the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 16 Oct 2023
Soil water sources and its implications on vegetation restoration in the Three-river Headwaters Region during different ablation periods
Zongxing Li
Juan Gui
Baijjuan Zhang
Abstract. Under climate warming, effective restoration and protection of the ecological environment could happen by timely supplementing soil water. So it is crucial to understand the spatial-temporal changes in soil water sources. Two thousand six hundred samples of soil water, precipitation, river water, ground ice, supra-permafrost water, and glacier snow meltwater have been collected from June, August, and September 2020 to quantify the soil water sources in the Three-River Headwater Region under different ablation periods. Results indicated that precipitation, ground ice, and snow meltwater accounted for approximately 72 %, 20 %, and 8 % of soil water during the early ablation period. Snow is completely melted in the heavy and the end of the ablation period, and precipitation contributed to about 90 % and 94 % of soil water, respectively. These recharges also vary markedly with altitude and vegetation type. Various factors influence soil water sources, including temperature, precipitation, vegetation, evapotranspiration, and the freeze-thaw cycle. However, soil water loss will further exacerbate vegetation degradation and pose a significant threat to the ecological security of the “Chinese water tower.” So there is an urgent need to monitor soil water, warn of vegetation degradation associated with soil moisture loss, and identify reasonable water-soil conservation and vegetation restoration patterns.
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Zongxing Li et al.
Status: open (until 11 Dec 2023)
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RC1: 'Comment on hess-2023-240', Anonymous Referee #1, 17 Oct 2023
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This study conducted a detailed analysis on the soil water in the Three-river Headwaters Region, including its spatiotemporal variation, water sources and influence factors. The end member mixing analysis was adopted to determine the contributions of multiple soil water sources, based on the isotope data of different water bodies. The results are based on large amount of field measurement data, and could provide useful information about the soil water in this region, making it worth publishing in HESS. However, there are some issues not clear enough to me, which should be clarified before acceptance. I also recommend to improve the English writing thoroughly with the aid of a native speaker or professional English editing service.
-Introduction: Please introduce the definition and importance of soil water sources, and reduce the references not related to this topic. It seems that the authors are introducing the research background of soil water (e.g., estimation of soil water, the change of soil water under climate change), but suddenly draw the conclusion that the research on the soil water sources is important. In my opinion, they are two different issues.
-Method: The definition of soil water sources is confusing. The authors collected soil water, precipitation, ground ice, river water, supra-permafrost water and glaciers snow meltwater, but only calculated the contributions of precipitation, ground ice and glaciers snow meltwater in the results section. So was the isotope data of river water and supra-permafrost water used in the calculation? Please clarify.
Discussion:
- The authors calculated the correlation between soil moisture and meteorological/vegetation variables in this section, which is not clear to me. If I understand correctly, the soil moisture data was obtained by measuring the soil samples. However, the soils were sampled in a spatially distributed way, which means that they were sampled at several sites in a one-time field work, rather than sampled continuously during a long period, so there is only one soil moisture data in each site/grid in one month. It is confusing for me how to calculate the correlation between the one-time soil water data and the continuous meteorological/vegetation data. Please clarify this in the method section.
- The authors described the correlation analysis results in details in this section. However, given that this paper focused on the soil water sources, I think there should be discussions about the relations between the isotope-based results and the correlation analysis results. Meanwhile, the connection between the water source results and the implications on vegetation restoration is not clear. I suggest the authors to do some analysis on the influence of soil water sources on vegetation, to combine them together.-Conclusions: Please shorten the conclusion section and summarize 3~4 points of most important messages.
-Please find the annotation in the attached pdf file for the minor issues, including comments on English writing, Figure and some specific questions.
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RC2: 'Comment on hess-2023-240', Anonymous Referee #2, 06 Nov 2023
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Journal: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
Title: Soil water sources and its implications on vegetation restoration in the Three-river Headwaters Region during different ablation periods
Author(s): Zongxing Li, Juan Gui, and Baijjuan Zhang
In this work, Zongxing et al., has quantified the soil water sources in the Three-River Headwater Region under different ablation periods used two thousand six hundred samples of soil water, precipitation, river water, ground ice meltwater, supra-permafrost water, and glacier snow meltwater samples. The topic of this paper was new and original and the method was reasonable. The analysis of this article also was perfect. In general, the outcome of this work can be interesting for the scientific community. I suggested that this manuscript should be published after moderate modifications.
- In abstract ：Some sentences are too colloquial, please revise them. For examples the sentence of “So it is crucial to understand the spatial-temporal changes in soil water sources.” and “So there is an urgent need to monitor soil water, warn of vegetation degradation associated with soil moisture loss, and identify reasonable water-soil conservation and vegetation restoration patterns.”
- Line 36：Change “Soil water is a vital water resource, a link between precipitation, surface water, soil water, and groundwater” to “Soil water is an important water resource, also a link between precipitation, surface water, soil water, and groundwater”
- Line 46: Change “Tetzlaff, & Soulsby” to “Tetzlaff and Soulsby”
- Line 107: Change “followed by air temperature and wind speed in the sources region of the Yellow river” to “followed by air temperature and wind speed in the source region of the Yellow River”
- Line 117-118 Change “The TRHR is undergoing a glacier retreat, permafrost degradation, precipitation increase, snowfall decrease, water conservation decrease” to “The TRHR is undergoing a glacier retreat, permafrost degradation, precipitation increase, snowfall decreases, water conservation decrease”
- Line 122-123: Change “So there is an urgent need to quantify the soil water sources to improve the effectiveness of ecological restoration in permafrost regions.” to “Thus there is an urgent need to quantify the soil water sources to improve the effectiveness of ecological restoration in permafrost regions.”
- Line 241: Change “Glaciers snow meltwater” to “Glacier snow meltwater”
- River names in manuscripts should be capitalized. For example “Lancangjiang River”
- Line 298: Change “heavy ablation period” to “strong ablation period”
- Please change all tables to triple table.
- Line 300-301: Change “Again it becomes higher in September, while it exhibits an opposite trend for d-excess (Table.1).” to “It again becomes higher in September, while it exhibits an opposite trend for d-excess (Table.1).”
- Line 319: Give the terms “LWML” and “LEL” a definition when they first appeared
- Line 323-325 Change “The slope and intercept of LEL for the 0‒40 cm layer were the lowest during the heavy ablation period” to “The slope and intercept of LEL for the 0‒40 cm layer was the lowest during the heavy ablation period”
- Line 354: “snow meltwater” or “glacier snow meltwater”?
- Line 354: “supra-permafrost” or “supra-permafrost water”?
- Line 437: please change “Based on the calculation, precipitation, ground ice, and snow meltwater account for approximately 72%, 20%, and 8% of soil water, respectively” to “Based on the calculation, precipitation, ground ice water, and glacier snow meltwater account for approximately 72%, 20%, and 8% of soil water, respectively”
- Please make sure the citation appeared in the article are consistent with those listed in the Reference part.
- The conclusion part is too long. I recommend rephrase this paragraph and state the importance of the findings.
- Please refer to the journal requirements to modify the format of the references
- English writing: The English writing of this manuscript should be improved thoroughly. The issues include the choice of word, grammar issue and the structure of sentence.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2023-240-RC2
Zongxing Li et al.
Zongxing Li et al.
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