Machine Learning-Based Prediction of Drainage in Layered Soils Using a Soil Drainability Index
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments to the manuscript (soilsystems-471233-peer-review-v1) entitled “Machine learning based prediction of drainage in layered soils using a soil drainability index”.
Comprehensive knowledge regarding rainfall partitioning over the soil water balance components plays a very important role in agricultural water management, as wel as in goundwater protection. This paper proposed a soil drainability index (SDI) for drainage estimation, based on the near saturated hydraulic conductivity in layered soil and tested its validity through numerical simulation. It is original work and the content is of great scientific interesting to the reader of Soil Systems. The manuscript was well prepared and acceptable for publication in Soil Systems after minor revision.
General comments:
The effect of macropore on the water flow in soil is quite different among different soils. So, maybe different near saturation pressure head could be adopted in SDI.
Specific comments
In Table1, Why such a high Ks for clay (soil D)? macropore?
Line 214, it should be “testing stage”.
In Fig.2, Fig.3, I don’t think “cm month-1” is a proper expression, replace with “cm per month”.
Line 249, replace with “in drier- than rainy-months”.
Lin 249, don’t understand this sentence, “this propagates to…..”
In Fig.5, the legend is missed.
Line 368, delet “the”, it should be “In present work….”
Author Response
We kindly appreciate your review and comments on the paper.
General comments:
The effect of macropore on the water flow in soil is quite different among different soils. So, maybe different near saturation pressure head could be adopted in SDI.
Response to General comment
We do also agree that the macropore attribute of soils is a relative definition and different from soil to soil, however, in this work we already tested the definition of SDI at 5 and 10 cm however, the final obtained SDIs were not correlated with drainage. Various near-saturated hydraulic conductivities to be applied in SDI for soils except tropical (as in this work), can be assessed.
Specific comments:
In Table1, Why such a high Ks for clay (soil D)?
Author response: We understand the doubt of the reviewer, but it is important to remember that here we deal with a 1:1 clay tropical soil, so in the first place Ks values cannot be compared to 2:1 clay soils with similar clay contents. The soil in question is an oxisol, and in these soils it is not uncommon for the density to decrease and Ks to increase due to a stable microporous network. As a matter of fact, it can be seen that porosity increases for the deep layers of this soil.
Line 214, it should be “testing stage”. Author response: Corrected
In Fig.2, Fig.3, I don’t think “cm month-1” is a proper expression, replace with “cm per month”.Author response: Corrected
Line 249, replace with “in drier- than rainy-months”. Author response: Corrected
Lin 249, don’t understand this sentence, “this propagates to…..” Author response: This is attributed to
In Fig.5, the legend is missed. Author response: The labels besides axes clarify the legends
Line 368, delete “the”, it should be “In present work….” Author response: Corrected
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
My comments are included in the attached pdf file. In my opinion, your methodology is robust and your results are consistent. In addition, the article is generally well-written. Nevertheless I am missing some aclaratory information in the Introduction section, some methodological aspects are explained with so details and there is a confusion regarding crops or pasture in the subsection 3.3. that it must be clarified accordingly.
Sincerely,
Reviewer #
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We kindly appreciate your review and comments on the paper.
Comments are replied according to their line numbers and changes are all applied in the new uploaded text
Line23: Corrected
Line 26: Introduction has been improved
Line40: added
Line 57,59 and 62: corrected
Line 73: the caption of the table is auto explicative
Line 129: Done as suggested by the reviewer
Line 130: Corrected
Line 160: The whole section was summarized and extra parts were trimmed
Line 269 and 271: corrected
Line 303: As stated before, one of the scenarios refers to a continuous and constant pasture such what is used for reference ET
Line 437: References are corrected
