Assessment of the Impact of Forest Reclamation Measures for the Adaptation of Agriculture to Climate Change in the South of the Russian Plain
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Introduction section is look like review of literature of routine work. Each paragraph is from single literature, it needs improvement.
Delete sentences 64 to 69.
Provide protocol to estimate loss of humus
Mention hypothesis of the study.
Provide map of the study area
Delete line 239 and 240
Table 2 cross % area of dead crops instead of comma (,) insert full stop (.)
Provide figures with good quality and labels are not clear
Follow similar format of either per ha or ha-1
Delete first paragraph of conclusion
Author Response
Dear reviewer! We would like to express our gratitude for the attention paid to our manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
In the reviewed article, the authors attempted a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the impact of agroforestry treatments on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change. It seems that the aim set at the beginning of the article has been achieved. In general, I only have a few editorial comments to consider before publishing an article in Forests.
1. Were any statistical analyzes conducted? Probably so - line 383. There is no information about it in the methodology.
2. Minor punctuation errors, e.g. line 58. Please check this throughout the article.
3. Lines 114-115 - please insert the degree symbol. Similarly in other places where they are needed.
4. Table 1 - there are errors in it, e.g. 350%. Commas need to be converted to dots. Please check it in other tables as well.
5. Equation 4 - please use English
6. Line 299 - "3.00-377 less" - unclear. I think some unit is missing.
7. Please improve the quality of the Figures.
8. Line 433, 470 - please correct the way of writing cited papers with consecutive numbers.
9. Lines 482-485 - this paragraph requires a reference to the source material.
Author Response
Dear reviewer! We would like to express our gratitude for the attention paid to our manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript titled "Assessment of the impact of forest reclamation measures for the adaptation of agriculture to climate change in the south of the Russian Plain" intends to study the effectiveness and economic efficiency of the impact of agroforestry complexes on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change in the south of the Russian Plain. The study analyzed the effectiveness and quantified the effectiveness of agroforestry in the context of its impact on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change, as well as to determine the zonal patterns of the dynamics of these indicators.
The research is original; it could be characterized as novel and in my opinion important to the field, it also has an almost appropriate structure, and the language has been used well. In the meanwhile, the manuscript has an almost good extent (about 5,950 words) and it is quite comprehensive. The tables (4), equations (6) and figures (5) make the paper to reflect well to the reader. For this reason, paper has a "diversity look", not only tables, not only numbers, not only words.
The title, I think, is all right. The abstract has a very long length (about 310 words). Please, revise the abstract, it must be up to 200 words long, [see: Instructions for Authors / Manuscript Submission Overview / Accepted File Formats - (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/instructions#submission or https://www.mdpi.com/files/word-templates/forests-template.dot)].
The introduction is effective, clear, and well organized but it wasn’t introduced and put into perspective what research is negotiating. Moreover, it does not contain a clear formulation and description of the research problem. Please insert a clear description and justification of the problem the article deals with. Your literature research is critical and informed.
For the Methodology chapter, the research conduct has been tested in several areas of the world, with similar results and will probably be tested in others. Appropriate references to the methodology included in the already published bibliography but you can put more references, from all the world.
The results section is good. The argument flows and is reinforced through the justification of the way elements are interpreted. But the same do not applies to the Conclusion. It is advised to revise the Conclusion. Conclusion sections should be consistent in terms of Proposal, Problem statement, Results, and of course, future work. Your conclusion section is short and does not do justice to your work. Make it your key contributions, arguments, and findings clearer. You must refer to the literature and previous studies in your discussion section.
Please revise lines 239-240, write in English.
References must have an appropriate style, for this reason I would be good to change [see Instructions for Authors / Manuscript Preparation / Back Matter / References: - (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/forests/instructions or https://www.mdpi.com/authors/references)]. Do not forget, DOI numbers (Digital Object Identifier) are not mandatory but highly encouraged and make the review easier.
Please, revise the references, all of them does not have the appropriate style, they are missing commas, have or not back spaces, missing doi etc. When the author doesn't use DOI the checking is exceedingly difficult.
For example, in line 433 you wrote “… of climate change [31, 32, 33, 34].” and the right writing is “… of climate change [31-34].”, the same in line 477.
Please revise the manuscript and include more references which are already exists in bibliography. I would be much more satisfied if the number of references was slightly higher (about 15 - 20 references) and I would appreciate it if it also included data from all the world Asia, America, Europe or Australia. In this way it is documented that a method that is tested in a place with its own characteristics can be implemented in other places around the world.
More discussion is needed, comparing the results of this work related to attributes with those of other studies. I believe that the conclusions section or discussion should also include the main limitations of this study and incorporate possible policy implications. I think, something more should be said about practical implications.
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Dear reviewer! We would like to express our gratitude for the attention paid to our manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript titled "Assessment of the impact of forest reclamation measures for the adaptation of agriculture to climate change in the south of the Russian Plain" intends to study the effectiveness and economic efficiency of the impact of agroforestry complexes on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change in the south of the Russian Plain. The study analysed the effectiveness and quantified the effectiveness of agroforestry in the context of its impact on the adaptation of agriculture to climate change, as well as to determine the zonal patterns of the dynamics of these indicators.
The manuscript has been revised according to the first review comments. The authors carefully studied the comments and revised the manuscript by considering all the last comments. The comments are responded to the new manuscript.
Discussion is better than the previous one, it has general logic and on justification of interpretations as the author’s attribute. Now the manuscript contains a clear formulation and description of the research problem, it has more references, the results of this work have been compared with other studies. Moreover, the manuscript included the main limitations of this study and incorporate policy implications and the future work posted.
In general, the manuscript is completely different from the previous one, since all the comments of the previous review have been revised.
I believe the revised manuscript has been improved carefully and I hope the desired level of Forests can be reached.
