Comprehensive Review regarding the Profile of the Microplastic Pollution in the Coastal Area of the Black Sea
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a well-written and comprehensive review on MPs pollution in a critically important area in terms of environmental impact.
I have few indications to strengthen the manuscript:
Intro: without indulging in political considerations, still the Intro might benefit from a short additional comment on the importance of having a picture of MPs pollution in the Black Sea area before the actual crisis, to facilitate efforts to understand the impact of such crisis on the pollution in this area.
Discussion: the review doesn’t discuss the impact of textile cellulose fibers or rayon; however, they should be considered along with MPs, as they can transfer harmful dyes and contaminants to the environment/aquatic fauna. The authors should revise their discussion in this sense, mentioning the importance of this type of pollution as recently discussed in the literature (e.g.: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112371, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.148) and commenting on its potential impact in the Black Sea area.
Fig. 1. Maybe colors might help increase readability. Panel B: please homogenize significant digits and add error bars as needed.
Table 1: please homogenize significant digits and add error bars as needed.
Author Response
Comment 1: Intro: without indulging in political considerations, still the Intro might benefit from a short additional comment on the importance of having a picture of MPs pollution in the Black Sea area before the actual crisis, to facilitate efforts to understand the impact of such crisis on the pollution in this area.
Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have completed the introduction part starting from line 35.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript reviewed the knowledge of microplastic pollution in the Black Sea. As a valuable information for sustainable development, this work is recommended to be published.
Before publication, revisions should be made according to the following several recommendations,
1, title, the study area is limited to the coastal area (or riveran countries) instead of the whole Black Sea. Please add ‘in the coastal area in the black sea’.
2, unit, microplastics in water, mps m-3 in line 208, but mps mc-1 inline237. Please be consistent.
3, riveran vs. riparian, please use only one of them.
4, line 117, year-1, be superscript.
5, organization, part 2, 3, 4, 5, should be combined into part 1 introduction. Part 2, there was no 2.2.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Comment 2: Discussion: the review doesn’t discuss the impact of textile cellulose fibers or rayon; however, they should be considered along with MPs, as they can transfer harmful dyes and contaminants to the environment/aquatic fauna. The authors should revise their discussion in this sense, mentioning the importance of this type of pollution as recently discussed in the literature (e.g.:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112371,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.07.148) and commenting on its potential impact in the Black Sea area.
Response: We agree with this and have incorporated your suggestion into the manuscript starting at line 63.
Comment 3: Fig. 1. Maybe colors might help increase readability. Panel B: please homogenize significant digits
Response: Thank you for your observation. We changed the layout and homogenized the figure in the hope that it is now easier to understand. In the revised manuscript you will find it as Figure 3.
Comment 4: Table 1: please homogenize significant digits and add error bars as needed.
Response: Thank you for your observation, but Table 1 shows the original amounts of microplastics found in the Black Sea, error bars and significant figures have been homogenized in Figure 3.
Comments from Reviewer 2
Comment 1: title, the study area is limited to the coastal area (or riveran countries) instead of the whole Black Sea. Please add ‘in the coastal area in the black sea’.
Response: Thank you, we have changed the title according to your suggestion.
Comment 2: unit, microplastics in water, mps m-3 in line 208, but mps mc-1 inline237. Please be consistent.
Response: Thank you for your attention to our manuscript, we have corrected these typos.
Comment 3: riveran vs. riparian, please use only one of them.
Response: We are very thankful for your observation. We made changes in our manuscript and only "riveran" was used.
Comment 4: line 117, year-1, be superscript.
Response: Thank you for your attention to our manuscript, we have corrected this typo.
Comment 5: organization, part 2, 3, 4, 5, should be combined into part 1 introduction. Part 2, there was no 2.2.
Response: We agree with this suggestion and have incorporated it into the manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript needs critical revision before acceptance into journal for publication. The possible suggestions/reviews are as follows:
- The abstract of the manuscripts needs revision with core novelty and findings of the research work.
- Some concluding sentences in first paragraph of the introduction section need to be supported by references, and it's good to cite very recent papers in the introduction to support your discussion. Kindly fill this gap with 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.115758.
- Also, I suggest that authors should consider highlighting the toxicity and harmful effects of plastics in form of Figure. This is to justify the novelty of the current research and to support your discussion.
- The reviewed methodology should be innovative enough and pictorially represented for better readability.
- The results are presented well in the manuscript however the manuscript lacks critical discussions on the science behind the obtained results.
Author Response
Comment 1: The abstract of the manuscripts needs revision with core novelty and findings of the research work.
Response: Thanks for your suggestion, we have revised our abstract in the manuscript. Our core novelty and findings in this review are the current perspective on microplastic pollution in the Black Sea, hoping to be a starting point for future research and debate on its evolution over the years.
Comment 2: Some concluding sentences in first paragraph of the introduction section need to be supported by references, and it's good to cite very recent papers in the introduction to support your discussion. Kindly fill this gap with 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.115758.
Response: Thank you for the very reasonable point and recommendation, we have inserted it into the manuscript starting at line 152.
Comment 3: Also, I suggest that authors should consider highlighting the toxicity and harmful effects of plastics in form of Figure. This is to justify the novelty of the current research and to support your discussion.
Response: We agreed with your kind suggestion, you can find it as Figure 1.
Comment 4: The reviewed methodology should be innovative enough and pictorially represented for better readability.
Response: We agreed with your kind suggestion, you will find it as Figure 2.
Comment 5: The results are presented well in the manuscript however the manuscript lacks critical discussions on the science behind the obtained results.
Response: Thanks for the suggestion, you raise an important point here, but this is a review paper and our aim is to capitalize on the results from the literature and get an overview of microplastic pollution according to the specific characteristics of the Black Sea and current awareness.
In addition to the above comments, possible spelling and grammatical errors were checked and corrected.
We are looking forward to hearing from you good news regarding our submission and to respond to any further questions and comments you may have.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
It can be seen that the author's manuscript has been carefully and effectively revised. However, my advice is accept.
