PONE-D-25-16781A comprehensive crop suitability assessment under modern irrigation system in arid croplandsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Shokr,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Somayeh Soltani-Gerdefaramarzi, Ph. D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for your submission to our journal. After careful review, the referees have provided valuable feedback that requires revision of your manuscript.

I kindly ask you to revise your article in accordance with the reviewers’ comments and suggestions. Once the revisions are complete, please resubmit your manuscript for further consideration.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This article has made significant contributions in the field of crop suitability assessment in arid regions. The methods are scientific and the results have practical significance. However, it needs further improvement in data presentation, detailed description of the methods and writing norms. Overall, the quality is above average and it is suitable to be used as a reference basis for regional agricultural planning. The detailed opinions are as follows.

1. Keywords can include terms such as arid croplands.

2. In the introduction, the background of climate change and water resource shortage is mentioned, but the uniqueness of the study area and its impact on agriculture can be more specifically described. Data or references on the specific water resource situation and agricultural development challenges in the western Nile Delta of Egypt can be added.

3. In the methods section, when describing fuzzy logic, a more detailed explanation of how the upper and lower limit values are selected and how they are related to crop demands can be provided.

4. The data presentation in the results section needs to be more intuitive. Tables or charts can be used to enhance readability. For example, the distribution ratio of different crop suitability grades can be transformed into bar charts or pie charts.

5. The discussion section needs to make a more in-depth comparison of the results with existing studies, especially with the research results of other arid regions. In addition, the limitations of the method, such as sample size and spatial resolution, can be discussed, as well as the directions for future research.

6. The use of professional terms is inconsistent, with "center pivot" and "central pivot" being used interchangeably.

Reviewer #2: 1. What was the selection of criteria or factors based on? Please explain.

2. In the discussion section, it is better to make comparisons with the researches of others and the research done, and for the presented arguments, be sure to use valid and up-to-date references.

3. The advantages and disadvantages of the research done should be said.

4. Please provide appropriate and valid references for all provided relationships.

5. In the AHP method, did you use the opinions of relevant experts in the form of a questionnaire to determine the importance of the factors in the pairwise comparison matrix?

6. Please use the papers (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10327-x, https://doi.org/10.1080/03650340.2018.1549363, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2017.09.012, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.05.046, https://doi.org/10.1080/00103624.2022.2072511; https://doi.org/10.1080/03067319.2020.1746775; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10659-8; https://doi.org/10.1080/00103624.2019.1626870) to improve the quality of the manuscript and use and add them to improve the quality of the manuscript, especially the introduction and discussion of the manuscript, description and interpretation of properties and select the criteria.

7. Please give the names of soils according to the WRB system.

8. What was the accuracy of the methods used? By which criteria are the methods evaluated?

9. Please check the grammar of the whole text with a native speaker and fix the errors.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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A comprehensive crop suitability assessment under modern irrigation system in arid croplands

PONE-D-25-16781R1

Dear Dr. Shokr,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Somayeh Soltani-Gerdefaramarzi, Ph. D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Dear authors

congratulations.

thanks for your corrections and improvement of manuscript

best wishes

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #2:

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