Dear Dr Avery,

Your manuscript “Incorporation of globally available datasets into the cosmic-ray neutron probe method for estimating field scale soil water content” has been subjected now to review by three reviewers. Two of them recommended major revision and one of them minor revision. I think the paper can be reconsidered after major revision.

The main points to be handled are:
1. The advantage of using globally available soil datasets should be demonstrated more convincingly.
2. Some variables which also influence neutron intensity (e.g. below-ground biomass) should be considered as well.
3. The relation between neutron intensity and soil moisture content should be modelled according the model by Köhli et al. (2015).

In your answer to the main points and detailed comments, please indicate how comments have been handled exactly, indicating also whether text has been deleted and what the position of newly included text blocks is. I am looking forward to the new version of the paper.

Best regards,

Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen - editor -
------------------------------------------------

Dear Dr Avery,

Your manuscript “Incorporation of globally available datasets into the roving cosmic-ray neutron probe method for estimating field scale soil water content” was subjected again to review by the two reviewers. Both of them suggest to accept the paper.

I also went again through the paper and suggest the following technical corrections:
L. 151: "of tens of hectares" instead of "at tens of hectares".
L. 448: Rephrase sentence with "This warehouse (...)"
L. 494: "begins" instead of "beings".

After these corrections, the paper can be published. Congratulations!

Best regards,

Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen – editor