Controls of fluorescent tracer retention by soils and sediments

Bork, Marcus; Lange, Jens; Graf-Rosenfellner, Markus; Lang, Friederike

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-977-2020

Articles | Volume 24, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-977-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-977-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 2

Research article

|

03 Mar 2020

Research article |

| 03 Mar 2020

Controls of fluorescent tracer retention by soils and sediments

Marcus Bork, Jens Lange, Markus Graf-Rosenfellner, and Friederike Lang

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Final revised paper (published on 03 Mar 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 17 May 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Comment to the paper: “Controls of fluorescent tracer retention by soils and sediments” by Marcus Bork et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Jun 2019
- AC1: 'Response to referee 1', Marcus Bork, 16 Sep 2019
RC2: 'Controls of fluorescent tracer retention by soils and sediments', Anonymous Referee #2, 14 Aug 2019
- AC2: 'Response to referee 2', Marcus Bork, 16 Sep 2019

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (02 Oct 2019) by Roberto Greco

AR by Marcus Bork on behalf of the Authors (04 Oct 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Oct 2019) by Roberto Greco

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (18 Nov 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript “Controls of fluorescent tracer retention by soils and sediments” aimed at determining the use and impact of uranine (UR) and sulforhodamine B (SRB) as artificial tracers in soils and sediments.
The study has been highly improved, although more corrections need to be addressed previous acceptance. In addition, some informal expressions are used which are not acceptable for scientific manuscripts.
1- The English is still to revise in the whole paper, as example some parts are specified in the following:

Lines 3-4 pg 1. “Recently, attempts have been made to use such dyes to trace organic pollutants in soil, but the controls of sorption of UR and SRB in soils are still incomplete and poorly standardized”.
Lines 10-13 pg 2 : “Some studies suggest that it is generally possible to use ﬂuorescent tracers to mimic the transport of organic pollutants (Sabatini and Austin, 1991; Passeport et al., 2010; Lange et al., 2011; Durst et al., 2013), although detailed insights into internal mobility controlling processes are missing so far, especially for soil systems.”.. so far?
Lines 18-20 pg 2: Smart and Laidlaw (1977) investigated the sorption of several dye tracers, amongst others UR and SRB, on different organic (humus, sawdust) and inorganic (kaolinite, limestone, orthoquartzite) materials”. .. amongst others?
Lines:
Lines 24-25 pg 2: “UR and SRB adsorbed stronger on positively charged surfaces than on negatively charged ones”.. ones?
Lines 29-30 pg 2: “In the past, UR and SRB ﬂuorescence tracers are mainly used in hydrogeological research to identify water ﬂow in saturated zones such as aquifers and karst regions”.. In the past.. are..?

Lines 23-24 pg 5 : “In the following, the tracer-soil suspension was agitated for 42h until sorption equilibrium”.. in the following?
Line 23 pg 7 : “The adsorption of UR in top- and subsoil strongly decreased with increasing pH” should be corrected to “The adsorption of UR in top- and subsoil strongly decreased by increasing pH” and accordingly all similar sentences.

2- Please better explain the following sentences:
Lines 17-18 pg 2:”A few sorption studies of ﬂuorescent tracers were carried out using pure organic or inorganic sorbents but the controls of sorption were examined rather by random than by systematically controlled experiments (Tab.1)”.
3- In the introduction section on the paper it should be specified what types of contaminant behaviour are better described by using uranine (UR) and sulforhodamine B (SRB) dyes.
4- The authors describe both UR and SRB to be good tracers to predict the fate and transport of similar substances and analyse ﬂow pathways, measure water velocities and determine hydrodynamic dispersion in groundwater, although their experiments are limited to consider batch tests and to obtain sorption isotherms. They should indicate why they only considered them.
5- The introduction to a research paper simply introduces the topic being researched. It should be relatively brief, concise and clear. The introduction contains the aim and objectives of the paper and then three to five reasons, details and/or facts supporting your research followed by a conclusion. The final part of the Introduction of the manuscript should be revised as it contains details should be added to Material and methods and not conclusions were presented.
6- Please indicate a reference justifying your omissions in the experiment set up and assumptions.
7- As specified by the authors, linear sorption isotherms were considered as “it is widely used and enables comparison with literature data”. Please better explain why this was not an outcome from experiments and results.
8- In the result section, Figures and Tables should be clearly introduces and described in the text rather than only reported into brackets, for example Figure 1 shows results for .. etc

Referee Report: PDF

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ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (28 Nov 2019) by Roberto Greco

AR by Marcus Bork on behalf of the Authors (12 Dec 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (07 Jan 2020) by Roberto Greco

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (22 Jan 2020)

ED: Publish as is (24 Jan 2020) by Roberto Greco

AR by Marcus Bork on behalf of the Authors (01 Feb 2020)

Short summary

Fluorescent tracers such as uranine and sulforhodamine B are useful tools to gain knowledge about water and solute fluxes in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In this study we systematically investigated the influence of important soil properties (pH, organic carbon content and texture) on tracer adsorption in soils and sediments. These properties also determine whether the tracers in the respective soil behave conservatively or non-conservatively.