Deriving pedotransfer functions for soil quartz fraction in southern France from reverse modeling

Calvet, Jean-Christophe; Fritz, Noureddine; Berne, Christine; Piguet, Bruno; Maurel, William; Meurey, Catherine

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-2-615-2016

Articles | Volume 2, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-2-615-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-2-615-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 2, issue 4

Original research article

|

09 Dec 2016

Original research article |

| 09 Dec 2016

Deriving pedotransfer functions for soil quartz fraction in southern France from reverse modeling

Jean-Christophe Calvet, Noureddine Fritz, Christine Berne, Bruno Piguet, William Maurel, and Catherine Meurey

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Final revised paper (published on 09 Dec 2016)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 26 Jun 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC C482: 'review comments on Soil Discuss - Calvet 2015', Xinhua Xiao, 24 Sep 2015
- AC C589: 'Response to Reviewer 1', Jean-Christophe Calvet, 17 Nov 2015
RC C486: 'Interactive comment on “Impact of gravels and organic matter on the thermal properties of grassland soils in southern France” by J.-C. Calvet et al.', Tusheng Ren, 27 Sep 2015
- AC C590: 'Response to Reviewer 2', Jean-Christophe Calvet, 17 Nov 2015
EC C487: 'Start discussin', Nunzio Romano, 27 Sep 2015
- AC C591: 'Response to the Editor', Jean-Christophe Calvet, 20 Nov 2015

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (04 Dec 2015) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Jean-Christophe Calvet on behalf of the Authors (13 Jan 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (31 Jan 2016) by Nunzio Romano

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (19 Feb 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This manuscript is a revised version. I notice and appreciate authors have spent much efforts, per the request/recommendation of first-round reviewers, to reanalyze the data, expand the comparative evaluation, add extensive discussion of pedotransfer functions and rewrite to do better job in presentation. Authors’ serious efforts have significantly improved this manuscript in terms of both scientific and presentation quality.

However, presentation is somewhat lacking focus. The objective seems to investigative relationship between thermal properties reverse-modeled quartz fraction and soil textures including gravels and SOM via pedotransfer function. I would like to see a better focused presentation.

Minor comments:
1. Lines 310-323. I believe this section of modeled λsat (λsatMOD) serves alternative way to evaluate the quartz pedotransfer function. Reword to make better clarification.
2. Discussion on pedotransfer function assessment. The Lu et al (2007) dataset was included here to intentionally “assess the applicability of the pedotransfer function for quartz obtained in this study” (Line 404), which turn out to highlight the need of using different predictors (explanatory variables) and/or different parameters in pedotransfer function to model quartz fraction for different soil types. Such a result with across-soil-type assessment is something one would expect. This additional pedotransfer function development for another independent dataset could be made concise (merge or remove related figures) since it does not constitute the true test phase of the French soil types used in this study. I see authors have used bootstrap method as model test.
3. Title. Given the current work, the title should be changed. To me, current title would imply how variation of measured quartz content lead to associated change of soil thermal properties. This is not really what this study is about.
4. Page 244-249 (section 2.7). Remove the bullet style for the several performance scores and conform them to regular text style.
5. Fig 9. Dispensable and can be removed.
6.
Some figures may need consistent/better resolution. List the empirical models in the figures would help.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (12 Oct 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This paper shows great efforts by the authors to analyse soil temperature and thermal conductivity affected by quartz contents and a high variation of the climatic conditions during the year.
In this paper, a topic related to soil and climate sciences are worked in France (21 meteorological stations). However, the introduction is very short with not actual and relevant bibliography, the methods did not present clear concepts or tools about soil properties in this land degraded area (it suppose that it is degraded or this topic is important), the study area was not good explained and, therefore in my opinion, it is impossible to do a discussion (without any cites!) of the results. Without clear information about the methods, how can I good interpret the data?
The results are not clears to support the interpretation and conclusions, because it seems a recompilation of climate and pedological data and directly exposed in the text, with parametric models (also without citations).
The authors should work more in the discussion and to clear the applied methods. The description of the methods (soil collected samples, soil analysis, data collecting are not clear for me, because they are not described in the text).
Firstly, I suggest general comments and finally, attached in the pdf, authors can observe some appreciations to improve and to reach, in my opinion, a greater scientific level of this research. Sorry for the review, but I must be clear and objective with my perception. I hope the author can follow and understand the suggestions (if you considerer).

1) Title: I find the title very clear and precise. But any information about the applied models.
2) Abstract: It needs a couple of sentences about the general focus of the topic. There aren´t any explanation about where is developed the work and the aims. The English is not too correct (sentences too longs… also in the rest).
3) Introduction: Please, the authors must include more actual bibliography. Almost all literature is old and there are a lot of affirmation without citations… cite please! This action will make your paper more interesting and relevant. Actually, the scientific language in English is not correct for me. The most important lack of the introduction is the information related to the grass, the importance of these measurements in your region. This kind of soils are specific from your region (?) and the readers need some pictures (soil profiles, general chemical and physical properties...), information and actual problematic (grass, agriculture, urbanisation...)… Finally, the aims of this work aren´t clear, please, make a concrete paragraph only with the goals: i)…; ii)…; iii)…
4) Methods: Methods, study areas, climatic analysis… they are exposed really confuse. There are a lot of equation (and more in supplementary materials!). Maybe you can reduce this part. Any equation, any model had citation… all is new? If yes, please explain it.
The description of the study area is difficult to understand. Better, I recommend: Study area: 1) first group with some areas 2) second group with some areas 3) third group with some areas … with soil properties, land uses, geology and climatic patterns. Now, a lot of information is repeated and has any correct order. Why do you put only one graphic about one station?
Please, attach more information about the study area in your map and tables.
When you classify the soils where your study areas are situated, you can use actual and international “soil classifications”, which all authors around the world can understand: USDA (2010) or FAO-WRB (2014).

5) Results: Please, the tables are too big and there is a lot of information without explanations (the same for the graphics). Figures have all different types of letters, colours… the resolution is really low (I cannot increase the zoom to read one part of the graphic). Maybe, authors should be considered the possibility to cut some graphics. I´m sure that the authors have really amazing information and they can show the scientific community of soil sciences with only concrete numbers, graphics and some statistical analysis your results.

6) Discussion: Please, put more attention in the author guidelines with the information about what is it a discussion. You should make a comparison between your results and others from different authors, and discuss methods, results and ideas. You need bibliography.

Referee Report: PDF

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (12 Oct 2016) by Artemi Cerdà

AR by Jean-Christophe Calvet on behalf of the Authors (13 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (22 Nov 2016) by Artemi Cerdà

ED: Publish as is (23 Nov 2016) by Jorge Mataix-Solera (Executive editor)

AR by Jean-Christophe Calvet on behalf of the Authors (23 Nov 2016)

Short summary

Soil thermal conductivity in wet conditions can be retrieved together with the soil quartz content using a reverse modelling technique based on sub-hourly soil temperature observations at three depths below the soil surface. A pedotransfer function is proposed for quartz, for the considered region in France. Gravels have a major impact on soil thermal conductivity, and omitting the soil organic matter information tends to enhance this impact.