Reviewing the Impact of Vehicular Pollution on Road-Side Plants—Future Perspectives
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article still needs some corrections:
1. when authors indicate Table 1, actually this table should be just right after this paragraph where it is mentioned,
2. the article touches dust emission - what kind of dust it is and what is the size - is it PM10 or 2,5?
3. table 1 should be better constructed - eg. vehicular emissions should be aggregated under one category, not separately described, in the table, there is also a lack of references; SO2 eg. is under a different category but is it not a part of vehicular emission? according to this, there should be something like one big category vehicular emission and under this category, there should be subcategories that would indicate specific exhaust components such as PM, SO2, NOx etc. Summarizing above the table have to be reconstructed, the name of the table is also misleading
4. chapter 3 - 3. Positive effects of roadside plants on vehicular emissions - should be differently named because plants don't have any impact on vehicular emission but can minimize the effect of this emission.
5. Figure 4 and the description of this figure in chapter 4 is rather some kind of summarizing of the whole work, so this should be moved to conclusions.
6. Still the figures need higher resolution.
7. The article does not give an overview of the range of this vehicle pollution, there is also a lack of detailed information about the vehicles themselves. If this aspect would be expanded the article would be good enough.
Author Response
The article still needs some corrections:
Thank you for your meticulous efforts in improving our manuscript.
1. when authors indicate Table 1, actually this table should be just right after this paragraph where it is mentioned,
Ans.changed, thank you.
2. the article touches dust emission - what kind of dust it is and what is the size - is it PM10 or 2,5?
Yes, we have slightly elaborated on this. Automobile emissions had both pm 10 and 2.5. There is not much information of how these affect plants.
3. table 1 should be better constructed - eg. vehicular emissions should be aggregated under one category, not separately described, in the table, there is also a lack of references; SO2 eg. is under a different category but is it not a part of vehicular emission? according to this, there should be something like one big category vehicular emission and under this category, there should be subcategories that would indicate specific exhaust components such as PM, SO2, NOx etc. Summarizing above the table have to be reconstructed, the name of the table is also misleading
Ans. we have rewritten the table, based on your comments. we have made necessary changes.
4. chapter 3 - 3. Positive effects of roadside plants on vehicular emissions - should be differently named because plants don't have any impact on vehicular emission but can minimize the effect of this emission.
Ans, changed. thank you.
5. Figure 4 and the description of this figure in chapter 4 is rather some kind of summarizing of the whole work, so this should be moved to conclusions.
Ans. moved- thank you.
6. Still the figures need higher resolution.
ans. the figures when inserted in the text lose their resolution. We can alternatively attached the figures as a seperate file too. Hope it helps.
7. The article does not give an overview of the range of this vehicle pollution, there is also a lack of detailed information about the vehicles themselves. If this aspect would be expanded the article would be good enough.
Ans. this would be sort of deviating from the subject it self. Moreover there is not much information on this subject area. we have addressed this in the future perspective now. thank you
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors, Thank you very much for the revised article. All my concerns have been considered and I am fine with the revisions.
Author Response
Dear Authors, Thank you very much for the revised article. All my concerns have been considered and I am fine with the revisions.
Thank you very much for your consideration. We greatly appreciate your efforts. Thank you
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper quality has been improved and i have no further suggestion
Author Response
the paper quality has been improved and i have no further suggestion
Thank you dear Reviewer for your kind consent.
Thank you again for your time and suggestions
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you, no more comments.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article concers tha issue connected with very interesting topic - the impact of vehicle emission on road-side plants.
1. Figures need higher resolution
2. The taxonomy of indicated influences of vehicle emission on plants and vice versa can be concluded in the graphical way, presening the sheme of it
3. The article also need some tables which would be summarized performed analyzes and include effects on specific plants grouped into specific categories
Strength : The article touches very important issues and includes very valuable information
weakness:
The article as a review is too short. It need more summarized tabels which can inludes some grouped infromation relating described issues. Some parts of the artcile could be also extended
The review should also describe more articles concers the range of the emission from vehicles - how far these emission is dispersed and also there should be mentioned something about the guidance of the road infrastructure designing (if some documents describes eg. minimum distances of roads of various types from e.g. plantations? )
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Please find below my comments and suggestions to improve the article.
In the introduction, you start with India as an example. For me it is not clear, whether your article tries to focus on India or is it just a way of introducing the topic? If you focus on India, it should be mentioned in the abstract.
You use the word "crores" in the following sentence in lines 23/24: "The recent decades have seen a rapid spike in the urban population of India from 105 crores in 2000 to 136 crores in 2019, 138 crores in 2020 and now at 139 crores in 2021". I am not familiar with the word "crores" (and this might be true for others as well). So probably you might use another wording for ten million.
In line 27 you write "exponential population". It is obvious what you mean but I am not sure if it is an exponential population. It might not be an exponentially growing population but an exponentially increasing population?
In line 29ff you write: "Automobiles, being an easy and relatively cheaper means of commutation compared to four wheelers". I do not get the difference between automobiles and four wheelers (I would think, automobiles are four wheelers, so how can automobiles be cheaper means than four wheelers?). Can you please clarify this?
In line 41 you write "Automobiles are said to emit exhausts twice more than other sources.". What do you exactly mean by other sources? Is it that automobiles exhaust 66% of all sources?
In line 44 you write "Treshow [4] defined air pollutants are as “aerial substances that have adverse effects on plants, animals or materials”.". I think either the "are" or the "as" should be deleted before the quotation marks.
In line 49 you write "Based upon their chemical nature, particulate pollutants could be either inorganic particulate matter (I.P.M) or organic particulate matter (O.P.M) [5] (Fig. 1)." In Fig. 1 I cannot see I.P.M or O.P.M (so make sure a reader can find out where to find it in Fig. 1).
Line 63 - 65 and 68 - 69 are the same. Furthermore, the sentence "Agarawal and Agrawal [6] have elaborately evaluated pollution in Dhaka city and discussed their associated health impacts and concluded that the road side air CO2, and eventually decrease photosynthesis and growth of plants and plant." is not a full sentence. Please check.
In line 162 there is an "as" missing before "an air pollution indicator" in the sentence "Plants in turn can also be used an air pollution indicator of [100, 101], as they can effectively adsorb air particles [102-106] and reduce air pollutants [107]."
In line 263 - 266 you compare automobiles and four wheelers again and I am not sure about the difference - probably you can check: "The use of automobiles is steadily on the increase and in countries such as the Indian subcontinent, with the booming population and the economicity of two wheelers, one can only expect an escalation in the purchase and utility of two wheelers much more than four wheelers."
Good and interesting read.
All the best with your article.
Reviewer 3 Report
- the article needs better English in order to avoid readers misunderstanding. Actual text is not easily understood as it is required for scientific objective information.
- Even part of the paper title “Introspecting the concerns” is somehow doubt of the intended goal of those words.
- The title of section 3 (line 135) is erroneous as plants do impact air quality but not vehicles emissions. Of course, readers can interpret the error, but there is no excuse for writers/authors to not improve the text.
- The scientific content of the paper has merit and thus improvements on “how the paper is written” can make the paper much clear and consequently more useful and cited by other scientists.
- More details and some examples of recommendations are:
- Line 24 uses 4 tines the word “crores” which is very repetitive and not international word. Why not to use “millions” or at least add (10^7) after “crores”!?
- Some sentences do not clarify if that phrase is valid for India or worldwide.
- Special attention to the title and abstract – Paper title refers to impacts on roadside plants but there are some paragraphs that do deal with air pollution direct and indirect (by food, etc) impacts to human health. However, the paper deals with impacts on plants.
- Despite that there is a big list of references (151), most of them are “broadly treated”. Lines 81 to 84 cite 29 papers/references [12-40]. Those references and many others could by systematically organized and compared in a table/matrix with different aspects (which pollutants, which plants, etc). At least they should be more described in the text as this is a “review article”.
- Taking into account the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary issues in the paper subjects, namely: ( a) different gaseous and PM pollutants; b) plant species and plant physiology/morphology; exhaust vs no exhaust vehicles emissions; plants canopy as natural filter/sink for air pollution abatement) it is hard to isolate and review the scientific knowledge. However, it is important to do so in a clearer way to readers. One suggests that paragraphs and mainly sections should be increased or, at least, reconsidered to improve the paper sections layout and thus its message to readers.
- Quantification of pollutants concentrations are rarely provided. Also tables, equations and complex (although didactic) schematic images can help to describe some topics that are lightly introduced. Considering that the actual paper size is not big (total of 276 lines without references), these aspects can be improved.
Reviewer 4 Report
The manuscript "Reviewing the impacts of automobiles induced pollutants on 2
road-side plants – Introspecting the concerns" does not provide any addition to scientific knowledge, its simply indicates a report. The review should add some scientific evidences how much percent pollution can be controlled via trees and plants, and how much growth of the plants is being affected by vehicular emissions.
