Rainfall erosivity estimation based on rainfall data collected over a range of temporal resolutions

Yin, S.; Xie, Y.; Liu, B.; Nearing, M. A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4113-2015

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4113-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-4113-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 10

Research article

|

09 Oct 2015

Research article |

| 09 Oct 2015

Rainfall erosivity estimation based on rainfall data collected over a range of temporal resolutions

S. Yin, Y. Xie, B. Liu, and M. A. Nearing

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Oct 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 20 May 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C2070: 'Review of "Rainfall erosivity estimation based on rainfall data collected over a range of temporal resolutions"', Anonymous Referee #1, 14 Jun 2015
- RC C2108: 'Revisions proposed', Anonymous Referee #2, 17 Jun 2015
RC C2169: 'Reviewer Report', Anonymous Referee #3, 22 Jun 2015
EC C2481: 'Start interacting', Nunzio Romano, 09 Jul 2015
AC C2482: 'Response to the comment about the estimation of kinetic energy raised by Referee 1 C2070', shuiqing yin, 09 Jul 2015
- RC C2497: 'Not replying all coments', Anonymous Referee #3, 11 Jul 2015
AC C2619: 'Response to the comments raised by Referee 1 C2070', shuiqing yin, 16 Jul 2015
AC C2620: 'Response to the comments raised by Referee 2 C2108', shuiqing yin, 16 Jul 2015
AC C2621: 'Response to the comments raised by referee 3 C2169', shuiqing yin, 17 Jul 2015
- RC C2769: 'Not replying to the reviewer's comments throughly', Anonymous Referee #3, 22 Jul 2015
  - SC C2836: 'Thanks for your reminding', shuiqing yin, 26 Jul 2015
    - RC C2838: 'It means the equations have to be written in nice manner to be read and recognized easily.', Anonymous Referee #3, 26 Jul 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (28 Jul 2015) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Shuiqing Yin on behalf of the Authors (15 Aug 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (24 Aug 2015) by Nunzio Romano

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (25 Aug 2015)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (01 Sep 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have properly addressed various of my concerns with the previous version of the manuscript. While I think that the experimental set-up and results are important and valuable, the authors could improve the manuscript by structuring it better. See below remaining issues that I find with the manuscript.

Key issues:
- Introduction: this section is now very long and not well structured. The authors are simply describing all kinds of efforts that have taken place to estimate erosivity. However, a clear red line linking these efforts is missing. Just as an example, P4L28, P5L2, P5L11, P5L22 all start by stating that “other” models or efforts exist. However, particularly at the first sentence of each paragraph the authors should make clear topic sentences, i.e. put the real new issue discussed in this paragraph upfront in the sentence. Please restructure introduction to create a better flow of argument.
- I miss a clear conclusion section now, although section 3.5 contains part of the key conclusions of the paper.
- The title of Section 3.5 suggests that the authors discuss applications of the equations, i.e. how should erosivity results be used. The authors have not well replied to my previous comment (3) in this regard, i.e. to the fact that users are not merely interested in erosivity estimates, but rather erosion estimates. In my opinion, this requires integration of erosivity and vegetation attributes at shorter time intervals (rather than average annual erosivity/vegetation measures: see also Vrieling et al, 2014). Hence I still find that the authors could discuss more on how to embed the erosivity estimates into mapping/monitoring frameworks.

Other specific comments:
- Try to consistently use high-/low- resolution OR fine-/coarse- resolution when discussing temporal rainfall data. Now the terms are used in a mixed way, which may create confusion.
- P1L24-26 seems to repeat P1L23-24. Also “best results” should be made more specific. Please rephrase. In addition, I would suggest to add a final more general concluding sentence to the abstract on the usefulness/applicability/implications of the paper’s results.
- P2L8-9: “for example” is repetitive from past sentence. Rephrase as: “The Chinese adaptation of the USLE, i.e. the Chinese Soil Loss Equation (CSLE) was applied…” Remove also “successfully” ? unclear to what success this refers.
- P2L13: Remove “as”.
- P2L21: Add “relatively” before “dry and wet periods”, because what is wet/dry differs per location.
- P2L23: “although it requires a temporally detailed rainfall record for a storm”. The authors should quantify better what they mean with “temporally detailed”.
- P3L18: Remove this uninformative phrase, and make a better link between Foster’s RUSLE2 equation for erosivity and van Dijk’s, which are the same in form, but with different coefficients.
- P3L23-P4L2: In my view the authors should explain this in terms of generic rainfall data, and not specify or mention “breakpoint data”. The key is to explain why Salles power law KE-I relationships were not used. If the key reason is the difficulty of classifying storms in a rainfall time series as convective/stratiform, then the authors should explain this in simpler terms.
- P3L3: This is the introduction section, so the authors should not refer yet to their data analysis. I would suggest incorporating (and showing!) this as part of methods/results.
- P4L22-27: Could the authors draw some general conclusions here about the findings of those studies, which would help putting their study in perspective?
- P5L1: TRMM = Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission. What is written here is TMPA.
- P5L2: What is “this problem”?
- P5L7: specify the “empirical relationship”? between what and what? Also avoid the use of “breakpoint data” here. I guess that the authors refer to fine temporal-resolution rainfall observations.
- P18L1-2: This sentence cannot be understood without reading the article. Also I do not like single sentences as paragraphs. Please revise to clearly express what is meant.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (09 Sep 2015) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Shuiqing Yin on behalf of the Authors (11 Sep 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (27 Sep 2015) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Shuiqing Yin on behalf of the Authors (27 Sep 2015)