Improving the Model Performance of the Ecosystem Carbon Cycle by Integrating Soil Erosion–Related Processes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please view the comments in attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Specific comments can be found in attached pdf.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Specific comments can be found in attached pdf.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1.     What is the main question addressed by the research?

The main question of the paper” Improving model performance of ecosystem carbon cycle by integrating soil erosion related processes” is to study the arid ecosystem carbon cycle in the arid region on the Loess Plateau in the north-central of China including the soil erosion process in arid regions using the coupling model RU-IBIS by analyzing  four different vegetation types and the carbon budget.

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it
address a specific gap in the field?

The originality of this article consists in adding the soil erosion in the study of carbon cycle in arid regions. The current form of the article added some details related the coupling model that produced more reliable simulations of the soil water content, evaporation (ET) and significantly improved the simulation of the leaf area index (LAI), net primary production (NPP).

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published
material?

This paper uses the IBIS model which was improved by adding some models such as atmospheric circulation, agricultural vegetation, and hydrological processes, the regional nitrogen cycle but it was not taken into account the changes to the soil erosion regime. At the same time, the current form of this study has been improved with a series of information about the Land surface processes module, Vegetation dynamic module and Vegetation Phenology Module as well as about Model validation.

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the
methodology? What further controls should be considered?

It would be interesting to analyze other types of areas and not just arid regions, but this study can also be done in other articles.

I want to congratulate the authors for the effort they made to include valuable information and details that may be useful for young researchers.

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented
and do they address the main question posed?

The conclusions are clear and express the basic ideas resulting from the current study.

6. Are the references appropriate?

The 54 references are eloquent and appropriate for the article

7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.

The 7 figures included in the current study are clear and easy to understand

 

 

Author Response

Dear Editor,

We are grateful for the reviewer for the time and effort that they have taken to review our manuscript. We have addressed all the comments and made the suggested revisions for the manuscript. According to the instructions presented in your decision letter, we uploaded the file of the revision notes, revision (changes marked), revised manuscript.

Appended to this letter is our point-by-point response to the comments. The comments are reproduced (in black) and our responses are given directly afterward in a different color (in red). All the lines in our responses refer to the new line numbers. “Additional revisions” are placed at the end of the comments from reviewer.

We believe that the quality of the manuscript has been greatly improved after following the reviewers’ suggestions.

If there is any question, please feel free to contact me.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Wensi Ma

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Some suggestions in attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

My previous comments have been addressed.

Author Response

We are grateful for the reviewer for the time and effort that they have taken to review our manuscript. We have addressed all the comments and made the suggested revisions for the manuscript. According to the instructions presented in your decision letter, we uploaded the file of the revision notes, revision (changes marked), revised manuscript.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article ” Vegetation models integrating soil erosion processes can improve the simulation accuracy of carbon cycle” used the coupling model RU-IBIS in order to determine applicability of using the model to arid regions in the Loess Plateau (the largest loess accumulation area in the world) and to test the accuracies of modelling soil water content, leaf area index and net primary production. Data were collected from four regions: Shapotou, Changwu, Ansai and Eerduosi. The meteorological data were collected during 1998-2008 at four stations operated under the auspices of National Ecosystem Science Data Center, National Science & Technology Infrastructure of China.

Several statistical methods were used to evaluate the applicability of models and include the relative error, the correlation coefficient R, the root mean square  error  and the coefficient of determination. Redundancy analyses was carried out to estimate both the climate effects and the nature of the relationship between the site and the climate effects.

 This article is clearly prepared, the information is well presented and can be applied in future Earth system models and for understanding the carbon cycle of arid regions in warming climate conditions. This paper has a major main contribution in the literature by presenting clearly and gradually the way in which, the determinations and interpretations of the results, were performed.

1. What is the main question addressed by the research?

The main question of the paper ” Vegetation models integrating soil erosion processes can improve the simulation accuracy of carbon cycle” is to include the soil erosion process in arid regions using the coupling model RU-IBIS by analyzing  four different vegetation types and the carbon budget in the arid region on the Loess Plateau.

2. Do you consider the topic original or relevant in the field? Does it address a specific gap in the field?

The originality of this article consists in adding the soil erosion in the study of carbon cycle in arid regions.

3. What does it add to the subject area compared with other published material?

This paper uses the IBIS model which was improved by adding some models such as atmospheric circulation, agricultural vegetation, and hydrological processes, the regional nitrogen cycle but it was not taken into account the changes to the soil erosion regime.

4. What specific improvements should the authors consider regarding the methodology? What further controls should be considered?

It would be interesting to analyze other types of areas and not just arid regions, but this study can also be done in other articles.

5. Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?

The conclusions are clear and express the basic ideas resulting from the current study.

6. Are the references appropriate?

The 54 references are eloquent and appropriate for the article

7. Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.

The 6 figures included in the current study are clear and easy to understand

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The introduction needs to be improved, so that some concepts and relationships become clearer.

Material and methods also have to be improved, as there are results that you don't understand where/how they come from.

The discussion has to be improved. It's more results than discussion.

More comments and suggestions for authors in attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Abstract: Give some concrete numbers to show how much your method has been improved.

2. Please improve your language across the manuscript.

3. Methods: Reworte this section to clearly show how can you combine the IBIS model with RUSLE. Please give the steps one by one.

4. Lines 117-119: Give the reference, or describe that how can you set these indicators?

5. Lines 150, 161-163, etc.: Please give more information on determined these results.

6. I think the figs. 2, 3, and 4 should give the formula and significance of the fitting lines. The color scheme needs to be modified to clarify the differences between different indicators.

7. Figs 4, 5, and 6: These figures are results rather than discussion.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Please improve your language across the manuscript, e.g., Lines 96-97.