Review Reports - A Model of Evapotranspirative Irrigation to Manage the Various Water Levels in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Its Effect on Crop and Water Productivities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper titled A Model of Evapotranspirative Irrigation to Manage the 2 Groundwater Level in System of Rice Intensification, written well and understandable from reader but still there are some comments must do before accept for publication

1- revise the abstaract

2- reduces self citations

3- make more clear about result

4- add some new references related to title

5- revise the quality of figures

Author Response

Thank you very much for your kind comments and suggestions. We have revised the article based on your kind suggestions as follow:

We have revised the abstract
We have reduced self-citations
Some parts of the results have been improved
We include some new references related to the title as also was suggested by another reviewer
The quality of figures have been revised particularly Figures 2-10.

Best regards,

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

In this study, the authors introduced a model of evapotranspirative irrigation and its application under different irrigation regimes. The objectives of study were to evaluate the performances of evapotranspirative irrigation with different water irrigation regimes and to evaluate crop and water productivities on rice cultivation. The experiment was performed during one rice planting season, starting from July to November 2020. There were three water irrigation regimes (i.e., CFI, MFI, and WSI). Good performance of the system was achieved as indicated low RMSE in all irrigation regimes. However, the high rainfall event was the obstacle in improving this performance; thus, it was necessary to develop a better drainage system. Among the regimes, the WSI regime was most effective in water use. It was able to increase water productivity by up to 14.5% while maintaining the crop yield. In addition, it has the highest water use efficiency index. The index was 34% and 52% higher than those MFI and CFI regimes, respectively. Controlling groundwater levels with more precision became the main challenge for improving water productivity in rice fields in the future; thus, the current system should be implemented at the field levels.

This research involves unclear scientific approaches and approximation to solve the addressed problems. The reviewer cannot recommend publication of this work in its present form. Therefore, the manuscripts should require the major revision. The reviewer lists some comments and suggestions for improvements below.

[1] English Correction

The reviewer can find the ambiguous English presentation and expression for this manuscripts. Therefore, the reviewer requires the English correction by a native speaker or special English proofreading company.

[2] Abstract

The abstract chapter requires the re-written process for improving it. The reviewer can find the unclear sentences (e.g., 22-30 lines).

[3] Research Purposes

The research purposes require the detailed description for readers to understand them clearly. (i.e., Lines 82-85)

[4] Figures

Since many figures (i.e., figures 2-10) did not have the clear resolutions and printings, the reviewer thinks that the updating of addressed figures are required.

[5] References Citation

The authors have to update the references using the related articles such as the following articles.

Jain, N., Dubey, R., Dubey, D. S., Singh, J., Khanna, M., Pathak, H., Bhatia, A. (2014). Mitigation of greenhouse gas emission with system of rice intensification in the Indo-Gangetic Plains. Paddy and Water Environment, 12(3), 355-363.
Choudhury, B.U., Singh, A.K., Bouman, B.A.M., Prasad, J. (2007). System of rice intensification and irrigated transplanted rice: Effect on crop water productivity. Journal of the Indian Society of soil Science, 55(4), 464-470.
Arif, C., Setiawan, B.I., Saputra, S.F.D., Mizoguchi, M. (2019). Analisis Neraca Air pada Pengelolaan Air dalam System of Rice Intensification-Organik (SRI-Organik) di Jawa Barat, Indonesia. Jurnal Irigasi, 14(1), 17-24.
Biswas, A., Mailapalli, D.R., Raghuwanshi, N.S. (2021). Modelling the effect of changing transplanting date on consumptive water footprints for paddy under the system of rice intensification. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.
Mainuddin, M., Maniruzzaman, M., Alam, M.M., Mojid, M.A., Schmidt, E.J., Islam, M.T., Scobie, M. (2020). Water usage and productivity of Boro rice at the field level and their impacts on the sustainable groundwater irrigation in the North-West Bangladesh. Agricultural Water Management, 240, 106294.

[6] Conclusion

The conclusion part requires the major revision (e.g., re-write) to highlight the addressed research. Under the current condition, the reviewer cannot recognize the core extraction from the research.

Author Response

Thank you for your kind responses and suggestions. We have tried to accommodate your suggestions in improving the article. Please find our responses in the following:

English correction

We have revised the article and it has been corrected by a native speaker through an English proofreading company.

Abstract

We have re-written this part, making clearer the methods and results parts in the abstract.

Research purposes

The detailed research purposes have been described clearly. Based on our purposes then we revised the title to be “A Model of Evapotranspirative Irrigation to Manage the Various Water Levels in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and Its Effect on Crop and Water Productivities”

Figures

We have revised Figures 2-10 with better resolution and printings.

References citation

We have added the citation on the revised article, particularly citation numbers [1], [2], and [4]. We could not add citation numbers [3] and [5] because the contents are not directly connected to our article and to avoid self-citation.

Conclusion

We have revised the conclusion as per your kind suggestion. We revised the conclusion to highlight the research purposes. And in the last part, we added a near future perspective that should we do regarding the research, i.e., implementing the system at the field level.

Best regard,

Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Review of manuscript Water-1495500, entitled “A Model of Evapotranspirative Irrigation to Manage the Groundwater Level in System of Rice Intensification” by C. Arif, S.K. Saptomo, B.I. Setiawan, M. Taufik, W.B. Suwarno, M. Mizoguchi.

The paper describes an experiment aimed at evaluating the impact of different irrigation regimes on rice yield. The experiment was carried out in small scale lab devices, which limit the representativeness of findings to field conditions. I find it also that the use of the term “groundwater level” is badly use throughout the paper. How can it be groundwater level when most of the times the water is above the surface? Additionally, the water productivity indicators need to be recalculated based on the formulations given in the established literature. I’m not familiar with WP units of g/kg. Lastly, the attached pdf includes a series of issues that require authors attention. Based on these comments, my recommendation is that the paper be subjected to major revision.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your kind review and suggestions. The following points are our response to your kind review:

We agree to your criticism regarding the term ‘groundwater level’, and we have revised it to ‘water level’.
Regarding water productivity, its unit can be represented either by g grain/kg water or kg grain/m3 water. Please kindly see a reference below that used the unit of water productivity in g grain/kg water:

Bouman, B.A.M.; Peng, S.; Castañeda, A.R.; Visperas, R.M. Yield and Water Use of Irrigated Tropical Aerobic Rice Systems. Agricultural Water Management 2005, 74, 87–105, doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2004.11.007.

Actually, the calculation of the water productivity is the same. The following is the example:

Irrigation: 253 mm

Precipitation: 957.6 mm

Total water input: 1210.6 mm

Yield: 6940 kg/ha

a. WP ( in kg/m3), with the following calculation:

Total water input (in m3) = 1.2106 m * 10000 m2 = 12106 m3

WP = 6940 kg / 12016 m3 = 0.57 kg/m3

b. WP (in g/kg), with the following calculation:

Specific gravity of water = 1000 kg/m3

Total water input = 1000 kg/m3 * 12106 m3 = 12,106,000 kg

WP = (6940 kg * 1000 g/kg) / 12,106,000 kg = 0.57 g/kg

3. We have revised and addressed a series of issues in the pdf file of your detailed review.

Best regards,

Authors

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

accepted

Author Response

Thank you very much for your accepting to our article

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors carried out the revision of reviewed manuscripts which the reviewer wants to check carefully. So, I think that the manuscripts have to be accepted for the publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your acceptance to our article

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have successfully improved the quality of the paper during the latest revision and they tried to incorporate my comments in the best possible way. I have however a few more comments to make:

The quality of the figures presented in the paper needs to be improved. They do not fit the minimum standards for a scientific publication.
Section 3.1 needs to be deleted. Weather conditions need to be provided in material and methods as it is standard practice in publications dedicated to irrigation water management.

There are other minor comments included in the attached pdf.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kind comments to improve our article.

We have improved Figures 2-3 with 300 dpi in resolution
Section 3.1 has been deleted and moved to Material and Methods as per your kind suggestion. Figure 4 has been deleted since it is not correlated directly to ETo.