Effect of Soil Erosion on Soil and Plant Properties with a Consequence on Related Ecosystem Services

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript "Effect of soil erosion on soil and plant properties with a consequence on related ecosystem services" (sustainability-3143071). I note that the authors have substantially improved the manuscript, reduced the plagiarism that was evident in the previous version, and enriched the manuscript textually. However, before recommending the manuscript for publication, the authors must improve several aspects of the present study. Therefore, I am recommending this work for major revisions. 

 

As major observations, which must be attended to, I highlight: 

1 – I noticed some grammatical errors in writing. Therefore, I suggest the revision of English by a native speaker.

2 – Authors must reformulate the abstract. Note that you are presenting an abstract with 258 words, and Sustainability limits an abstract to 200 words. I also highlight that authors must follow the premise of presenting the highlights of the results in the abstract, something that I did not observe in this summary.

3 – Lines 38-42: Citations are necessary.

4 – I insist that in Figure 1 the authors should include the geographic coordinates (Latitude and Longitude) of the two geographic regions presented.

Figures (a) and (b) are from 1953 and 2021 respectively, even if they are drone or satellite photographs (the latter seems unlikely), they are certainly georeferenced. Therefore, please include the geographic coordinates (Latitude and Longitude) of the figures.

5 – The authors tested Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in the study. However, one thing that concerns me is the consistency of the PCA. The authors need to present, both in the Materials and Methods section and in the Results section, Bartlett's test of sphericity and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test to evaluate the consistency of the PCA presented by the authors!

6 – Discuss the consistency of the PCA regarding the criteria of sphericity.

 

As a minor and main note, I highlight:

1 – Use the Mendeley Reference Manager for references as well as citations, as both Sustainability standards are not standardized in the body of every manuscript.

2 – Line 11: According to Sustainability standards, there is no first-line indentation.

3 – Lines 248, 249, and 250 seem to be a single sentence.

4 – Join lines 269 and 270 with line 271, if you do not agree, then Figure 2 should come after line 270!

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Effect of soil erosion on soil and plant properties with a consequence on related ecosystem services

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

1. Summary

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. We would like to express our sincere thanks to the anonymous reviewer for the critical and constructive comments on our manuscript. Based on the criticism the manuscript was corrected. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted/in track changes in the re-submitted files.

General comments: The manuscript "Effect of soil erosion on soil and plant properties with a consequence on related ecosystem services" (sustainability-3143071). I note that the authors have substantially improved the manuscript, reduced the plagiarism that was evident in the previous version, and enriched the manuscript textually. However, before recommending the manuscript for publication, the authors must improve several aspects of the present study. Therefore, I am recommending this work for major revisions.  Response: Based on the criticism the manuscript was corrected.

Comments 1: I noticed some grammatical errors in writing. Therefore, I suggest the revision of English by a native speaker. Response 1: The English language was checked by a native English-speaking colleague.

Comments 2: Authors must reformulate the abstract. Note that you are presenting an abstract with 258 words, and Sustainability limits an abstract to 200 words. I also highlight that authors must follow the premise of presenting the highlights of the results in the abstract, something that I did not observe in this summary. Response 2: We agree with this comment. Therefore, the abstract was reformulated, the study results are highlighted, and we have kept to the 200-word limit.

Comments 3: Lines 38-42: Citations are necessary. Response 3: Thank you for pointing this out. The citations were added: “Erosion is a natural phenomenon caused by several factors by the wind and especially by water [Tuo et al.  2016]. It is thanks to erosion that some of the most fertile soils of plains and mountain and hilly landscapes have been formed [Swezey et al. 2016]. On the other hand, erosion is accelerated by human activities such as agricultural activities and becomes unsustainable when soil loss exceeds its rate of formation [Nearing et al. 2017].“ 1.         Tuo, D.; Xu, M.; Gao, L.; Zhang, S.; Liu, S. Changed surface roughness by wind erosion accelerates water erosion.  J Soil Sediments 2016, 16, 105-114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-015-1171-x 2.         Swezey, S.C.; Fitzwater, B.A.; Whittecar, G.R.; Mahan, A.A.; Garrity, C.P.; González, W.B.A.; Dobbs, K.M. The Carolina Sandhills: Quaternary eolian sand sheets and dunes along the updip margin of the Atlantic Coastal Plain province, southeastern United States. Quaternary Research 2016, 86/3, 271-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2016.08.007 3.         Nearing, M.A.; Xie, Y.; Liu, B.; Yu, Y. Natural and anthropogenic rates of soil erosion. International Soil and Water Conservation Research 2017, 5, 77-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswcr.2017.04.001

Comment 4: I insist that in Figure 1 the authors should include the geographic coordinates (Latitude and Longitude) of the two geographic regions presented. Figures (a) and (b) are from 1953 and 2021 respectively, even if they are drone or satellite photographs (the latter seems unlikely), they are certainly georeferenced. Therefore, please include the geographic coordinates (Latitude and Longitude) of the figures. Respond 4: The geographic coordinates were added: “The GPS coordinates are 48°28'33.26"N, 20°27'57.01"E of the study site no. 1 (center point), and 48°28'26.74"N, 20°27'37.27"E of the study site no. 2 (center point).”

Comment 5, 6: The authors tested Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in the study. However, one thing that concerns me is the consistency of the PCA. The authors need to present, both in the Materials and Methods section and in the Results section, Bartlett's test of sphericity and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) test to evaluate the consistency of the PCA presented by the authors! Discuss the consistency of the PCA regarding the criteria of sphericity. Response 5, 6: We obviously took the right recommendations into a great consideration. We tested PCA to maximize variance. First of all, we made a preliminary control of variables to decide the number of components to extract and we included only variables which resulted almost moderately correlated with the others. SPSS programme was used but not KMO test. Barlett’s test of sphericity didn’t give sufficient null hypothesis that the correlation matrix coincided with the identity matrix. We explain this result with the fact that the area of eastern Slovakia is characterized by complex geology, which causes large soil heterogeneity and the territory is characterized by alteration of various soil textures even on very short distances. In the practice, finding homogeneous sites in the environmental conditions of Slovakia is extremely difficult and would not respond to the general average conditions. We also mentioned this fact in the chapter Materials and methods, Site description, reference [14] Vilček, J.; Koco, Š. Integrated index of agricultural soil quality in Slovakia. Journal of maps 2018, 14, 68-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445647.2018.1428233. On the other hand, the vast majority of the results obtained from our paper are in agreement with a large number of international papers. These results should be useful for politicians, farmers and stakeholders in Slovakia and in many areas of Europe. For all these reasons we suggest to delete the PCA information in section Material and Methods.

Minor comments

Comment 1: Use the Mendeley Reference Manager for references as well as citations, as both Sustainability standards are not standardized in the body of every manuscript. Response 1: We followed Sustainability standards for citations.

Comment 2: Line 11: According to Sustainability standards, there is no first-line indentation. Response 2: Agree. We have, accordingly, ccorrected.

Comment 3: Lines 248, 249, and 250 seem to be a single sentence. Response 3: Thank you for pointing this out. The sentence was corrected.

Comment 4: Join lines 269 and 270 with line 271, if you do not agree, then Figure 2 should come after line 270! Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with this comment. Therefore, the Figure 2 was replaced.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

After being rewritten, the work has improved significantly and surprisingly, based on my suggestions. Therefore, I believe it is suitable for publication in the journal Sustainability.

Author Response

Comment 1: After being rewritten, the work has improved significantly and surprisingly, based on my suggestions. Therefore, I believe it is suitable for publication in the journal Sustainability.

Response1: Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript again and for positive response to our correction.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Based on the corrections provided by the authors, I am considering the present study for publication.

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

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this research, the authors contacted field sampling experiments to study the effect of different agricultural practices (grass land and arable land) on soil properties and erosion. Overall, this is a meaningful work. However, it needs a major revision before it can be published. Some specific comments are as follows.

1 The title of the paper “Effect of agriculture practice on soil erosion” is too general and requires a title that can accurately reflects the content of this research.

2 In the “Introduction”, the authors did not explicitly outline the scientific questions that the current research aims to address.

3 Line 88-92, the size the sampling area needs to be given. What are the distances between different hillslope positions?

4 Line 100, the profile samples were collected at 0-10 cm and 35-45 cm layers, why were the soil layers not continuous?

5 Line 219-225. In the “Results” section, it is advisable to first introduce the physical and chemical properties of the soil samples.

6 I suggest the authors analyze the relationships between the soil physical, chemical, and biological (biomass) indicators, and make discussion on the interactions among the different indicators,

7 Line 397, framing practices and geomorphic position significantly influence the distribution of soil C, The authors should conduct an in-depth analysis (discussion) on the reason for the actual situation of the study area.

8 The conclusion should be written as a single paragraph, and it is advisable to point out the shortcomings of this study.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript "Effect of agricultural practice on soil erosion" (sustainability-3018143). The study brings important results for agricultural sustainability, regarding the use of arable land, explaining that adequate land use and management could prevent and mitigate land degradation. The results presented are important for the scientific community, however, before considering the manuscript for publication, several points require improvements so that it can be accepted by Sustainability. However, before recommending the manuscript for publication, the authors must improve several aspects of the present study. Therefore, I am recommending this work for major revisions.

 

As small observations, which must be attended to, I highlight:

1 – I noticed some grammatical errors in writing; therefore, I suggest the revision of English by a native speaker.

2 – Several excerpts are subject to plagiarism, identified by the iThenticate report. In part, it is not an online software that I trust, even in the paid version, it has its various errors, and given all my experience at MDPI, I have always blamed the iThenticate report for errors. However, in this study the plagiarism pointed out by the software is coherent, as I establish the sentence question based on a single reference, and not in sets of references as the software does most of the time. The following excerpts need to be modified, otherwise I will reject it:

Lines 50-54.

Lines 90-92.

Lines 98-110.

Lines 111-113.

Lines 116-166.

Lines 376-379.

3 – Synthesize the keywords to 5.

4 – Figure 1 needs to add the latitudes and longitudes of all its images. It still needs a North arrow. You need scales in the Figures, numbering in LETTERS for each image. And most importantly, the LEGEND is fundamental.

5 – Within Results, some sentences pass for plagiarism. The authors did not present any statistical analysis, which undermines the quality of the work.

6 – Comparison of averages for a high-impact publication is not valid, at least the authors should present conventional statistics. But ideally in the presented data set, a principal components analysis would be ideal.

 

As a minor and main note, I highlight:

1 – Use the Mendeley Reference Manager for references as well as citations, as both Sustainability standards are not standardized in the body of every manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Moderate editing of English language required.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript “Effect of Agricultural Practices on Soil Erosion” (by Radoslava Kanianska, Miriam Kizeková, Ľubica Jančová, Jozef Čunderlík, and Zuzana Dugátová) applies the USLE formula and examines various soil properties at two depths, across three slope positions, in two different locations, and under different management practices (grassland and arable land). The overarching goal is to understand how soil use and conservation affect its ecosystem services. In my opinion, this technical paper does not introduce any new ideas to the field of soil sustainability and, therefore, does not merit publication in your Sustainability journal.

The phrase, “The results of the study showed how suitable land use and management could prevent and mitigate land degradation” (lines 21-22) as presented by the authors in the abstract, perfectly encapsulates their work and highlights the lack of novelty in their findings. Such a statement could readily be found in any general soil science textbook. Additionally, the manuscript's title, "Effect of Agricultural Practices on Soil Erosion" (line 2) is overly broad and does not accurately reflect the specific details of the research conducted by the authors.

The objectives of this work are quite unambitious, all centered around the application of the USLE (the authors could focus solely on the C and P factors of this formula). The first objective is to calculate the value of A (t/ha/yr); the second is to compare the results across different scenarios; the third is to analyze which plant properties may have been affected; the fourth is to examine the impacted ecosystem services; and the fifth is a combination of the previous objectives. Once these easily achievable objectives are set, the conclusions reveal predictable, general, and vague statements, lacking significant depth or originality.

The methods section is incomplete, lacking essential parameters required for the application of the USLE. This is a significant drawback, as the application of the USLE is central to the study's objectives.

In the Discussion section, the authors miss an opportunity to compare their results with those of other researchers. Instead, they simply place their findings within well-established phenomena. For instance, it's widely recognized that “Erosion mobilizes organic carbon from terrestrial vegetation, transferring it into river and sediment, and thereby acting to drawn down atmospheric CO₂ in tandem with silicate weathering” (lines 387-389). To lend meaning to that statement, the authors should have provided estimations of organic carbon transfer to rivers and sediments, as well as investigated silicate alteration. Much of what the authors assert in this section remains overly general and lacks concrete detail.

The Conclusion section opens with a paragraph more fitting for the Introduction. Upon careful analysis, it becomes clear that the conclusions drawn in this manuscript do not correspond to its stated objectives. Ideally, each objective should yield specific conclusions, but what follows in this section are overly broad and vague statements that offer little new insight into soil science or tangible outcomes. For example, despite promising to investigate how management intensity influences erosion's impact on soil and plant properties, ultimately regulating the potential of ecosystem services (as outlined in objective 5), the conclusions lack substance. Instead, they simply state, "It is needed to design and verify in the field tools for soil conservation…" (line 432) failing to fulfill objectives or provide meaningful specifics.

Additionally, I suggest that the authors include the explanations of the acronyms used in their tables in the table footnotes.

Finally, in my view, the authors should reorient their study and compare their findings with those of similar research.