Temporal Variations in Temperature and Moisture Soil Profiles in a Mediterranean Maquis Forest in Greece

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Generally, the manuscript is well written and relatively easy to follow; however, a high number of mentioned numbers and abbreviations are making the reading not so pleasant. The Manuscript describes outcomes from 6-years long monitoring of soil temperature and moisture content of the top 70 cm of a silty loam forest soil in Greece. Although the number of data is rather high (considering measurements in 1-hour interval) and a nice graphical data interpretation is presented, I miss some additional value of the presented results. Further analyses, correlations, or use which can be applied to the resulting data. Water retention and water availability to plants became crucial characteristics in adaptation strategies mitigating the effects of climate change. Especially in time of ongoing climate change, some comparison to historical data or simulation considering some climate scenario would be interesting.

 In total, 82 references are used within the Manuscript. From this number, 10 is not older than 3 years, so current literature is utilized. But such a high number of references is bringing the question whether all the sources are really necessary.

 There are four major issues, which in my opinion, need to be addressed in the Manuscript, before its publication. A list of minor issues follows.

Major issues:

 1.     The soil description of the study area is rather poor. The soil heterogeneity is not characterized and the number of measurement points is not justified.

 2.     How was the measurement accuracy of the ECH2O EC-TM sensors determined? There is no indication of own sensor calibration and/or checking by the reference method.  

 3.     No details about the measurement steps of the soil water retention curve (pF curve) and of the k(theta) curve are provided. What device has been used for k(theta) determination in the field? Or what data was used for the k(theta) optimization mentioned on line 168? The soil water retention curve or pF curve are usually fitted to pF = 4.18 (PWP) or a bit higher, but not above pF =7, as the dry soil is attributed to pF  = 7 (which is as much as 10^7 or 10 000 000 cm, or 9810 bar). Dexter and Richard (2009) stated that the amount of adsorbed water on soil particle surfaces is zero at pF=6.6. That is why the methodology of the presented parameters needs to be properly explained and the outcomes of the RETC program properly presented; in reality at the pF=10, in any soil, there can not be water content of 5% as shown in Figure 3.

 4.     Since there is no novelty in instrumentation or in methodology, the results should be somehow applied. Or at least the importance of such study should be described into more details.

 

Minor issues:

Lines 24 -25: Keywords – Keywords should not repeat the words in the Manuscript title.

 Line 91: …exceedance of 1,000 mm annual rainfall….

 Line 104: The abbreviation for meteorological station (MS) is not necessary. It appears only in two places within the whole manuscript.

 Line 113 – Figure 2: The axis titles should be explained. The decimals are not necessary. If you prefer to keep them, use decimal points instead of commas.

 Line 128: In-text citations Rodrigo & Avila (2001) and Llorens &Domingo (2007) are not numbered. There is an in-text citation of Avila and Rodrigo [67] on line 287 and Llorens et al. [7] …but  they do not fit. Please check the citations and references.

 Line 188: Unit of the wilting point value cubic (3) should be as superscript

 Line 299: Statement that the hydraulic conductivity of the soil is relatively low. Saturated hydraulic conductivity of a value of 4.5 cm/hour is usually considered as moderately high (e.g. Panagos et al., 2014)

 Line 321: Figure 7 – In my opinion similar graph, showing minimum and maximum daily values of soil temperature would also be interesting.

 Line 354: Figure 8 – Daily soil profile temperatures  - based on averaged daily values? The coloured scale should contain the unit of °C. The secondary y axis should also be described. Since there is another characteristic plotted on the secondary axis on Figure 9. In addition to that – axes description on Figure 9 is in bold and on Figure 8 is not in bold.

 Lines 416 and 436: Reference to a non-existing Figure 10. 

 Lines 420-421: It is difficult to state without evidence that water moves faster in the top 20 cm than in the rest of the profile on the basis of daily averaged SM data. Saturated hydraulic conductivity for each layer should be compared or a immediate dynamics of movement of the wetting front during the precipitation event considering water storage in the upper soil layers.

 Line 435: Please explain the statement “waterproofing is almost vertical at all depths”

 Line 435: Hysteresis phenomenon  - as it is not clear to which Figure and characteristics it is related, the sentence should be reformulated.

 

Final remarks:

References – Reference no. 59 does not look correct. Probably Landon (1991)?

Usually, capitalized name of the journals is used; e.g. Soil Science Society of America Journal (and not Soil science society of America journal) etc. Check the journal guidelines and correct accordingly.

 Writing of units – Usually, there is a space between the number and relevant unit; e.g. 50 mm (and not 50mm). Check the journal guidelines and correct accordingly.

 

Kind regards,

Your reviewer

 

References:

Dexter A, Richard G. 2009. Water Potentials Produced by Oven-Drying of Soil Samples. Soil Science Society of America Journal - SSSAJ 73. http://doi.org/ 10.2136/sssaj2008.0294N

Landon, J.R. (1991). Booker Tropical Soil Manual: A Handbook for Soil Survey and Agricultural Land Evaluation in the Tropics and Subtropics (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315846842

Panagos, P., Meusburger, K., Ballabio, C., Borrelli, P., and Alewell, C. (2014), Soil erodibility in Europe: A high-resolution dataset based on LUCAS, Science of The Total Environment, s 479–480, 189–200.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Bourletsikas et al. report that “Temporal variations of the temperature and moisture soil profiles in a Mediterranean maquis forest in Greece”. This study investigated the temporal variations and movement of soil water to deeper layers and the soil temperature changes with six years data in an experimental evergreen broadleaved mixed maquis plot in Greece. This helps to more clearly understand the role of soil water storage and soil temperature in eco-hydrological modellings in similar Mediterranean environments. The text is well-written and clear. Nevertheless, there are some minor revisions that need to be addressed before the publication of this manuscript.

1 In line 333, “The results clearly show that ST is affected by Taver at different depths, but less so as depth increases.” It would be better to increase the correlation analysis between soil and air temperatures.

2 The conclusion could be reduced to some sharp conclusions retained

3 In figure 3, the vertical headings of the y-axis should be oriented in the same direction.

4 Figure 4 and 5 would have been better if it had an X-axis.

5 In the manuscript, “dryer” should be “drier”

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please find the attached comments

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors, 

Thank you for your careful review and addressing my comments. I have found only few minor corrections to be performed. They are listed below. I also need to express few notes related to your Manuscript. 

I believe that your Manuscript has been improved and I do recommend its publication after ensuring few minor corrections. 

Kind regards, 

your reviewer

 

Notes: 

1.      The uploaded file did not show the revision markup, so the line number indications did not fit. However, the revisions could be identified based on the Response letter. That is also why it took me longer time to go through the revised version of your Manuscript.

 2.      Measured retention data only up to 5000 hPa (which means 5 bars or 5100 cm of water) while the wilting point is defined for pF = 4.18 which corresponds to the pressure of 15 bars). SM 0.115 is relatively low, but depending on the soil type, it might bring the plants to stress or not. E.g. for sandy soil, the wilting point is found between 5 and 10% vol. while for clay soils it is between 15 and 20% vol. (https://nrcca.cals.cornell.edu/soil/CA2/CA0212.1-3.php). So the SM value cannot provide sufficient information about the stress. It would be advantageous to measure the retention curve data also for 15 bars to have measured wilting point value (and not just estimate it).

 3.      Section 2.2.2. – SM measurement – the reason why the question about the calibration was placed deals with the possible higher content of organic matter, which affects the measurements. Also closer vicinity of big roots or stones might alter the sensor outcomes. The SM values could be checked easily on the basis of the undisturbed soil samples. 

 

 

Minor corrections: 

Figure 3 still shows around 3 or 4% of SM for pF = 7 which is not correct – use at least some dashed line and bring the value to 0 for such high pressures if you intend to display them there.

 Line 226: caption of Table 1:  …. and concentrations of C και – the Greek symbols probably do not belong there.

 

 Line 235 – pF value for the WP is 4.18 (15 bars) and not 4.141

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

attached you will find our response to your comments and suggestions which are highly acknowledged because they enhanced our work.

Best regards,

Nikolaos Proutsos

Athanassios Bourletsikas 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx