Evaluation of Rainfall Interception by Vegetation Using a Rainfall Simulator
, Roberto Dutra Alves 3, Gilson de Farias Neves Gitirana, Jr. 3, Sávio Aparecido dos Santos Pereira 1, Juan Félix Rodriguez Rebolledo 4 and Marta Pereira da Luz 5,6
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The objective of this study is very good. The paper is fairly well-written and structured. Some of the study results may add to the existing knowledge. The following comments and suggestions may further enhance the quality of the readability of the manuscript:
- The current paper title is a bit misleading. “Interception” is a very general term. The machine used in this study is strictly meant for simulating rainfall not runoff. A better suggestion for the paper title may be “Evaluation of rainfall interception by vegetation using a rainfall simulator”.
- Mistyped word in Line 52, “liter”.
- Are dry unit weight and unit weight intrinsic properties of the soil? Besides, the unit used for these parameters is a bit odd!
- Another mistyped word in Line 114, “roadcutss”.
- All acronym names, such as “RS”, should be defined only once when first appear and be used thereafter.
- What is “CUC”? Please explain in more detail. By the way, is uniformity of 70% acceptable for rainfall simulation experiments? Please justify!
- A picture of the grass, “Bahia grass”, used in this experiment may be helpful.
- In Line 177, is erosion being qualitatively analyzed or quantitatively analyzed as in Figure 10?
- Any particular reason for choosing the said rainfall intensity and duration, as well as slope steepness.
- How about results on surface runoff and erosion for soil with vegetation?
- Judging by the results presented in Table 4, it is a bit difficult to witness the similarity of current interception result of 5.1 mm with other, previous study results.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper presents well-designed study to demonstrate a new method to measure interception. The motivation and aims are clearly formulated, the methodology is described in detail and the results are convincing. Conclusions cover discussion on some potential limitations of proposed method, which is particularly important in such type of studies. My only suggestion is that the authors could add one concluding sentence in the abstract indicating, for example, in what applications the proposed method could be particularly useful.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors of the article “Evaluation of interception using a rainfall and runoff simulator” present an experimental methodology for the assessment of interception in laboratory conditions.
The manuscript is well structured and documented since it presents both the theoretical parts and the experimental ones in a consolidate way. At the end they present a quantification of the interception, which is compared with the outputs of other studies.
My personal point of view is that the manuscript provides new insights for a specific plant and specific soil types.
Author Response
"Please see the attachment."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
