Using WaTEM/SEDEM to Configure Catchment Soil Conservation Measures for the Black Soil Region, Northeastern China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript used scenarios analysis to describe the effects of soil conservation measures in a catchment in northeastern China. It is a very interesting manuscript, with well-organized structure. However, it is not accepted for publication in its current status because the international description was not well described in the introduction section. Some specific suggestions are listed below.
1, In the abstraction section, the first sentence should be rewritten from the international viewpoint, not from the black soil region.
2, In the introduction section, catchment soil erosion managements in the world are suggested be given. By this way, the novelty of this study can be drawn.
3, in the introduction section, for reference [16], is it right using Liying? According to reference 16, it should be Sun et al.
4, In line 81, “sedimentational” should be “semimetal”.
5, in lines 103-104, at least one reference for the statement “mean annual temperature is 1.28 °C and the mean annual precipitation is 475 mm” is required.
6, in line 227, based on Figure 6, the lowest SY control efficiencies was zero, not 0.72.
7, This study is based on scenario analysis, and some trenches were supposed. In the 4.3. Limitations and implications section, further discussion for the trenches given are required.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Great thanks for your work. According to your suggestions or comments, the manuscript was carefully revised. The specific responses are listed below.
1, In the abstraction section, the first sentence should be rewritten from the international viewpoint, not from the black soil region.
Response: Thanks. The sentence was rewritten as “in recent years, to combat soil erosion, large scale soil conservation measures have been implemented in the world.”
2, In the introduction section, catchment soil erosion managements in the world are suggested be given. By this way, the novelty of this study can be drawn.
Response: A very good suggestion. A paragraph was added to introduce soil erosion management in the world.
3, in the introduction section, for reference [16], is it right using Liying? According to reference 16, it should be Sun et al.
Response: Yes, it should be “Sun et al.”. This error was corrected.
4, In line 81, “sedimentational” should be “semimetal”.
Response: I think you could mean “sedimental”, it was corrected in the revised manuscript.
5, in lines 103-104, at least one reference for the statement “mean annual temperature is 1.28 °C and the mean annual precipitation is 475 mm” is required.
Response: One paper (Fang, 2015. Soil and Tillage Research, 153, 59-65 ) has been published in the study area, it was cited.
6, in line 227, based on Figure 6, the lowest SY control efficiencies was zero, not 0.72.
Response: Yes, it was corrected.
7, This study is based on scenario analysis, and some trenches were supposed. In the 4.3. Limitations and implications section, further discussion for the trenches given are required.
Response: A very good suggestion. Some references were added, deep discussion and the future application of trenches to control soil erosion were given in this section in the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments-questions (to be clarified in the text):
- Section 2.3: How is LS2D factor defined?
- Table 1: What does the value P=1 express? (perhaps "no erosion control measures")
- Equation (4): (a) The symbol D does not appear in this equation. (b) What does "D" represent?
- Figure 6: How exactly were the soil erosion control efficiencies and the sediment yield control efficiencies estimated?
- Table 3: (a) What does the "minus" sign mean? (b) What do the "bold" letters represent? (Forest land, S19, 53.70)
- See annotated manuscript!
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Great thanks for your worl, the manuscript was carefully revised based on your valuable comments or suggestions. The concrete responses are listed below.
1, Section 2.3: How is LS2D factor defined?
Response: In the RUSLE (Revised Soil Loss Equation), LS factor represent slope length L factor, and slope gradient S factor. In the RUSLE, the L factor is one-dimension .The two-dimensional (2D) slope and slope length factor LS2D was introduced by Desmet and Govers (1996) and uses the upslope unit contributing area instead of the upslope length to account for flow convergence. The definition of LS2d was given in the revised manuscript.
2, Table 1: What does the value P=1 express? (perhaps "no erosion control measures")
Response: Yes, it represents no erosion control measures. This information was given after Table 1 in the revised manuscript.
3, Equation (4): (a) The symbol D does not appear in this equation. (b) What does "D" represent?
Response: You mean the “D” in LS2D? The “D” in “LS2D” represents dimension that is given in the revised manuscript. In Equation 4, Di represents the ith day. In order to avoid misunderstanding, “Di” in Equation 4 is replaced by “di” in the revised manuscript.
4, Figure 6: How exactly were the soil erosion control efficiencies and the sediment yield control efficiencies estimated?
Response: The efficiencies were estimated based on the baseline scenario, i.e., scenario 5 in the present study. The concrete method was given using equation 8 in 2.5 section in the revised manuscript.
5, Table 3: (a) What does the "minus" sign mean? (b) What do the "bold" letters represent? (Forest land, S19, 53.70)
Response: The “minus” represents soil erosion. This information was added after Table 3. For the “bold” letters, they had the same meaning. I checked the original manuscript, they were not bold. Therefore, the “bold” ones were corrected in the revised manuscript.
6, For the suggestions or comments in the annotated .pdf manuscript
Response: Great thanks for your diligent work to improve the manuscript with careful check. Because they are trivial (but also very important), the point by point response was not made, however, careful revision was done based on each comment or suggestion for the whole .pdf file. For example, for the title, “model” was deleted, for the abstract, the first “soil loss rate” was replaced by “Soil Loss Rate”, and the second one was delete since it appeared for the second time. Blanks were added between number and hyphen”-”, other suggestions were also done in all the sections in the revised manuscript. Especially, Figures 2 and 3 were revised to make them readable since the letters were not clear and too small.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
See annotated manuscript! There are some "editorial" errors.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear reviewer, Great thanks for your very careful check for the manuscript, and according to your suggestion, the manuscript was revised. Point by point responses were not given because the errors are trivial. The responses are classified three types. Type 1, All the errors were corrected. Type 2, For line 102, page 4, there is a blank between “1.28” and “°C” in the original manuscript. Type 3, The reference 39 in the reference list was deleted, and the following reference numbers in the manuscript and in the list were changed too.