Assessment of Heavy Metal Pollution in Water Sediment and Study on Pollution Mechanism—Taking the Weihe River Basin in China as an Example
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please see the attached document.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1:Line 29: Use subscript for 1 and all the references in the text or put in parenthesis.
Response 1: Thank you so much for such the important and valuable comments. As a scientific paper, these points are so important and are the key issues for a good paper. We have studied these and realized theses and have re-thought about our paper due the revision. We have made changes accordingly to make sure to address these points in our revised version of the manuscript. We have put all the references in the article in brackets. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 2: Line 53: Please make correction and remove the error.
Response 2: Thank you for your good advice.We have modified the error in line 53 of the paper on the basis of careful reading of the paper, see line 50, and the cited literature is shown in [14].The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 3:Throughout the text including in lines 54, 56, 57 abbreviations are given without first explaining their meaning. When an abbreviation is introduced, there should be its explanation.
Response 3: Good advice, thank you very much. When an abbreviation is introduced into a text, it should be explained first. We have explained the abbreviations not explained in lines 54, 56, and 57, see lines 50-51, 53. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 4: Line 74: Use superscript for the exponent.
Response 4: Yes, thank you very much.We carefully modified the representation of km2 in line 74 to km2 , see line 82. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 5:Line 375: Again use a superscript for the exponent.
Response 5: Yes, thank you very much.High-quality papers can be written with a rigorous writing attitude. Through careful revision, we have revised the unit mg·kg-1 without trademark in line 375 to mg·kg-1, as shown in line 421. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 6: Since the article discusses concentrations of heavy metals in sediment, there should briefly mention an analytical method utilized for the determination of the metals. Among them the method of choice nowadays is ICP-OES. For example, the authors could cite the article that determines heavy metals in a river in Louisiana, USA by ICP-OES: Hardaway, C. J., Sneddon, J. et al. (2016). Study of selected metal concentrations in sediments by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry from a metropolitan and more pristine bayou in Southwest Louisiana, United States. Microchemical Journal, 127, 213-219.
Response 6: Yes, many thanks fory your suggestion. In order to facilitate the learning and communication of other researchers, we have added sample data collection and sample determination methods, as shown in line 101-106. In the process of writing, we have carefully read the literature recommended by you and quoted it in the article, see line 105 of the literature [24]. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments on “ Evaluation of heavy metal pollution of sediments in Weihe river basin, China and study of pollution mechanism”
To the title should be added - case study because, although, unfortunately, most rivers around the world are polluted with plastics, household waste, and other pollutants, to which heavy metals are added “Weihe River basin” is located rough in the middle of China with its particularities.
The introduction provides a good, generalized background of the topic that quickly gives the reader an appreciation of the wide range of the characteristics and sources of heavy metal pollution in the Weihe River basin. However, the author may wish to include more references to support the claim made in the first sentence in order to make the introduction more substantial (ie, provide references to other groups that are doing or have done research in this area).
In the last paragraph of the introduction is clear explained the motivation for the research of the main sources and pollution mechanisms of heavy metals in the sediments of the Weihe River basin, and the possibility that in the future the results will provide a theoretical basis for the treatment of heavy metal pollution in the sediments.
Line 54: replace “Error! Reference source not found”, with a reference.
The methods used are appropriate for the study's objectives, but the author should probably provide more information about the sampling methods and laboratory analysis to enable a capable researcher to replicate the experiments described.
Lines 154 -155: the data from table 4 are duplicated in the text.
Lines 215, 217, 218: change “P” with “p”
In general, all figures and tables are easy to interpret. I think an additional graphics for “Principal component analysis” can be useful for better understand of the results.
Figure 7 provides results regarding the origin of heavy metals in a very clear and understandable way, alongside the other interpretations of the data.
Appropriate statistical methods have been used to test the significance of the results.
Line 287: find the appropriate referent
The findings are not properly described in the context of the published literature. No references were made in the discussion with the findings of other researchers on the same subject, not only for the Weihe River basin but also for other river basins worldwide that experience the same issues.
The sentence structure must be checked throughout the manuscript's text.
The conclusions of the study are supported by appropriate evidence but there are also exaggerated claims.
One of the motivations of the study was to “provide a theoretical basis for the treatment of heavy metal pollution in the sediments of the Weihe River basin”. If the only solution suggested is to change the human activities mainly to prevent industrial pollution, to reduce the agricultural pollution and improve natural conditions, with the hope to reduce pollution levels, I believe that this motivation of the study is not fulfilled.
The literature cited is balanced and relevant to the study, but there are several instances, which have been noted above, in which the authors have to substantiating them with references.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1:To the title should be added - case study because, although, unfortunately, most rivers around the world are polluted with plastics, household waste, and other pollutants, to which heavy metals are added “Weihe River basin” is located rough in the middle of China with its particularities.
Response 1: Thank you so much for such the important and valuable comments. As a scientific paper, these points are so important and are the key issues for a good paper. We have studied these and realized theses and have re-thought about our paper due the revision. We have made changes accordingly to make sure to address these points in our revised version of the manuscript. We changed the title to assessment of heavy metal pollution in water sediment and study on pollution mechanism - taking the Weihe River basin as an example in China. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 2 ：The introduction provides a good, generalized background of the topic that quickly gives the reader an appreciation of the wide range of the characteristics and sources of heavy metal pollution in the Weihe River basin. However, the author may wish to include more references to support the claim made in the first sentence in order to make the introduction more substantial (ie, provide references to other groups that are doing or have done research in this area).
Response 2: Yes, thank you very much for your valuable comments. In order to better support the claim in the first sentence, we refer it to lines 39-41 and add references [7], [8], [9] to verify the content of the first sentence, see lines 39-46.The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 3: Line 54: replace “Error! Reference source not found”, with a reference.
Response 3: Yes, many thanks for the suggestion. We have carefully corrected the error and marked the references. The revised part is shown in line 50. The references marked are [14].The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 4:The methods used are appropriate for the study's objectives, but the author should probably provide more information about the sampling methods and laboratory analysis to enable a capable researcher to replicate the experiments described.
Response 4: Yes, many thanks fory your suggestion. In order to facilitate the learning and communication of other researchers, we have added sample data collection and sample determination methods, as shown in line 101-106. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 5 :Lines 154 -155: the data from table 4 are duplicated in the text.
Response 5: Good suggestion, many thanks. In an article, the chart can express the content very well, so some data in the chart need not be elaborated in the article, so we deleted the duplicated data in line 154-155 of the paper.
Point 6 :Lines 215, 217, 218: change “P” with “p”
Response 6: Yes, many thanks. High-quality papers need careful and meticulous writing attitude. We have carefully revised the capital "P" in lines 215,217 and 218 to lower case "p", see lines 232,234, and 235.The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 7: In general, all figures and tables are easy to interpret. I think an additional graphics for “Principal component analysis” can be useful for better understand of the results.
Response 7: Many thanks for the comments. Charts can express more intuitive content, so in order to better express the principal component analysis, we increased the clustering analysis of 3D rendering, see line 244 in figure 6. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 8: Line 287: find the appropriate referent
Response 8: Very good comment, thank you very much. Very good comment, thank you so much. We carefully read the article and find the appropriate referent at line 287. See line 306 for the revised content. The reference cited is [39].The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 9:The findings are not properly described in the context of the published literature. No references were made in the discussion with the findings of other researchers on the same subject, not only for the Weihe River basin but also for other river basins worldwide that experience the same issues.
Response 9: We appreciate your good Suggestion. In order to make a more objective analysis, we carefully read relevant literature and screened out representative literature on the same topic. In the discussion part, we added the text description of Table 7 and comparative analysis to compare the heavy metal content in sediments of Weihe River basin and other rivers experiencing the same problem in the world, as shown in lines 311-323. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 10:The sentence structure must be checked throughout the manuscript's text.
Response10: Thank you for your good advice.We have carefully read the relevant literature, carefully revised the sentence structure of the article, and invited professionals with native language background to polish the paper. We believe that the sentence structure of the article has been improved more than before. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 11:The conclusions of the study are supported by appropriate evidence but there are also exaggerated claims.
Response 11: Good idea, many thanks. The conclusion should be a summary of the whole article. On the basis of carefully reading the article and analyzing the data, we modified the conclusion, deleted the inappropriate content and added a part of the content, see lines 430-433.The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 12:One of the motivations of the study was to “provide a theoretical basis for the treatment of heavy metal pollution in the sediments of the Weihe River basin”. If the only solution suggested is to change the human activities mainly to prevent industrial pollution, to reduce the agricultural pollution and improve natural conditions, with the hope to reduce pollution levels, I believe that this motivation of the study is not fulfilled.
Response 12: Yes, many thanks for the valuable comments. In order to make the solution more targeted and practical, we changed the solution to control of the increase of industrial pollution and life pollution, reduce agricultural pollution emissions, increase vegetation coverage, reduce the construction of water conservancy project of weihe river basin, See lines 430-433 . The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 13:The literature cited is balanced and relevant to the study, but there are several instances, which have been noted above, in which the authors have to substantiating them with references.
Response 13: Yes, thank you very much for your advice. Only with the support of the literature can the correctness of the viewpoint be verified. We use references [40],[41],]42],[43],[44],[45] to verify the examples presented in this paper, as shown in lines 311-323 and Table 7. In addition, we also cite the documents [58],[59] to prove the source of Cd pollution, see lines 363-365.The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Which are the industrial entreprises that are distributed of the river?
Error! Reference source not found - row 287
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: Which are the industrial entreprises that are distributed of the river?
Response 1: Thank you very much for your important suggestion . We carefully reviewed the materials and literature and added the following:There are about 4064 industrial enterprises in the Weihe River Basin, mainly in the industry of papermaking, textile, machinery, electric power, and chemical. The main pollutants in the industrial wastewater are COD, petroleum, volatile phenol, etc.See lines 92 to 94.The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Point 2:Error! Reference source not found - row 287
Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable advice. We have modified the content of line 287, and the modified content is Line 306. The reference cited is in reference [39]. The English polish has been highlighted in green.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
