Microplastic Pollution in the Soil Environment: Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Risks

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This review summarized the previous studies about microplastics in soil environments. This topic seem really interesting but the work have been less impressively done with lack of description and discussion. So, this munuscript could not be accepted in this present form. Please check my comments and suggestion below.

- There are many typo as well as grammar mistake. Please carefully recheck.

- The abstract not really describe overall of this work. Most of sentences explained why this review should be done and how this review is important. But the information obtained by the reviewing process did not enough explain as well as discussion and conclussions.

- The introduction is too short, espectially for review paper. More related informations need to be added. Only 1 paragraph about plastics (incluiding microplastics) and another one about soils are not enough. The reason why this review should be done and important need to be descripted really in details in this section. Also, if you say that this is a systematic review, you should added more details about searching, screening, eligibility, catagoroization, and writing processes. With only present information, the readers could not understand how this reviewing  process was conducted.

- Section 2 and Table 1: Table 1 is not well managed (please check Table 1 and Table 1 (Continued) also, some ). Also, Table style might be revised into another form to be able to discuss and understnad the differents of sizes, shapes, plastic types, and amount of microplastics in different region and soil types. For examples, different soil type may divide into different Table... Also, The detail of soil sampling depth may needed for clearly understand in MPs abundance in soil. 

- Section 3 and 4: Only general description with many disadvantage information. The information needed to be summarized and discussed in details with enough supporting reasons and/or mechanism.

- Section 5: "Gaps and future research on microplastics in the soil environment" is really important parts and only the originality of this manuscripit. Please critically discussed and suggested.

Good luck!

Author Response

This review summarized the previous studies about microplastics in soil environments. This topic seem really interesting but the work have been less impressively done with lack of description and discussion. So, this munuscript could not be accepted in this present form. Please check my comments and suggestion below.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for the comments. As suggested, we added much more detailed and specific information in each section throughout the manuscript. After the revisions, this manuscript was highly improved. Please see the point-by-point responses below.

- There are many typo as well as grammar mistake. Please carefully recheck.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your careful review. The present manuscript has been polished by native English experts. The editorial certificate has been uploaded as well.

- The abstract not really describe overall of this work. Most of sentences explained why this review should be done and how this review is important. But the information obtained by the reviewing process did not enough explain as well as discussion and conclussions.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the suggestion. As suggested, we added more information to describe overall of this work. Please see Page 2 ‘Abstract’ and below: “......Our review suggests that most scholars only focus on the surface soil, and the determination of the accumulation of microplastics in the soil as a whole is still lacking, as well as there is still no uniform standard for sampling techniques, extraction methods, analytical procedures, and even expression units for soil microplastics. The distribution of microplastics in soil is affected by human factors, natural factors, and the physical and chemical properties of the plastics themselves. We also focus on the analysis of the environmental risks arising from the accumulation of microplastics in soil interacting with metals and organic pollutants. , and found that large research gaps exist in the interaction between microplastics and pollutants in soil and the mechanism of compound pollution.  The impact and ecological risks of microplastics on animals, microorganisms and plants in the soil are explained., Moreover, key suggestions for future research are presented based on the current research status, and we call for more efforts focusing on the occurrence and fate of microplastics in soil environment.”.

- The introduction is too short, espectially for review paper. More related informations need to be added. Only 1 paragraph about plastics (incluiding microplastics) and another one about soils are not enough. The reason why this review should be done and important need to be descripted really in details in this section. Also, if you say that this is a systematic review, you should added more details about searching, screening, eligibility, catagoroization, and writing processes. With only present information, the readers could not understand how this reviewing  process was conducted.

RESPONSE: Thanks. We added more related information in the Introduction section. In addition, we also added the reason why this review should be done and important in the revised manuscript. In fact, we just collected and screened the recent available literature from the database of ScienceDirect (https://www.sciencedirect.com) and Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com) about the topic ‘microplastic pollution in the soil environment: characteristics, influencing factors, and risks’. As suggested, we rephrased this point in ‘1. Introduction’, Page 3-4.

- Section 2 and Table 1: Table 1 is not well managed (please check Table 1 and Table 1 (Continued) also, some ). Also, Table style might be revised into another form to be able to discuss and understnad the differents of sizes, shapes, plastic types, and amount of microplastics in different region and soil types. For examples, different soil type may divide into different Table... Also, The detail of soil sampling depth may needed for clearly understand in MPs abundance in soil. 

RESPONSE: Thanks for your suggestion. We organized this table by region and soil types in the revised manuscript. In addition, the detail of soil sampling depth for each sites have been added exception of not provided research.

- Section 3 and 4: Only general description with many disadvantage information. The information needed to be summarized and discussed in details with enough supporting reasons and/or mechanism.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the valuable comments. As suggested, we added more information with several examples for supporting reasons and/or mechanism. After the revisions, we believe these sections were highly improved.

- Section 5: "Gaps and future research on microplastics in the soil environment" is really important parts and only the originality of this manuscripit. Please critically discussed and suggested.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the valuable comments. As suggested, we updated the title of gaps and future research in the section in the revised manuscript and also added critically discussions and suggestions. After the revisions, we believe these sections were highly improved.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: Microplastic Pollution in the Soil Environment: Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Risks

Summary: Present review suggest the impact and ecological risks of microplastics on animals, microorganisms and plants in the soil are explained, and future directions and focuses of the research on microplastics in the soil environment are proposed. In the primary evaluation, present review is not critical and not well explanatory. Authors need to work more on the novelty and in-depth improvements. The review is not acceptable in present form due to following aspects.

1.       In general search there are various review are already presented in the same title.

2.       Authors failed to provide the novelty and why this review is worthy for publication and readers.

3.       Only suggested 5 points are not enough to be considered as review. Needs to add few subtopics and in depth knowledge about the review.

 

4.       Why this review is necessary? As lot of relevant articles already published.

Author Response

Title: Microplastic Pollution in the Soil Environment: Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Risks

Summary: Present review suggest the impact and ecological risks of microplastics on animals, microorganisms and plants in the soil are explained, and future directions and focuses of the research on microplastics in the soil environment are proposed. In the primary evaluation, present review is not critical and not well explanatory. Authors need to work more on the novelty and in-depth improvements. The review is not acceptable in present form due to following aspects.

Thank you very much for the constructive comments. Based on the comments and your suggestions, we carefully made the revisions to improve the manuscript. We added more specific and detailed information in each section and throughout the manuscript. In addition, as suggested by the reviewer, we included more information on the discussion of the characteristics, influencing factors, and risks of microplastic pollution in the soil environment, and also provided new insights in this review. Also, we cited and added a number of newly-published works in this review. We also put forward our own perspective/revision of the topic in the Abstract, Introduction, and the main text of this review. Especially, we wrote the “research gaps” part for last section to clearly provide our own perspectives. After the revisions, this manuscript is highly improved. Please see below for our point-by-point responses. Thank you again for your comments and suggestions.

1. In general search there are various review are already presented in the same title.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the comment. We believe that the title of this manuscript does not exactly match the previous published literature. There may be many similar keywords for the title, but we put forward our own perspective/revision of the topic in the Abstract, Introduction, and the main text of this review. In addition, the research on microplastics is changing with each passing day, the number of publications is increasing exponentially every year, new research discoveries are constantly emerging, and new cognitions are constantly iterating. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly summarize the latest research progress.

2. Authors failed to provide the novelty and why this review is worthy for publication and readers.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the comment. We added related information on the novelty and why this review is worthy for publication and readers in the section ‘1. Introduction’. Please see Page 4 and below: “Currently, more and more evidences show that microplastics are ubiquitous in soil,and some reviews have focused on the microplastics in soil environment. These reviews mainly focused on the detection methods of microplastics in soil, occur-rence, and effects on soil ecosystems. However, our current understanding of microplastics in soil is still fragmented. Moreover, the research on microplastics is changing with each passing day, the number of publications is increasing exponentially every year, new research discoveries are constantly emerging, and new cognitions are constantly iterating. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly summarize the latest research progress.’.

3. Only suggested 5 points are not enough to be considered as review. Needs to add few subtopics and in depth knowledge about the review.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the suggestion. As suggested, we added several subtopics in Section 3 and 4. Moreover, we added more specific and detailed information in each section and throughout the manuscript in the revised version.

4. Why this review is necessary? As lot of relevant articles already published.

RESPONSE: Thanks for the comment. We included more information on the discussion of the characteristics, influencing factors, and risks of microplastic pollution in the soil environment, and also provided new insights in the revised manuscript. Also, we cited and added a number of newly-published works in the revised manuscript. We also put forward our own perspective/revision of the topic in the revised manuscript.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

I went through the manuscript entitled “Microplastic Pollution in the Soil Environment: Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Risks ”. In my opinion, this is generally well-written the paper contains some useful information and approaches for effect of microplastic on environmental pollution. However, I suggest to use charts and figures related to the topic to better understand the presented content.

Author Response

I went through the manuscript entitled “Microplastic Pollution in the Soil Environment: Characteristics, Influencing Factors, and Risks ”. In my opinion, this is generally well-written the paper contains some useful information and approaches for effect of microplastic on environmental pollution. However, I suggest to use charts and figures related to the topic to better understand the presented content.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for positive comments. Based on your suggestions, we organized the table by region and soil types and also added a new figure in the revised manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors answered the comments clearly and revised the manuscript based on all of the reviewer's suggestions. Now, this manuscript is much better than the original version and it should be accepted to be published in this journal.

Well done!

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors improved the revised version impressively. I suggest a revised version acceptable for publication.