Soil Attributes and Their Interrelationships with Resistance to Root Penetration and Water Infiltration in Areas with Different Land Uses in the Apodi Plateau, Semiarid Region of Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

The datasets presented in this manuscript contain a nice mix of physical, laboratory, and field measurements used to address soil degradation/health. I have difficulty however understanding the study design in relation to the hypothesis; it is unclear to me how the authors were able to  confirm the accuracy of their maps based on what was provided in the text alone and test their hypothesis. I did like the combined usage of soil penetration resistance and infiltration tests in this study. However, there were several additional aspects of the manuscript that I found challenging, outlined below.

 

I attempted to provide some editorial feedback in places that required this treatment most, but many paragraphs suffer from poor grammar and/or sentence structure. The article must be reviewed by a native English speaker prior to resubmission.

 

The authors should strongly consider reorganizing and rewriting their abstract, introduction, results, and discussion sections to present a more compelling and focused study. The introduction seems to highlight a message that differs somewhat from the study design and discussion. For example, there is no real discussion of the utility of the Kriging approach or the uncertainties involved, assessments of predictions, etc, despite application of Kriging being the principal motivating factor. Additionally, most of the discussion on this topic focuses on differences between surface and subsurface soil layers, but it is not clear if the maps in figure 5, the primary results of such an analysis, represent the surface or subsurface conditions. More discussion of the spatial patterns is warranted if the study is meant to focus on spatial predictions. In addition, the results section was somewhat difficult for me to follow in a coherent manner, making interpretation of the data challenging. I specifically found it difficult to interpret the key observations/messages from the results in terms of the hypothesis being tested and how those aligned with the conclusions.

 

I noticed the use of vague and generalized observations in many places that detracted from the overall quality of the manuscript. Additionally, the discussion seems to lack any appreciable organization into logical subsections. Each paragraph reads to me as an independent recap of the results for each parameter/method that was studied. This made it difficult to understand the logic that was used to reach the conclusions.

 

I also felt that the manuscript contained multiple voices, and more importantly, that the manuscript draft was not thoroughly reviewed by all co-authors. The considerable variation in quality, both grammatically and in terms of engaging the literature, indicated to me a lack of full review by each of the co-authors.

 

Overall, I think the study has great potential, but the goals of the study and the manuscript itself require significant modifications before it is ready for publication.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The manuscript appears to have been written with at least two voices and is quite noticeable. The first ~350 lines of text require significant grammatical edits related both to sentence structure and vocabulary. The latter ~250 lines appear to have been written with higher quality and attention to detail. I believe that the manuscript would be significantly improved if all authors contributed equally to the review/editing process.

Author Response

 

Please see the attachment

Dear reviewer, we attempt to improve the writing as long as possible. We reorganized abstract, introduction, results and discussion sections to send a more objective study. We point out the important changes made in the english writing, with focus to grammar. The co-authors participated in the correction of the manuscript or agreed with the final revision.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This study evaluated the interrelationships between the physical attributes of the soil related to water infiltration and resistance to root penetration in soils of the Moacir Lucena Settlement Project, in Apodi Plateau semiarid of Brazil, using multivariate statistics and geostatistical analyses, and the kriging method. This study has some practical implications, however, some clarification is needed on the following comments:

1. Abstract: The abstract does not highlight the research innovation and research significance.
2. Introduction: The introduction does not specify why Recovery Area, Lake should be selected. Area, Collective Area and Agroecological Area are the study areas.
3. Sample collection needs to write specific information, such as sampling depth, sampling time and sampling times.

4. The discussion part should highlight the purpose and essence of this article, and should not be generalized.

5. In the conclusion part, we should point out the shortcomings of the thesis and show the limitations of the thesis.

6. Pay attention to the full text format, please refer to the journal requirements.

Need to be modified.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Soil attributes and their interrelationships with resistance to root penetration and water infiltration in areas with different land uses in the Apodi Plateau, semi-arid region of Brazil.

Agriculture-2519998

 

Response to Reviewer 2:

Comments

 

Point 1: Abstract: The abstract does not highlight the research innovation and research significance (O resumo não destaca a inovação e a importância da Pesquisa)

 

The abstract was corrected to meet the reviewer’s comments.

 

Point 2: The introduction does not specify why Recovery Area, Lake should be selected. Area, Collective Area and Agroecological Area are the study areas.

The chosen areas lack information about limitations and the potential necessary for a sustainable and efficient management of natural resources. Extensive lowland areas, which have the potential for grazing, for example, tend to be underutilized due to the lack of this information, disfavoring the quality of life of farmers.

 

The study areas also show significant space-time variations in soil attributes, in addition to having a history of uses and management that are distinctive from each other. The places selected for the study include areas of greater agricultural aptitude, intended for the cultivation of short-cycle crops and fruit trees (agroecological area and community area), as well as the areas that, due to their intensive use and location in the landscape, have been transformed into permanent preservation areas (recovery area and lake area).

 

Soil fallow is a strategy commonly used in the Brazilian semi-arid region. However, few studies that reflect the soil response to fallow in the long term have been developed, especially in arid or semi-arid environments.

Point 3:  Sample collection needs to write specific information, such as sampling depth, sampling time and sampling times.

The section in the methodology referring to soil sampling was expanded and improved.

 

Point 4. The discussion part should highlight the purpose and essence of this article, and should not be generalized.

The discussion was expanded and improved, as requested.

 

Point 5. In the conclusion part, we should point out the shortcomings of the thesis and show the limitations of the thesis

                      not suitable

           

 

Point 6. Pay attention to the full text format, please refer to the journal requirements.

            The journal's text format and requirements have been checked.

           

Author Response File: Author Response.docx