Spatiotemporal response of the water cycle to land use conversions in a typical hilly–gully basin on the Loess Plateau, China

Qiu, Linjing; Wu, Yiping; Wang, Lijing; Lei, Xiaohui; Liao, Weihong; Hui, Ying; Meng, Xianyong

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6485-2017

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6485-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Coupled terrestrial-aquatic approaches to watershed-scale...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-6485-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

Research article

|

20 Dec 2017

Research article |

| 20 Dec 2017

Spatiotemporal response of the water cycle to land use conversions in a typical hilly–gully basin on the Loess Plateau, China

Linjing Qiu, Yiping Wu, Lijing Wang, Xiaohui Lei, Weihong Liao, Ying Hui, and Xianyong Meng

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Final revised paper (published on 20 Dec 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Jun 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'review comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Aug 2017
- AC1: 'Reply to comments of referee #1', Linjing Qiu, 05 Sep 2017
RC2: 'comments on hess-2017-343', Anonymous Referee #2, 05 Aug 2017
- AC2: 'Reply to comments of referee #2', Linjing Qiu, 05 Sep 2017

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (09 Sep 2017) by Zhenyao Shen

AR by Linjing Qiu on behalf of the Authors (16 Oct 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (17 Oct 2017) by Zhenyao Shen

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (31 Oct 2017)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (03 Nov 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors have addressed the problems raised in my previous review. I would suggest an acceptance for publication after some minor revision. Below are some advices for consideration in their revision.

“Meteorological Institute of Shaanxi Province, Xi’an, China” Shanxi or Shaanxi?
“Land use planning in China is considered crucial strategy for the sustainable management of a river basin systems and has..” change ‘a river basin systems’ to ‘river basin systems’
“A geographic information system (GIS) interface,…” change it to “A Geographic Information Systems (GIS)”?
Pp11-12: the font sizes are different on these two pages.
“Qiao et al. (2017) reported that the reduced runoff in areas with woody plant relative to grassland areas is associated with shift in runoff generation mechanisms; thus, the shift from saturation excess overland flow to infiltration excess overland flow might also have contributed to the reduced runoff in woodland areas observed in the present study.” Change it to “Qiao et al. (2017) reported that the reduced runoff in areas with woody plant relative to grassland areas is associated with a shift in runoff generation mechanisms from saturation excess overland flow to infiltration excess overland flow. Such type of shift might also have contributed to the reduced runoff in woodland areas observed in the present study.”
“Furthermore, afforestation on sloping land had greater hydrological effects than did planting grass” change this sentence to “… afforestation had greater hydrological effects than grass planting on sloping land”?
“Table 5 Slope characteristics of each land use type in 2010 and under different slope land conversion scenarios (unit: km2 )” Since they are scenarios, how can they be in the certain year? More revision to the caption?

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (04 Nov 2017) by Zhenyao Shen

AR by Linjing Qiu on behalf of the Authors (10 Nov 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (13 Nov 2017) by Zhenyao Shen

AR by Linjing Qiu on behalf of the Authors (14 Nov 2017)

Short summary

What are the effects of the Grain for Green project on the water balance in the Loess Plateau of China? Our modeling study indicated that surface runoff and water yield exhibited a decreasing trend with the expansion of woodland on the sloping land because of overland flow retention and intensification of ET, while these effects were at the expense of soil water reduction in the region. Thus, land use planning should consider all water balance components to promote watershed sustainability.