achieved by other authors. The lack of discussion is the same as not doing a scientific paper versus a restorative one.
Please have a separate discussion chapter, cite a minimum of 20 papers on similar topics from the last 10 years.
Please take care of proper notation of units-with superscript.
Response 1: Thanks for your constructive comments. A separate discussion chapter has been added. (Line 369- 429)
- There is a lack of information about the type of soils in the study area (at least which ones dominate).
Response 2: “The landform of the area is mainly plain, with a few hills in the western region, and the dominant soil type in this area is sandy loam.” (Line 151- 154)
- Please specifically state what sensors were used to test soil moisture.
Response 3: Thanks for your constructive comments.
Daily soil moisture data and precipitation data from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2020, were obtained from 16 in-situ soil moisture monitoring sites. At such monitoring sites, soil moisture data is automatically collected by Time-Domain Reflectometry (TDR) sensors. (Line 170 - 173)
- Please add DOI references in the references- where possible.
Response 4: Thanks for your constructive comments.
All the DOI has been added in the references.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I accept
