Effects of Hydraulic Erosion on the Spatial Redistribution Characteristics of Soil Aggregates and SOC on Pisha Sandstone Slope

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

As a reviewer of the Manuscript ID sustainability-2590986, I consider it to be a very good quality scientific paper that has the necessary characteristics for its publication.

Despite not being a native English speaker, I consider the writing to be of excellent quality and quite clear, especially due to the didactic and easy-to-understand way in which the article is written and structured by the authors.

The materials and methods are well described and are easy to understand and facilitate the reproducibility of the study and its application in other areas worldwide.

There were minor lapses on the part of the authors. Such lapses are pointed out in the attached manuscript.

It has an acronym SOI (Not evident) in the abstract.

Figures and tables must conform to the international system of units and must be edited to separate units from numbers. On the ladder of the map (figure 1) they need to put km and not Km. Thus, the correction of these small mistakes is necessary.

The bibliographic reference is adequate, but I would recommend that in the discussions of the results achieved they be contemplated and discussed based on more worldwide studies, highlighting the differences and similarities with the area of study.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review comments for sustainability-2590986

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in maintaining soil fertility and serves as an important factor in judging soil quality, accompanied by an important function in maintaining ecosystem productivity and stability. Otherwise SOC content is influenced by hydraulic erosion, especially on natural slope. This paper aims to quantitatively analyze the change in slope erosion intensity and the spatial redistribution characteristics of soil aggregates and SOC under water erosion conditions. The results showed that after rainfall, the slope erosion intensity successively declined from the upper to the lower parts of the slope, and the content of soil aggregates in each soil layer changed obviously. Before and after rainfall, the SOC of each soil layer was positively correlated with small aggregates, and the correlation gradually tended to be negative with the increase in the particle size of soil aggregates. The work is meaningful in understanding the relationship between the rainfall erosion and the loss of SOC. In order to improve the quality of the paper, following suggestions are given here:

1)      Please add some suggestions how to reduce SOC loss induced by Hydraulic Erosion based on the result of this paper.

2)      Line 79-80 “the Pisha sandstone area is subjected to serious loss of carbon and nitrogen elements and soil and water resources”, this sentence could be more clear.

3)      Line 87, “With a bare Pisha sandstone area as the study object, therefore,” unclear.

4)      Please also put (figure 2) into somewhere in 2.2.1 as a quotation.

5)      In figure 2, the equipment on the left of the figure could be given a name.

6)      Line 172, Could“Lh-Soc350SOC determinator” be “Lh-Soc350 SOC determinator”?

7)      Line 207, In the sentence“while a lot of sedimentary areas (erosion depth<0 cm)”, how do you explain erosion depth<0 cm? same question for line 327 “(erosion depth)”.

8)      In figure 4, please explain the meaning of letters above the columns.

9)      In figure 5, the text numbers in the atlas are unclear.

10)   In figure 6, please explain the meaning of error bars in the columns.

11)   Line 288-290, “After rainfall, the SOC content in different soil layers was 0.04-0.26, 0.04-0.21, and 0.02-0.20 g/kg, with the average values of 0.14, 0.12, and 0.10 g/kg, respectively ”. Please clarify the soil layers number for each SOC content.

12)   In figure 9 (b), (1) some columns have no a or b? Why? (2) “Note: ab represents the difference before and after erosion under the same erosion intensity” might be revised as “Note: ab represents the difference before and after erosion under the same erosion intensity, different letters mean there is significant difference between the columns”?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

line 75-76: why not write a title about geographic and geological composition. At line 100 it is described the area. Between line 75-76 there is the first lines about geography and why not geology.

line 115: table 1. It is difficult to read . I suggest to format better the table

line 198: table 2 what are columns 2,3,4 and 5. It is not explained

line 214: figure 3 I would have add a picture of the area, otherwise it is not simple to understand

Figure 4: what are Aa , Ba, Ca and so on. It is not explained in the article

Figure 5: the legend is not readable. It is difficult to understand each picture, too.

Figure 6: what are A and B. It is not explained in the article. It is difficult to understand the meaning of the graph

Figure 8: again the legend is not readable

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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