Cultivated Land Use Zoning Based on Soil Function Evaluation from the Perspective of Black Soil Protection
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article “Cultivated Land Use Zoning in Heilongjiang Province Based on Soil Function Evaluation from the Perspective of Black Soil Protection” by Wu and Zhao evaluates soil functions of the paddy fields and dryland in Heilongjiang Province, China, analyzing the supply and demand of soil functions, and their main restrictive factors; they also divide the cultivated land use function region guided by the dominant function of soil, among several other analyses. Among other results, the authors found that the water purification and regulation functions were primarily found in the first-level area, that the soil functions in the southwest demonstrated weak supply capacity, and that the supply capacity of soil functions in the northeast was found to be strong and in a surplus state. The authors divide the cultivable land of the Province on: functional balance region, food supply region, ecological agriculture region, and functionally vulnerable region.
Overall, the article offers a good amount of important, relevant, and necessary work. I think the topic is important, and congratulate the authors for the amount of work. The figures and results are also nicely presented. However, I do have some major concerns that make impossible to accept this manuscript on its current form:
- The concept of soil ecosystem multifunctionality is barely mentioned. It should go in the Introduction, and also it should be more discussed. Check below (L.76, L.124) for more comments on this.
- Check comments on L-194-195 about how many Indicators repeat themselves when explaining a soil Function. This does not makes statistical sense.
- The way the authors characterized soil biodiversity seems totally incorrect. One thing is the drivers of soil biodiversity (which, by the way, the ones selected by the authors are not, check L.733-734), and other is soil biodiversity itself. Check below (L.57, L-79-83, L.360-373, L.733-734) for more comments on this.
- The results section contains too much Discussion. Similarly, the Methods sections contains phrases and paragraphs that should go elsewhere.
- The grammar of this article needs a meticulous revision. Many, many phrases across the article are grammatically incorrect, as they do not have a subject or noun and are just list of things.
Find below more specific comments.
Abstract
L.12. Change “Carry out” for “We carry out”.
L.18. Change “Designed a soil function” for “We designed a soil function”.
L.19. Change “ratio and evaluated” for “ratio, and evaluated”.
L.22. Change “functions and carbon sequestration and regulation functions and were” for “functions, and carbon sequestration and regulation functions, and were”.
L.21-22. Try to avoid repeating these functions, as they were mentioned just a few lines above (thus, try to resume them above).
L.20-24. This phrase is way too long, it should be significantly shorter.
Introduction
L.38. Change “biodiversity and environmental” for “biodiversity, and environmental”.
L.40. Soil is the “foundation for the production” of what?
L.41. Change “maintaining sustainable” for “maintaining the sustainable”.
L.41-42. The phrase “but it is essential for cultivated land to have multifunctional roles” is not a rebuttal of the previous phrase, so I do not get the “but” here.
L.47-48. Add a reference for this.
L.50. Change “0.37 ha , China” for “0.37 ha, thus China”.
L.52. 27% of total China area, or of its agricultural land? Please clarify.
L.53. Please give a reference for that “25%” and that “33%”.
L.54. Change “the cultivatedland resources” for “the cultivated land resources”.
L.57. Change “soil function” for “soil functions”. Soil biodiversity itself is not a soil function, but rather, soil organisms have several ecosystem functions.
L.63. Here you just list one task, although you mention that “China has formed two tasks”.
L.65. Change “cultivatedland utilization” for “cultivated land utilization”. Again, just one task was listed.
L.73-74. This phrase needs more clarification.
L.76. I wonder why this introduction does not contain the concept of ecosystem multifunctionality, subject widely studied over the last 5-8 years, including in several dozen of global studies. Check studies by Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Fernando Maestre, Marcel van der Heijden, among others.
L.80. Change “storage, filtering and” for “storage, filtering, and”.
L.79-83. Thus, as mentioned before, soil biodiversity itself is not a soil function.
L.79-86. Check also the meta-analysis by Guerra et al. (2020) (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17688-2) where four soil ecosystem functions are globally described and analyzed: decomposition, soil respiration, nutrient cycling, and water infiltration.
L.93. What is specifically “production function”? Specify.
L.93-96. This is not well redacted.
L.112-114. I generally agree with this, but I also think that, less subjective methods, like a meta-analysis or an structural equation modeling should be also used.
L.116. Change “these methods often” for “these methods are often”.
L.118. This first phrase feels disconnected from the rest of the paragraph.
L.119. Change “selection and standardization” for “selection, and standardization”.
L.123. This phrase is a bit redundant, “research” is repeated twice.
L.124. Again, there are examples of soil ecosystem multifunctionality studies in China, for example (DOIs numbers): 10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.107686; 10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118281; 10.1111/1365-2435.13039; 10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.107526; 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145010; 10.1007/s11104-020-04826-4; 10.1007/s11104-020-04620-2; 10.1038/s41396-021-00913-1; /10.1111/1365-2435.13761. Among quite several others, so this statement is not true.
L.127. Change “conditions and establishes a soil” for “conditions, and establishing a soil”.
L.16-130. This phrase is way too long and too unclear, there is not a conclusion of the phrase, not an argument.
L.131. Change “paper” for “article”.
Materials and Methods
L.143-156. This part is very nicely written, clear, and necessary on this article. However, I do not think it should go on this section but rather on the Introduction section. The explanation is way too long for this section. However, and again, this explanation is very nice and necessary.
L.152-153. Change “Soil function and its ecosystem service” for “Soil functions and its ecosystem services”.
L.162. Change “but it depends on the way is used” for “but this depends on the way soil is used”.
L.161-169. Again, this is also very nicely written (and necessary) but I am not sure if fits this section.
L.171-173. Is this definition per unit area? I would guess so. If so, please add that into the definition.
L.185. Change “construct a” for “we constructed a”.
L.191-193. Again, as mentioned before (L.124) there is plenty of soil biological data in China.
L.194-195. Table 1: if there are quite several indicators that repeat themselves for explaining a particular soil function, how to treat this statistically? There would be obvious strong correlations among several functions, and even if there were not, it does not make statistical sense that the indicators repeat themselves. The functions should be measured independently.
L.211-230. This sub-section should go first in Materials and Methods.
L.213. What do you mean by “superior geographical conditions”?
L.224. Change “It primarily” for “It is primarily”.
L.225. Change “organic matter” for “organic matter content”.
L.226. Change “making is” for “making it”.
L.238. Why such distant dates (2018 and 2005)?
L.241. Change “interpretation and supervision” for “interpretation, and supervision”.
L.243. “respectively” to what?
L.251. Clarify, for the reader, what “DEM” means.
L.263. Change “(GB/T 28407-2012) and” for “(GB/T 28407-2012), and”.
L.277. Which experts opinions?
L.289. The Table 2 needs more explanation (at the bottom), for the reader, about how grading and weights were calculated.
L.304. Change “points and” for “points, and”.
L.308. Change “interviews and” for “interviews, and”.
L.322. Change “demand and a” for “demand, and a”.
Results
L.340. Change “layer, soils are not” for “layer, and thus soils are not”.
L.342. Change “The practice” for “This practice”.
L.353-354. This phrase (containing the word Mongolia) is out of context.
L.360-373. There is not a single, real way on which soil biodiversity was assessed.
L.366. Change “meadow soil and hydrochloride” for “meadow soil, and hydrochloride”.
L.367. Change “alkalinity and low” for “alkalinity, and low”.
L.373. Slightly better in what?
L.378. Superior as compared to what?
L.393. Change “regulation function” for “regulation functions”.
L.395. Change “function” for “functions”.
L.399. Change “Bei'an and Hailun” for “Bei'an, and Hailun”.
L.432. Change “soil and hydrochloride” for “soil, and hydrochloride”.
L.442-443. Avoid this kind of phrase.
L.474. Change “permeability and” for “permeability, and”.
L.475. Change “Mongolia,, where” for “Mongolia, where”.
L.481. Delete this part: “and inferior functionality.”.
L.484. Change “Identification Dominant” for “Identification of Dominant”.
L.486-487. This phrase is incredibly redundant, there are 5 “functions” in it. Correct this.
L.487-491. Same as before.
L.502. Change “east, Hailun” for “east and Hailun”.
L.503-510. This corresponds more to the Discussion section.
L.513. Change “Identification Dominant” for “Identification of Dominant”.
L.515. Change “functions, in order” for “functions, and in order”.
L.525. Change “soil. Improve” for “soil, improve”.
L.527-529. This phrase is out of context.
L.529-534. These phrases are also out of context, need to be better written, and should go in the Discussion section.
L.537. “nutrient circulation” or cycling?
L.538. Change “water , fertile black” for “water, fertile black”.
L.538-540. This phrase is not well structured. It needs a subject.
L.543-560. The same happens with all these phrases, they need the classical structure of any phrase.
L.585. Change “poorly drained and poor climatic” for “poorly drained, and poor climatic”. This phrase is incomplete.
L.586. Change “they border” for “They border”.
L.585-589. This needs to be better written.
L.592-595, 595-599, 599-600. Again, other phrases without subject, they need better grammar.
Discussion
L.609. Change “assessment” for “assessments”.
L.610. Change “after 2010” for “while after 2010”.
L.618. Change “times and different” for “times, and different”.
L.620-621. This is very redundant with what is immediately before.
L.626. Use a better term than “Existing researches”.
L.633-635, 635-637. These phrases are not well written.
L.637-641. These phrases repeat a lot the same terms. Avoid that.
L.653. Change “measures andn” for “measures and”.
L.658. Change “in future” for “in the future”.
L.659. Change “China has” for “As China has”.
L.662. Change “scales and establish” for “scales, and establish”.
L.665-666. Again, incomplete phrase.
L.668-670. Repeated information from the Introduction.
L.683. Change “to devaluation” for “to the devaluation”.
L.685. Change “cover crops and crop diversification” for “cover crops, and crop diversification”.
L.691. Change “addition, the soil” for “addition, as the soil”.
L.695. Change “services” for “service”.
L.698. The last part of this phrase (“can support provision of soil ecosystem services”) makes no sense as compared to the previous part (which is Ok).
L.703-705. This is true, however, there are important mistmatches between below and aboveground biodiversity hotsposts, check this: Cameron, E. K., Martins, I. S., Lavelle, P., Mathieu, J., Tedersoo, L., Bahram, M., ... & Eisenhauer, N. (2019). Global mismatches in aboveground and belowground biodiversity. Conservation Biology, 33(5), 1187-1192.
L.705. This phrase: “The vitality of soil as a living organism” is incomplete.
L.721. Change “are big challenges. It may be due to: 1)” for “are big challenges, like: 1)”.
L.725-726. This is not true, as mentioned before (L.76).
L.726-730. Again, this is not true. Check for example: Van Den Hoogen, J., Geisen, S., Routh, D., Ferris, H., Traunspurger, W., Wardle, D. A., ... & Crowther, T. W. (2019). Soil nematode abundance and functional group composition at a global scale. Nature, 572(7768), 194-198. And: Phillips, H. R., Guerra, C. A., Bartz, M. L., Briones, M. J., Brown, G., Crowther, T. W., ... & Eisenhauer, N. (2019). Global distribution of earthworm diversity. Science, 366(6464), 480-485.
L.733-734. Delgado-Baquerizo et al (2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41559-019-1084-y) show, in a global-scale study, that the most important drivers of soil biodiversity are: aridity, mean annual temperature, plant richness and cover, and soil pH, C content, and clay %.
L.735. What do you mean by `potential` of soil biodiversity? Explain further.
L.737. Change “farming and most” for “farming, and most”.
Conclusions
L.775. Change “functions.The” for “functions. The”.
L.777-780. This phrase, as many, many others, is a list of things but without a subject, it becomes a phrase with no proper grammar.
L.781. Change “provision and cycling” for “provision, and cycling”.
L.795. “the current requirements” of what?
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Manuscript ID: land-1220724
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Cultivated Land Use Zoning in Heilongjiang Province Based on Soil Function Evaluation from the Perspective of Black Soil Protection
Authors: Kening Wu, Rui Zhao
General comments
I found this study interesting. A combination of soil, climate, topography, land use, social economy, and remote sensing data was used to evaluate the functions of primary productivity, provision and cycling of nutrients, provision of functional and intrinsic biodiversity, water purification and regulation, and carbon sequestration and regulation of cultivated land in Heilongjiang Province, in 2018. The manuscript should state clearly the reason for doing the work for the international community. The manuscript has merit but it requires modifications and explanations before it is suitable for publication (see specific comments).
Specific comments
Title
It Is too long?
Abstract
I suggest the authors to write the abstract again more clear (null hypothesis, methodology, ….…, major findings and conclusion……).
Keywords
Replace two or more appropriate key words different from the title.
- Introduction
The Introduction is long and should state more clearly the reason for doing the work. Please rewrite clearly all the statements of introduction and especially the objectives.
- Materials and Methods
2.1 Construction of an Evaluation Method System of Soil Function
2.1.1. Cultivated land soil quality and soil function
2.1.2. Construction of Evaluation Indicator System at the Provincial Scale
2.1.3. System for Evaluation of Soil Function 195 Supply and Demand
First from all I'm lost!! The authors need to improve the writing style.
I suggest author(s) to provide a diagram (flow chart) with Evaluation Methods System of soil function?
2.4. Evaluation Indicator Gradation System
I think that more emphasis should be placed on the assessment of the quality of the Data. How the authors assessed the scientific evidence of the Data? I suggest author(s) to comment on this. The method has many presuppositions in order the results to be valid and safe. So, I suggest the authors to check the validity of the above presuppositions before they reach to final conclusions.
Table 2. is long?
- Results
I'm lost with these descriptions!! The authors need to improve the writing style!
- Discussion
It reads rather like a long review than a short text to topic of the manuscript. Please discus only the main results and not repeats them.
- Conclusions and prospect
Please rewrite shorter only the main conclusions.
Language corrections will be needed for the text.
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I thank the authors of the manuscript entitled “Cultivated Land Use Zoning Based on Soil Function Evaluation from the Perspective of Black Soil Protection” for all of their improvements to the text. The improvements are somewhat significant, and this new manuscript is quite better. In the following, I will comment (in your answers, not in the manuscript) more deeply only in the answers that I feel still need some work. I will follow the numbering that the authors have given for each answer. See my comments below.
(1). Thanks for adding this, but I think this part of your changes: “Therefore, the ability of soils to provide multiple ecosystem functions simultaneously is known as soil ecosystem multifunctionality [18]. Ecosystem multifunctionality is the ability of ecosystems to simultaneously provide multiple functions and/or services [19],” is a bit redundant, the same definition is repeated twice. Just with one definition is enough.
(2). I think this clarification is quite Ok, but I would only add something related to the fact that, as several indicators use the same input variables, statistical correlations among indicators are expected.
(3), (4), (5), (6), (7) → Thanks for these changes, they are quite satisfactory.
Introduction
(8). Same comment as for (1).
(9), (10), (12) → Thanks for these changes, they are quite satisfactory.
(11). Thanks for following the suggestion, still, I would cite the articles of soil ecosystem multifunctionality across your article, when necessary (DOIs numbers: 10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.107686; 10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118281; 10.1111/1365-2435.13039; 10.1016/j.soilbio.2019.107526; 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.145010; 10.1007/s11104-020-04826-4; 10.1007/s11104-020-04620-2; 10.1038/s41396-021-00913-1; /10.1111/1365-2435.13761).
Materials and Methods
(13), (14), (16), (18), (20), (21), (22) → Thanks for these changes, they are quite satisfactory.
(15). Thanks for the clarification, now I get it, and is all Ok.
(17). Same comment as for (2).
(19). Still is not clear -at all- what do you mean here by “a superior biological environment”. This is not a proper ecological term… Maybe you are talking about `a high biodiversity environment`, if so, please refer to that. If you are talking about higher altitudes or (snowfall) precipitation, then also refer specifically to that. But is never clear that biology there is superior respect to what?
(23). I suggest that these expert opinions are recognized (only the names, no affiliation or position are necessary) in the article Acknowledgments.
(23) (repeated). I think this explanation you are giving to me, should also be reflected in the manuscript, at least a brief one, for the reader.
Results
(24). This phrase still is out of context.
(25), (26), (27), (28), (30), (31), (32), (33), (34), (35), (36), (37), (38) → Thanks for these changes, they are quite satisfactory.
(29). This phrase still is too badly written, especially the part: “of supply and demand area of cultivated land soil function and distribution map of supply-demand ratio of cultivated land soil function”. Many words repeat themselves, and overall the phrase is not clear at all.
Discussion
(39), (40), (41), (42), (43), (44), (45), (46), (47), (48), (49), (50) → Thanks for these changes, they are quite satisfactory.
(51). I agree that the concept is not mature/well-known enough.
Conclusions
(52), (53), (54) → Thanks for these changes, they are quite satisfactory.
Author Response
Author Response File: 
Author Response.doc
Reviewer 2 Report
English language and style are fine/minor spell check required.
Author Response
We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all your time involved and this great opportunity for us to improve the manuscript.
