Precipitation alters plastic film mulching impacts on soil respiration in an arid area of northwest China

Ming, Guanghui; Hu, Hongchang; Tian, Fuqiang; Peng, Zhenyang; Yang, Pengju; Luo, Yiqi

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3075-2018

Articles | Volume 22, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3075-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3075-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 5

Research article

|

30 May 2018

Research article |

| 30 May 2018

Precipitation alters plastic film mulching impacts on soil respiration in an arid area of northwest China

Guanghui Ming, Hongchang Hu, Fuqiang Tian, Zhenyang Peng, Pengju Yang, and Yiqi Luo

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Final revised paper (published on 30 May 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 11 Aug 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of Precipitation alters plastic film mulching impacts on soil respiration in an arid area of Northwest China', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Aug 2017
- AC1: 'Response to referee #1', Guanghui Ming, 06 Dec 2017
RC2: 'Review of "precipitation alters plastic film mulching impacts on soil respiration in an arid area of Northwest China"', Anonymous Referee #2, 01 Dec 2017
- AC2: 'Response to referee #2', Guanghui Ming, 06 Dec 2017

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (18 Dec 2017) by Nandita Basu

AR by Guanghui Ming on behalf of the Authors (16 Jan 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Mar 2018) by Nandita Basu

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (21 Mar 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript has been much improved from its previous version. The data representation and figures are now better and the focus and message of the manuscript is clear.
The findings of the authors demonstrate the interplay between precipitation, irrigation and their effect on soil respiration under plastic mulching. Though it is perhaps not surprising that these effects are spatially heterogeneous and depend on soil moisture, these aspects of this management strategy have not much been highlighted before. Therefore, I think this manuscript will be a valuable contribution to HESS.

The manuscript could be improved by providing more detailed information on how the average and cumulative respiration rates were calculated. I.e. report the area ratios for the different parts of the field, and what was the daily variability in respiration measured?

Line 383-395: In this part of the discussion, the authors seem to make conclusions about the CO2 emission from different types of plastic mulch. Though this is an interesting part of the manuscript, it is not clear to me how these results follow from the data reported in this manuscript. Is this based on literature information? Or was this part of the findings of this study? This section should be revised to make this more clear.

The writing of the manuscript has been much improved, but there are a few sections that could benefit from a careful language check. For example, but not limited to:

line 37: remove 'the'
line 83-84: check sentence, replace 'import' with 'important'
remove 's' from attentions
line 180: check sentence
Line 366-373: this section is difficult to follow. Check and consider revising
line 437 add: 'findings by' in front of ‘Wang et al….’

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (08 Apr 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The revision of the manuscript titled “Precipitation alters plastic film mulching impacts on 2 soil respiration in an arid area of Northwest China” focused on the effect of plastic film mulching on CO2 respiration and put their findings into the global climate context. The science is of sufficient quality for publication, while some grammatical issues remain (see minor comments below). The discussion is generally well done and well cited, however, there are two areas where the authors could improve their manuscript through relatively minor revisions/additions (see major comments below). Both of these revisions/additions are to improve the context of their findings to the broader community/literature/issues. Once the major and minor comments have been addressed, along with a thorough grammatical edit, I believe the manuscript will suitable for publication.
Major Comments
P388 – 399 What are the broader implications of using the different film/mulch features? Please expand on this paragraph to discuss the importance of plastic selection.
L468 This is an interesting point and an interesting analysis below that does put the results, and conflicting results of other studies, into context. However, I believe that the discussion does not put it in the context of the larger issues; chiefly, depending on annual/seasonal climate (precipitation) is PMF recommended from a CO2 emissions perspective? I strongly suggest the authors add a short discussion on this issue to link their work with the broader community/issue of PFM on a global context. You have 1 sentence (L501-502) in the conclusions that should be expanded in the discussion as it is a very interesting finding (even if it is preliminary).
Minor Comments
L23 replace “this” with “these”
L23 replace “the” with “a”
L30 What is the CO2 flux from the furrow and planting hole? Please provide this for comparison to the plastic mulch
L57 missing “the” before “intensive”
L59 remove comma and replace “which” with “that”
L62 What is the global PFM usage as a percent of arable land? Please include this value so the study can be placed better in the global context
L73-74 replace “, which, however,“ with “that”
L77-78 of which study? Please clarify
L101 It is improper grammar to start a sentence with an abbreviation. Please change any occurrences of this throughout the manuscript.
L128 Please provide the full name of the evaporation pan used and not the abbreviated symbol.
L125 please italicise species names
L152 missing comma before “as”
L170 replace “, i.e.,” with a colon
L252 missing comma before “although”
L363 change “motivated” to “increased”
L361-365 Please provide the DOY beside each event because it is unclear which event you are referring to on the graph. Currently, it is unclear which event is associated with which trend and is difficult to properly evaluate this paragraph.
L383 Please provide values for CO2 emitted.
L432-434 The quadratic (parabolic) SWC Rs relationship is well documented throughout the literature. I suggest adding a few references and maybe a sentence detailing this wide-spread observation.
L438-446 Yes, this relationship has been described as these other equations but as you point out it is typically due to another limiting factor and do not represent the full SWC Rs function. I would add a statement after line 444 to this effect to ensure that the reader is aware of this issue.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (12 Apr 2018) by Nandita Basu

AR by Guanghui Ming on behalf of the Authors (21 Apr 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 May 2018) by Nandita Basu

Short summary

The purpose of this research was to detect the effect of plastic film mulching (PFM), a widely applied cultivation method, on soil respiration. We found that soil respiration was not only affected by PFM, but it was also affected by irrigation and precipitation, and whether the PFM increases soil respiration compared to a non-mulched field largely depends on precipitation in the field. The result has an important meaning for agricultural carbon sequestration in the context of global warming.