Soil Chemical Pollution and Military Actions: A Bibliometric Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear author：
Starting from the actual situation, this paper summarizes the relationship between soil pollution and military action through a large number of documents. Through the interrelated aspects, it is found that human factor development is very important, people with stronger environmental awareness pay more attention to the environmental consequences of their decision-making, and military personnel also need relevant environmental education. These educational efforts will help to improve the knowledge level of the relationship between technology and environment. This article has rigorous structure, rich content and fluent language, but after reading it, I still have the following problems:
1.The title:
The introduction mentioned that the focus was on soil chemical pollution, so it would be better to change the title to soil chemical pollution and military action.
2.Introduction :
Can you briefly introduce the in-depth analysis of Broomandi and others in this study? And the advantages and disadvantages of the analysis.
3.Materials and Methods
The format is a little confused. Please adjust the corresponding format, but it is more neat.
4.Results
1)In 3.1, is the geographical distribution of the nationality of the literature authors related to the countries participating in the war? If relevant, please specify; If not, the conclusion of the relationship between military expenditure and the number of military articles in Table 2 is not accurate enough.
2)Can you briefly introduce the changes in the focus of soil pollution research under the theme of military activities from 2006 to 2016?
3)Part of the content in Figure 6 and Figure 8 is blocked. Can you modify it to make it clearer?
- Discussion
In the factors affecting soil pollution caused by the army, what is the factors that are more proportional?
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Sir/Madame,
first of all, please allow us to express our gratitude for your encouraging words and positive attitude. We are especially grateful for your valuable comments and suggestions.
1.The title:
The introduction mentioned that the focus was on soil chemical pollution, so it would be better to change the title to soil chemical pollution and military action.
Response:
We have modified the title:
Soil Chemical Pollution and Military Actions: a Bibliometric Analysis
2.Introduction:
Can you briefly introduce the in-depth analysis of Broomandi and others in this study?
Response:
We have inserted these sentences:
Formerly, a couple of high-quality review articles have been written on this topic. The most comprehensive one was prepared by Broomandi et al. (2020). Broomandi et al. (2020) have determined a soil pollution index (SPI), which is a geometric mean of the ratios of soil concentration of potentially toxic elements (e.g., Hg, As, Cd, Cu, Ni) and their background („normal”) concentration. [2]
They have determined that the soil pollution on military training grounds is higher by 2-4 orders of magnitude than the background value. The level of ergodic contamination is influenced by the considerable on-site mitigation.
And the advantages and disadvantages of the analysis.
We have added this paragraph:
The bibliometric analysis cannot be considered as an alternative of the high-quality systematic reviews, however, because of its big data approach, it can supply additional information to the formation of the “large picture” of a given field of science. [24,25] Bib-liometric analysis is widely used to determine the position of a given field of science. Of course, this necessitates a relatively high quantity of primary data sources (publications). In our opinion, in case of military action-soil pollution context in our time, soon there will be enough accumulated knowledge and publications to carry out a relatively comprehen-sive bibliometric analysis.
3.Materials and Methods
The format is a little confused. Please adjust the corresponding format, but it is neater.
Response:
We have modified this chapter.
The workflow of bibliometric analysis has followed the generally applied practice of similar studies, but the combination of different algorithms and softwares to achieve optimal results can be considered as a methodological novelty. Our research consisted of four main phases:
- Choosing the most suitable database as the supply of raw data for the analysis. In this step of the research, we have determined the most suitable database for our purpose. In general, there are different potential resources for bibliometric analysis. The most easily accessible would-be Google Scholar. This is the most comprehensive database [26] where the sources from developing countries and the grey literature are well represented, but the database is rather confusing, the criteria of entry of publications into this database are not well-defined, that’s why its usefulness for bibliometric research is highly questionable. [27,28] The Scopus database is another potential candidate as a data source [29], but in this case, the quality control system needs improvement. [30,31] After substantial consideration, we have decided to apply the Web of Science (WoS) database, because of its wide coverage of natural science disciplines and the quality of data. [32] There is a wide consensus in the literature, that this database is suitable for systematic reviews and bibliometric analyses in various parts of science, from medicine to informatics. [33,34]
- Optimisation of the search strategy in the database. This phase consisted of determining the optimal combination of relevant keywords by the application of applied ‘try and error’ based heuristics. The system of WoS offers a wide variety of setting up of search strategies. Different keyword combinations had been tested. The best results have been obtained by application of the search term as follows:
TS=("soil" AND ("pollut*" OR "contamin*" OR "emis*" OR "toxi*" OR "sewag*" OR "befoul") AND ("milit*" OR "arm*") NOT ("armen*"))
We have not applied any restrictions on the language or the document type, because we have supported that a considerable set of materials had been published in non-English languages, not necessarily in the form of high-quality journal publications (the number of journals focusing on military topics is extremely low, compared to the importance of the topics. E.g., there is not a separate Web of Science category for “Military sciences” in WoS categorisation system, and there is no such subject area in Scopus system, either).
On this base, we had been able to collect all the bibliometric units in the database available at the date of data collection (15.01.2022). From this follows that there has not been any sample bias. The only inclusion criterium was the satisfaction of Boolean algebraic search criterion, defined above.
- Analysis of the database. In this phase, we had determined the characteristic features of the database, according to the following indicators:
- basic characteristic features of the dataset, determination of intellectual and geographical properties of the data. [35] For this purpose, we applied the Bibliometrix software developed by Aria and Corrado (2017). [36]
- Analysis of the development of international cooperation patterns. For this purpose we applied the Cytoscape software and its packages. [37]
- Outlining of the epistemological development of knowledge on ‘military activity’ – ‘soil contamination’ problem, followed by the clustering of articles based of their resources, cited in different publications on base of algorithms, offered by CitNetExplorer software, as a result of the work of van Eck and Ludo (2014). [38]
- The basic directions of the research were characterized and visualised by the clustering of co-occurrence of words. For this purpose we applied the VOSviewer software, developed by van Eck and Ludo (2010). [39]
- The pieces of information, obtained in the third phase of the research lend themselves to determine some generalizable deductions and suggestions for further improvement of environmental policy, regulatory framework, research, and human resource development.
4.Results
1) In 3.1, is the geographical distribution of the nationality of the literature authors related to the countries participating in the war? If relevant, please specify; If not, the conclusion of the relationship between military expenditure and the number of military articles in Table 2 is not accurate enough.
Response:
We have inserted these sentences:
This can be explained by the fact that in the conflicts of the last half century, the military of the most developed states (e.g., USA, UK, France) have taken an active part from Vietnam to Afghanistan. On the other hand, in these countries we see an extremely strong green movement, and the sensibility of the population towards the environmental pollution is very high. From this follows that there is a pressure on governments in general and mili-tary in particular to pay considerable attention to environmental problems, and to the ad-verse consequences of military activity. In the case of some countries (e.g., China), the analysis of soil offers a favorable possibility to prepare a preventive (pro-active) environ-mental policy. Last but not least, for some countries (e.g., Italy, Germany, South Korea, France), the environmental consequences of military activities in the first and second world war remain only partially known to our days.
2) Can you briefly introduce the changes in the focus of soil pollution research under the theme of military activities from 2006 to 2016?
We have inserted the following sentences:
The last years of military-caused soil pollution research can be characterized as a more focused continuation of former research activities. This can be explained by the fact that the focus of the research has been shifting from research on former theaters of war to military training grounds and modern wars.
3) Part of the content in Figure 6 and Figure 8 is blocked. Can you modify it to make it clearer?
Response:
We do not experience any problems with the quality of the figures.
- Discussion
In the factors affecting soil pollution caused by the army, what is the factors that are more proportional?
Response:
The most important factor of military-activity related soil chemical pollution is the heavy metal contamination, because in such cases we cannot expect natural degradation. This fact is in line with the results of Broomandi et al. (2020) and well reflected in tendencies of the focus-shifting of works. [2]
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript falls within the scope of the journal. The topic selection of the manuscript has the significance of environmental sustainability, but the research depth of the manuscript is lack. Therefore, I think that the manuscript will need revision before the work can be published.
Main comments:
- It is necessary to increase the expression of analysis in Abstract, especially the presentation of data.
- The introduction writing is very poor. Although I can roughly understand it, it is not logical, which is not conducive to readers' reading and needs to be rewritten. It is suggested to increase the causes of soil pollution caused by military activities and list cases. In addition, in the introduction, I suggest that the relevant description of the literature retrieval method used in this study should be appropriately added.
- Part 3.3 is not strongly related to the theme of the article.
- The strategic distribution map in Section 3.4 can be analyzed in combination with military activities in recent years.
- The correlation analysis between military activities and soil pollution is not enough. It is necessary to increase the research on the relationship between factors such as time, types of military activities and total categories of soil pollutants.
- The manuscript needs to be polished by professionals.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Introduction: i Suggest to improve this section, underlines the evolution over the time between soil Pollution and military activities. I like the definition of the aim of the article, but is necessary to add in this section the article composition and its development.
Materials and Methods: Why have you chosen the Wos database?, which is the sample definition? the inclusion and exclusion criteria?.
The results are clear and the methodology is strong, please improve the quality of the figure 7.
Conclusion are in line with the results, but is necessary to improve the liked with the different implications.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper has been greatly improved after modification, but the image quality is very poor. Especially in figures 6 and 8, the font needs to be enlarged to at least ensure that the reader can see the contents of the figure clearly.
The Abstract needs to be more clear and detailed, and it is suggested to add analytical expression. As we all know, chemical pollution is the main content of military pollution, so why is the conclusion "analysis of chemical agents can be considered as a highly developed, relatively isolated topic". What are the results of literature analysis？
Author Response
Dear Sir/Madame,
thank you very much for your kind attention and suggestions.
We have deleted the last sentence of summary, and improved the quality of figures 4,5,6,8.
Thank you once again for your comments and efforts
Reviewer 3 Report
Well done
Author Response
Dear Sir/Madame,
thank you for your kind help and suggestions.
We have deleted the unnicessary, hardly understandable sentences from introduction, and improved the quality of Figurest No. 4,5,6,8.
