Soil Quality and Its Potential Indicators under Different Land Use Systems in the Shivaliks of Indian Punjab

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Abstract

Abstract should provide methods clearly and delete “effects of different parameters….” And rewrite Line 17-19 what were measured.

done

Please write PCs in full e.g. principal component analysis.

done

Please add one more sentence to summarize the implication of the findings and suggested interventions.

done

Introduction

Demonstrate using referenced articles from previous studies how soil quality is affected by the different land use types Identify the indicators of soil qualities using various studies published in journals, be it in India or other countries. In addition, the state how important or reliable these indicators are in measuring soil quality. Indicate how different land use types lead to soil degradation, e.g. their effects on available nutrients, N, P and K or the parameters you intend to measure.

Done

References from previous studies at national and international level on Soil quality and soil quality indicators included

Show that there is lack of studies on the soil quality and its indicators and therefore the importance of the research.

Lack of previous studies and importance of present study mentioned

The objective, Line 51-55 should be a stand-alone paragraph.

done

Methods

Please state the number of samples collected per land use type or the replications is it applies so that readers can easily understand the mean of the data and standard deviation or errors in measurements.

Also the method of collection e.g., did you rely on soil unit map and grid sampling method? How many total samples within a research site, grid sampling of 1 km x 1km for heterogeneous areas and a wider sampling of e.g. 4 km x 4km for homogenous areas?

Number of samples collected mentioned in the text as well as in tables. A total of 60 composite samples were collected i.e. 40 from Agriculture ecosystem (mostly under Maize-wheat cropping system), 10 from Forests (Mixed forests with moderate to high slopes), 5 each from Afforested (forest cover removed) and non-arable lands (lands not under use, mostly barren). A Composite sample was prepared by taking surface soil samples from 15-20 points from representative areas of each landuse in diferent parts of Shivaliks. Higher grid size was kept for Agriculture as compared to other land use.

For the subsection headings, adopt only one or two words, avoid the slashes. E.g. “Soil State/Soil Quality index” should be rewritten as Soil Quality index

Slashes removed

Soil State was kept

For consistency, change Fig. to Figure throughout the texts

Done

The unit for kilogram is k not K, please check and change Kg ha-1 to kg ha-1

Done

There should be a section of data analysis

The principal component analysis section should be under data analysis

Data analysis section added which included PCA (principal component analysis)

State how statistics was applied, did you check the ANOVA, or Tukey test (multiple means comparisons) if you sampled in replicates or if measurements were repeated and means shown are from three or 4 measurements/replicates?

Checked the ANOVA

Mention the statistical software used e.g. STATA, SPSS or MINITAB, GENSTAT, etc. used to analyze data and particular state the software you used to analyze/prepare the PCA

The data were statistically analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique. Means for treatment effects were separated based on fisher's protected least significant difference (LSD) at p<0.05.

Results and discussion

In table 4, if mean ± SD, state the n used to calculate standard deviation e.g. n=3, n=4?

n values added in the Table No. 4

Could it be possible to apply Tukey or any multiple comparison test at p < 0.05 to differentiate between significant means and non-significant among the four land use types? For instance, N, P, K seems to be significantly different from among the land use systems. Could it be possible to add letters such as A, AB, C etc. and state that means followed by same letters are not significantly different among the four land use types in each parameter measured?

 The data were statistically analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique. Means for treatment effects were separated based on least significant difference (LSD) at p<0.05

The discussion is still not in details

In my opinion, the organic carbon is high in forest land and this provides evidence for the high litter content. Please consider to relate the discussion of litter fall to the data of OC which is also indicator of organic matter in soil.

Yes, it is true that organic carbon is generally high in forest area mainly due to litter fall. But in the area under study is the almost under rainfed farming. Here farmers largely depend upon milch animals for their sure income. Availability of Farm Yard Manure (FYM) and its application in cropped area is quite high. This may be the one of the reason for little bit high OC in agricultural fields as compared to areas under forests. Moreover, the areas under forests are coarse in texture with steep slopes.

There seems to be no significant differences in bulk density, BD among the land use types. Please clarify. This is why performing statistical analyses will be important since statistics helps us to discuss only significant results

As per statistical analysis, Bulk densities values are significantly differ among different land uses (LSD (0.05) =0.05)). Values of BD vary from 1.35 to 1.59 Mg m^-3.

Line 170-172, please discuss why this happened. Non arable and arable land use types have high water retention than the rest; add more reasons in terms of management practices. Discuss also why arable and non-arable has more N, P and K; may be factors such as fertilizer additions, organic matter mineralization, relate these to the comparison of OC from your dataset.

Arable lands are mostly under maize-wheat cropping system. Farm Yard Manure (FYM) is being applied by the farmers apart from the chemical fertilizers like Urea, DAP, MoP etc.This may be one reason for high water retention in agricultural fields. Moreover tillage is also one of the reasons for high water retention. For non-arable lands, which are mostly the government lands with locally grown wild grasses, water retention is also high due to fine texture and also have less slope as compared to forests and other area under affrestration.

The unit for pH is not ph in the Figure 2. Please correct it in the legend

Corrected

The discussion in Lines 196-204 should be supported by relevant findings from other related researches or provide back up from theories with references

Supportive references/relevant findings were included.

Line 217-222 is unnecessary to report results of Panishkan et al. Only provide evidence using paraphrase that Panishkan et al., observed similar results that forest soils may have high K, ER (for example) which is consistent with your findings and state the reasons briefly. Otherwise delete that whole line.

Results of Panishkan et al. deleted

Conclusion

Please rewrite into one paragraph without bulleting points

Bullets removed. Rewritten in one paragraph.

Remove all values in the brackets since you are no longer reporting results as in results section but mention important results that answered the objectives of this research.

Values in the brackets removed.

Please format the font sizes and type of the final sentence Line 268-269 appropriately

Font size corrected

Please add the implication of the findings. What do the soil quality indicators identified suggests in terms of management interventions for sustainability of land uses (may be in the final discussion parts, please consider)

Taken care of.

Finally add what further research should do/focus on.

Future focus added

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Abstract: Should contain the most important information reflecting the content of the manuscript (not general phrases).Please be more specific.

It is revised with specific findings

84: Please explain why the soil was samples from a depth of 0-15cm not 0-30 (25) cm.

In general soil samples are taken from surface depth, as this is the layer which is most important for supplying nutrients to plants. Most of the changes in the soils in terms of available nutrients and available water are reflected in this layer, which is very important media for plant growth.

L.89, 90: Please describe all abreviations.127: How was significant PC components determined? Scree plot?

Abbreviations described

Determination of significant PC discussed

145-146: What were the relationships between the determined parameters? Which were most strongly correlated?

-

165-166: „However, it was higher in the soils under non-arable (0.30%) and agricultural lands (0.29%) followed by forest soils (0.20%)” – please explain this. Don't you think that agriculture causes much higher SOC losses than forestry? Maybe it is affected by plant species in forests?

Yes, it is true that organic carbon is generally high in forest area mainly due to litter fall. But in the area under study is the almost under rainfed farming. Here farmers largely depend upon milch animals for their sure income. Availability of Farm Yard Manure (FYM) and its application in cropped area is quite high. This may be the one of the reason for little bit high OC in agricultural fields as compared to areas under forests. Moreover, the areas under forests are coarse in texture with steep slopes.

170-171: Did you ever measure the hydrophobicity of these soils?

No

206-254: please compare your results with the SQI results of other authors. There is no discussion in the ‘Results and discussion’ section (it is limited to one sentence explanation under the results presentation).

This part is elaborated

Please do not detailed describe the tables and figures; try to focus on the explanations and discussions your results.

Taken care of

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The part of Introduction should be rewrite thoroughly. The authors seem do not understand what context the part of Conclusion should include. The current part of Introduction is actually only describe of the study area.

Introduction part revised and updated

Table 1 and Table 2 belong the part of Results so it should not be put in the part of Study area and Materials.

These tables are parts of methodology to find out state of soil quality based on fuzzy modelling. I think, these would be better in Methods section.

In the Figure 1, you should give a global map of location of the study area in India

Global map of location of the study area added

PCA is a method used to reduce the dimensionality of high dimensional data, it is more suitable for solving issue related to large size of dataset with many variables. However, in this study, the authors only collected 7 samples. The data size is too small to obtain robust and reliable results. Therefore, per method is not suitable for this study.

It’s not the seven samples. A total of 60 composite samples were collected i.e. 40 from Agriculture ecosystem, 10 from Forests, 5 each from areas prone to afforestation and non-arable lands. Composite samples were prepared by taking surface soil samples from 15-20 random spots from representative sites under different land use. These samples were analyzed for Important soil physical and chemical properties. PCA was helpful in finding out soil quality indicators.

Personally, the part of Conclusion should not write in the current style.

Conclusion revised and presented in current style of the journal

The authors should add discussion of the results.

Discussion part elaborated

Generally, the study was not well-designed and the manuscript was organized badly. It need thoroughly revised.

Many parts of the manuscript reorganized and revised in light of the comments of the learned reviewers/Editor