Cumulative Risk Assessment of Soil-Crop Potentially Toxic Elements Accumulation under Two Distinct Pollution Systems
Mehr Ahmed Mujtaba Munir
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. Authors should mention study aims more specifically and in details rather than general single aim (Line 75-76).
2. Please provide the references for location, climate, background values, and topography in study area (Line 78-98).
3. The soil samples (depth 0-20 cm) were collected, please explain either one sample was taken or several samples were taken at different depths such as 0, 5, 10, 15, or 20 cm (Line 106).
4. Table 1 is unnecessary, soil crop comprehensive quality index and classification can be explained in section without table (Line 183).
5. Please provide the references and reference number (a, b, c) for background, Yunnan, and Chinese soil values in Table-2.
6. (%) is missing with value at some points in the manuscript such as in (Line 228).
7. Please give space between (P<0.01) as (P < 0.01).
8. Manuscript need proper editing to remove several mistakes such as ( Table 4), kg-1, R2 and Ctotal should be like this (Table 4), kg-1, R2 and Ctotal. This is author responsibility rather than reviewers to carefully check manuscript before submission.
9. 7 HMs it should be (seven) Line 444.
10. Manuscript has so many grammatical and Unit mistakes
11. Figure 2,3, and 4 consist of Soil, crop and soil-crop comprehensive pollution index, in fact these three pictures can be combined in one or 2 picture and some new data can be showed in graph format.
Author Response
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Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The submitted paper is interesting and suitable for Minerals. It has an interesting approach and with potential interest for readers. However, the discussion should be widely improved, and some information is missing, such as metal contents in plants. I have some comments about this paper that should be reviewed and improved.
- I agree with the use of "heavy metals" but As is not a HM. Maybe it could be better to use HM and metalloids or Potentially Toxic Elements. Please, update this question through the manuscript.
- L17. "cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), and Cd (cadmium)." Update this question.
- L29. Some keywords are also in the title and abstract. Use different keywords (e.g. the plant specie name, etc).
- L36-38. HM are not always uptaken by plants or they can be translocated to aerial part, and therefore, with risk for humans. This question is variable since several factors are also involved (e.g. plant specie, bioavailability, etc.) I suggest rewriting this sentence.
- L41. "In the last four decades"
- L52-55. Can you give some information about geology?
- L75. Maybe you can give all physicochemical characteristics...
- L77-98. No information about background geology. Which type of rocks or geology (serpentine, black shale, etc)? This question seems vital to understand why this area has several amounts of HMs. Besides, this area should be rewritten. For example, which area was selected for the background? In the present version seems hard to read.
- Section 2.2. Which criteria were followed for soil/plant selection? This information is missing. Probably a table with a number of soil samples by each area or soil use could be good to understand the soil sampling. Same comment for plants (number of plants by each soil, land use, etc). Selected plants only are indicated in line 272.
- L130. Why DTPA extraction only for Cd? Could probably be more interesting with more elements or other extraction types?
- L132-133. Maybe you can resume... "The soil pH was estimated by electrode method in a 1:2.5 relation (soil/water)"
- L133. "external heating method" What mean? loss-on-ignitiion, 420ºC, 4h?
- L145. Probably this section could be a new section (2.4. Soil-crop system comprehensive quality impact index assessment). Besides, this section it's interesting. However, why do you use RIE, DDDB and QIAP as methods? Thye seems not standard methods... and not widely used since usually BCF or translocation factor, etc. are more widely used than this. Can you explain which advantages offer these methods? Briefly, please. Also, Igeo calculations could also be appropriate for this paper. In the lines 329-330, the authors used BCF, but this information is missing from the methods.
- L212. In this table, you should also to give information about soil properties. Also, information about metal availability should be indicated.
- L242. Phosphate fertilizers are also Cd sources.
- L253. Cd is always linked to Pb and Zn in mining areas. Also As and sometimes Cr and Cu.
- L264. I suggest writing only significative correlations and no correlations as "NC".
- L268. Can you add a table with bioaccumulated metals in plants? This information is missing.
- L366. They Are the two primary sources of soil HM pollution in this soil, but the authors don't give information about another kind of sources such as industrial or urban areas or even agricultural sources. The authors focused only on mining and geological background, but other potential sources are missing (not studied).
- Discussion section. This section should be widely improved. The authors only discuss geological background, but no information and discussion about plants. Probably, a discussion with other similar papers should be included.
- Please update the references to the journal guidelines. The authors do copy/paste for references, but they forget to remove the reference guidelines (L586), and they don't follow these guidelines...
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is ready to accept now.
Author Response
Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
In general, the submitted paper has been improved since the last submission. However, some questions should be reviewed and improved. Please, see my comments.
L38. Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs),
L77. seven PTEs
L80. "(pH, Soil Organic Matter,"
L89-108. This section now seems better. Still, their readiness could be improved. Probably, the coordinates could be added to the figure and not in text to improve their readiness. However, if it's not possible to change the coordinates to Fig, no stress. Linked to this question, I don't know if it's possible to add some symbols for industrial or mining areas.
L103-109. Information about background geology is still missing. Which kind of geology? Serpentine areas? Black shales? This information is needed to understand the background values.
L119-123. Some sentences could be added to define the soil selection. Which criteria were followed for soil selection?
L202. soil pH, SOM, and the proportion of available Cd.
l205-211. You can use commas instead of dots.
L227. 7 PTEs showed. Be careful with HM and PTEs. See the same question for L276 or L349.
L238. Bioavailable contents should be added to Table 2. Same comment for soil pH and OM values.
L257. (p < 0.05). Same question for p values L366-383, and also Table 6.
L287. Please, keep 2 decimal figures like in Table 4 and not 3 (L288-307 and table 5).
L308. Average values could be highlighted in bold. Besides, average values should also have deviation and sample number values.
L394. Discussion section still needs improvements. Present data could be compared with similar studies under similar geological/contamination conditions.
L395. I do my previous comment again. The authors explained me that ". Of course, fertilization and farmland management measures will also Causes soil heavy metals to be high, but this contribution is very small compared with the geological background and mining activities. Therefore, this study only focuses on two pollution systems, geological background and mining activities." However, no information about industrialization or urbanization sources... since urban/industrial contaminants can travel several km.
L431-432. Nemeiro or Nemerow's pollution index?
Author Response
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