Managing Soils for Recovering from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript entitled "Managing Soils for Recovering from the COVID-19 Pandemic" has been reviewed. The authors provided a comprehensive review of the required soil management to be recovered from the pandemic consequences. The manuscript offers timely- critical information to all soil science readers. I would recommend accepting the paper for publishing in Soil Systems. Here a few comments:

• Line 49: please provide the keywords
• Line 264-265; Figure 3: please check the ions-charge format (carbonates, sulfates, phosphates). the charges should be "superscript on the oxygen." 
• Please define "HPC" and "GIS" at lines 297 and 325, respectively.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer #1,

Thank you for you pertinent comments. Each comment has been incorporated in the revised draft as follows:

• Line 49: please provide the keywords

The keywords have been provided. 

• Line 264-265; Figure 3: please check the ions-charge format (carbonates, sulfates, phosphates). the charges should be "superscript on the oxygen." 

We have changed the ion-charge format as suggested, and the superscripts have been corrected. 

• Please define "HPC" and "GIS" at lines 297 and 325, respectively.

Both HPC and GIS have been defined.

Incorporating your comments in the revised version has strengthened and improved the manuscript. Thus, we thank you for sharing your wisdom and experiences and helping us improve the manuscript.

Thank you once again. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is well written  and organized and recommend for publication.  Two major concerns

The Title is misleading.  Here are suggested titles:

Managing soils affected by the covid19 pandemic.  

OR 

improving soils damaged by the covid19 pandemic.

Another point of  concern is the specificity related to coronavirus.  There was no direct evidence elucidated of soils damaged by the virus.  Such a link is not provided in the work,   In fact the entire presentation is applicable for pandemics not necessarily that of coronavirus.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. We would like to clarify the purpose of the paper and its title. We do not intend to draw conclusions as to how the soil itself, or the field of soil science, was affected directly by COVID-19, but rather the purpose of the paper is to discuss the ways sustainable  management of soils can mitigate the effects of COVID-19 or any other pandemic. Because COVID-19 did directly affect issues of food security and soils can mitigate food insecurity problems, we hope to demonstrate how judiciously and sustainably  managed soils can allow a quicker and more complete recovery from the consequences of COVID-19.

The effects of COVID-19 on the soil comes from the fact that the cultivation fields, were abandoned due to the lack of working hands because of the disruptions caused by the virus; therefore, it was not possible to sow, harvest, or carry out all the tasks necessary for sustainable soil management.

However, we feel that this is not about soils affected by COVID-19 but about how the soils affected by the absence of workers that guarantee their sustainable management, damaged this natural resource, its productivity and the maintenance of the chain of supplies, which is reflected in the social and economic sphere, negatively affecting us and damaging economy. In the same way, this is “about how soils can support us as a global community to recover from the pandemic.”

And while the reviewer pointed out that, “In fact, the entire presentation is applicable for pandemics not necessarily that of coronavirus.”

This is true, of course. Nonetheless, and fortunately, in the last hundred years, there has not been a pandemic that has affected humanity, the environment--including the soil--and our environmental, social, and economic systems globally, causing the current level of damages. At this moment, all these affectations are because of coronavirus.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

It is an article of high importance.

I really hope that the messages of the article are reaching the carefully listening audience!!!

I basically made comments only, I would say very minor comments.

The article is "dissecting" close-to-philosophical questions about the future of the human population.

It is also very brave as I think that the idea of promoting family farms, circular economy, local food production, finding locally based solutions, urban agriculture, producing organic food, preparing compost locally for nutrient supply, etc. is against the "mainstream" of GDP driven economy, so the "big companies" will not like the idea of not using huge amount of fertilizers, nor will they like the idea of having multiple crops on small plots . . . as it is economically less viable and more labor-intensive that is against their profit. But I really support the idea listed for future solutions being an agri-environmental engineer myself, this is what I have learned and I am sorry to see that the world is going to another direction . . .

It's been an honor to read your thoughts.

Regards, Reviewer X

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3:

Thank you very much for your detailed comments and your kind words of appreciation, which are very encouraging to all the authors. Your philosophical insights are deeply appreciated. We have made adjustments to clarify sentences per your recommendations in the annotated PDF you provided; this has improved the manuscript greatly. 

Thus, we thank you for sharing your wisdom and experiences and helping us improve the manuscript.

Reviewer 4 Report

The review is very clearly written and it is well structured. Excellent and completes the literature which gives a detailed background to the work presented.

Minor improvements to Table 1 are recommended:

Change Renal with Kidney

Skeletal pulmonary function with skeletal pulmonary function

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4:

Thank you for you pertinent comments. Each comment has been incorporated in the revised draft as follows:

• Change Renal with Kidney

This has been changed.

• Skeletal pulmonary function with skeletal pulmonary function

We have replaced Skeletal Pulmonary with Skeletal Pulmonary System to keep the phrasing consistent with other systems in the table.

Incorporating your comments in the revised version has strengthened and improved the manuscript. Thus, we thank you for sharing your wisdom and experiences and helping us improve the manuscript.