Dear Editors and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and comments on our manuscript titled “Temporal variability in soil moisture after thinning in semi-arid Picea crassifolia plantations in northwestern China” (FORECO_2017_459). These comments helped us improve our manuscript, and provided important guidance for future research.
We have addressed the editor’s and the reviewers’ comments to the best of our abilities, and revised text to meet the Forest Ecology and Management style requirements. We hope this meets your requirements for a publication.
We marked the revised portions in red and highlighted them yellow in the manuscript. The main comments and our specific responses are detailed below: Editor:
Please explain how the results in this paper are significantly different from those in Zhu, X., He, Z.B., Du, J., Yang, J.J., Chen, L.F., 2015. Effects of thinning on the soil moisture of the Picea crassifolia plantation in Qilian Mountains. Forest Research. 28, 55–60.)
Response: We apologize for our earlier lack of clarity about the differences between our study and those in “Zhu, X., He, Z.B., Du, J., Yang, J.J., Chen, L.F., 2015. Effects of thinning on the soil moisture of the Picea crassifolia plantation in Qilian
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Mountains. Forest Research. 28, 55–60” (named “previous article” below). Specifically, we found three main differences in the temporal variability and hydrological responses of soil moisture between our study and the “previous article”.
First, the scope of data analysis and use were different: The “previous article” just applied the one growing season data (from June 28th to October 25th 2013) from the natural forest and the plantations with no thinning and thinned in 20% intensity. In addition, the “previous article” also has not considered the effect of 40% thinning on the soil moisture of the Picea crassifolia plantation. However, in the present study, we applied four years data (from June 27th 2012 to October 30th 2015 in HD and NF; from January 1th 2014 to October 29th 2015 in MD and LD) from the natural forest and the plantations with no thinning, thinned in 20%, and thinned in 40% intensity to analysis the temporal variability and hydrological responses of soil moisture in semi-arid Picea crassifolia plantations in northwestern China.
Second, the content of the research was different: The “previous article” only considered the spatial and temporal dynamic changes of soil moisture, but did not involve the inter-annual, and seasonal dynamic changes of the soil moisture. In the present study, however, not only did we considered the effects of thinning on the spatial and temporal dynamic changes, the inter-annual changes, and seasonal dynamic changes of the soil moisture; but we also considered the changes in soil hydrological response after thinning. Our goals were to understand the changes in soil hydrological response and soil moisture dynamics, and to determine whether thinning management can effectively improve the state of soil moisture in the subalpine Picea
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crassifolia plantations in the Qilian Mountains.
Third, the research purpose and the result were also different: The mainly purpose of the “previous article” was to preliminary explore the thinning on the plantation forest soil moisture, and they found that the intermediate thinning can significantly increase soil moisture content at the depth of 60 cm. However, they didn’t point out that which or what the thinning intensity or plantation density can be benefit to sustainability of planted forests in these water-limited regions. In this study, not only we did confirmed that the intermediate thinning can significantly increase soil moisture content at the deep soil layer, but we also found that high planting density was the main cause of severe soil moisture deficits in the long-term, and it could be mitigated by 20 - 40% thinning (~3139 trees ha-1). In addition, by investigating the effect of thinning on the soil hydrological response, we found that soil hydrological response may be temporarily modified by thinning according to changes in canopy structure, precipitation properties, and antecedent soil moisture conditions. Soil moisture in natural forest rapidly infiltrated into deep soil, which greatly improved the efficiency of precipitation use. Thinning significantly increased the capacity for soil infiltration, and moderate thinning intensity may be conducive to deep soil-water recharge. Further, according to the global circulation prediction models and trend analysis results and weather patterns, deep VSWC may increase if precipitation patterns shift to produce larger but less frequent rainfall events during the growing season, and this change will benefit growth of the vegetation planted at higher density in this semi-arid region.
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Reviewer 1
I found the topic very interesting. The scientific (experimental) set-up is valid and the data is presented clearly, and analyzed in detail. My detailed comments are all in the attached pdf-file.
Response: Thank you for your encouraging remarks and valuable comments. We corrected our text according to your comments submitted in the attached pdf-file. Our responses to your comments are as follows:
Comments in attached pdf-file
1. Keywords: maybe re-consider “Rainfall”
Response: We fully agree that it is necessary to re-consider “Rainfall” in the Keywords section. In addition, the statement of “Rainfall” was corrected as “Soil hydrological response” (L31).
2. Ln. 37: Expand, i.e. why are these specific regions water-limited.
Response: We apologize for our earlier lack of clarity. To increase clarity, we have
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re-written this sentence accordingly, and we have corrected “Grassland afforestation is critical in efforts to prevent wide-spread land degradation in arid and semi-arid regions of China (Chen et al., 2008a; Yang et al., 2014). However, sustainability of planted forests is severely limited by soil moisture conditions. Soil moisture is fundamental to sustainability in water-limited ecosystems (Newman et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2014).” as “Grassland afforestation is critical in efforts to prevent wide-spread land degradation in arid and semi-arid regions of China (Chen et al., 2008a; Yang et al., 2014), where rainfall is the main source of soil moisture, and where many vegetation restoration projects were implemented (Li, 2004). However, soil moisture is the most crucial factor to sustainability of planted forests in these water-limited ecosystems (Newman et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2014). (L35-40)”.
3. Ln. 47: What is meant by “statistical moments of soil moisture, such as mean and variance”?
Response: It is meant that changes to canopy structure due to large-scale clearings or intermediate disturbance events may lead to changes in the mean and the variance of the soil moisture. We amended our text to clarify, and now it reads: “Changes to forest canopy structure due to large-scale harvesting may lead to changes in soil properties, residual tree growth, and the mean and the variance of the soil moisture (Chen et al., 1993; Olchev et al., 2009; He et al., 2013; Kaarakka et al., 2014).” (L48-51).
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