the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 23 May 2022
Semantics about soil organic carbon storage: DATA4C+, a comprehensive thesaurus and classification of management practices in agriculture and forestry
Abstract. Identifying the drivers of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock changes is of utmost importance to contribute to global challenges like climate change, land degradation, biodiversity loss or food security. Evaluating the impacts of land-use and management practices in agriculture and forestry on SOC is still challenging. Merging datasets or making databases interoperable is a promising way but still with several semantic challenges. So far, a comprehensive thesaurus and classification of management practices in agriculture and forestry is lacking, especially while focussing on SOC storage. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to present a first comprehensive thesaurus for management practices driving SOC storage (DATA4C+). The DATA4C+ thesaurus contains 226 classified and defined terms related to land management practices in agriculture and forestry. It is organized as a hierarchical tree reflecting the drivers of SOC storage. It is oriented to be used by scientists in agronomy, forestry and soil sciences with the aim of uniformizing the description of practices influencing SOC in their original research. It is accessible in Agroportal (http://agroportal.lirmm.fr/ontologies/DATA4CPLUS) to enhance its findability, accessibility, interoperability and re-use by scientists and others such as laboratories or land managers. Future uses of the DATA4C+ thesaurus will be crucial to improve and enrich it, but also to raise the quality of meta-analyses on SOC, and ultimately help policy-makers to identify efficient agricultural and forest management practices to enhance SOC storage.
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Notice on discussion status
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
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Preprint
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Supplement
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
- Preprint
(2200 KB) - Metadata XML
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Supplement
(301 KB) - BibTeX
- EndNote
- Final revised paper
Journal article(s) based on this preprint
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-115', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Jun 2022
This paper describes a first attempt to synthesise definitions of interventions known from the literature to affect soil organic carbon. The output of this is an openly available database, DATA4C+, which can be accessed online and downloaded. The target end users include researchers and land managers. The objective is to improve consistency in the terms used to describe land management interventions to assist the ease of use of experimental data in e.g. metanalyses.
The aim is commendable and consistency in definitions and description will undoubtedly aid more powerful analyses of data to be conducted. Since this is a descriptive manuscript rather than experimental, this is reflected in the review.
This work is of scientific value, and as the first attempt of its kind represents a novel contribution. It is well presented and the language is very well written.
It certainly falls within the scope of the journal and should be of broad international interest and therefore warrants consideration for publication.
There are a few points I would like to address to the authors:
- How was the initial literature search conducted? There is information regarding how certain definitions were excluded, but not how papers were searched in the first instance.
- I am not sure what value Table 1 gives? I don’t think I understand it (my fault, probably) but think it needs explaining in more detail or excluding.
- Was there a quantitative method for ‘testing’ the thesaurus? It seems that there were discussions around it but perhaps where was a more structured way of testing the definitions. Can this be explained further?
- The gatekeepers are listed as Scientific and Technical Committee of the 4 per 1000 Initiative. How often will these meet to discuss new entries? Will previous entries be reviewed?
This paper describes a first attempt to synthesise definitions of interventions known from the literature to affect soil organic carbon. The output of this is an openly available database, DATA4C+, which can be accessed online and downloaded. The target end users include researchers and land managers. The objective is to improve consistency in the terms used to describe land management interventions to assist the ease of use of experimental data in e.g. metanalyses.
The aim is commendable and consistency in definitions and description will undoubtedly aid more powerful analyses of data to be conducted. Since this is a descriptive manuscript rather than experimental, this is reflected in the review.
This work is of scientific value, and as the first attempt of its kind represents a novel contribution. It is well presented and the language is very well written.
It certainly falls within the scope of the journal and should be of broad international interest and therefore warrants consideration for publication.
There are a few points I would like to address to the authors:
- How was the initial literature search conducted? There is information regarding how certain definitions were excluded, but not how papers were searched in the first instance.
- I am not sure what value Table 1 gives? I don’t think I understand it (my fault, probably) but think it needs explaining in more detail or excluding.
- Was there a quantitative method for ‘testing’ the thesaurus? It seems that there were discussions around it but perhaps where was a more structured way of testing the definitions. Can this be explained further?
- The gatekeepers are listed as Scientific and Technical Committee of the 4 per 1000 Initiative. How often will these meet to discuss new entries? Will previous entries be reviewed?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-115-RC1 - AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Julien Demenois, 24 Aug 2022
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-115', Jonathan Sanderman, 20 Nov 2022
I laud the authors for undertaking the development of a thesaurus for land use/management terms as they relate to soil organic carbon. I absolutely agree that imprecise terminology hinders our field. Overall, this manuscript is in good shape after the authors have addressed the comments from the first round of review.
I do disagree with the authors that all conventional tillage can be lumped together but I also understand their reasoning. There are well known differences between moldboard and shallow disk tillage (disks can cut anywhere from 5 to 20+ cm into the earth) with the former truly inverting the soil and the later only breaking up the surface.
My only concern, and I’m not sure how this would or should even be addressed in this manuscript, is that there seems to be an assumption that just because the authors have made this thesaurus, other scientists are going to start using it. Is there a plan to promote and educate? Perhaps that is the job of the 4p1000 initiative.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-115-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Julien Demenois, 25 Nov 2022
Dear reviewer,
We would like to thank for your positive feedbacks and your comments and questions. In a time of scarcity of reviewers it is particularly appreciated.
Please find attached our detailed answers.
Yours sincerely,
Julien Demenois on behalf of the co-authors.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Julien Demenois, 25 Nov 2022
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-115', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Jun 2022
This paper describes a first attempt to synthesise definitions of interventions known from the literature to affect soil organic carbon. The output of this is an openly available database, DATA4C+, which can be accessed online and downloaded. The target end users include researchers and land managers. The objective is to improve consistency in the terms used to describe land management interventions to assist the ease of use of experimental data in e.g. metanalyses.
The aim is commendable and consistency in definitions and description will undoubtedly aid more powerful analyses of data to be conducted. Since this is a descriptive manuscript rather than experimental, this is reflected in the review.
This work is of scientific value, and as the first attempt of its kind represents a novel contribution. It is well presented and the language is very well written.
It certainly falls within the scope of the journal and should be of broad international interest and therefore warrants consideration for publication.
There are a few points I would like to address to the authors:
- How was the initial literature search conducted? There is information regarding how certain definitions were excluded, but not how papers were searched in the first instance.
- I am not sure what value Table 1 gives? I don’t think I understand it (my fault, probably) but think it needs explaining in more detail or excluding.
- Was there a quantitative method for ‘testing’ the thesaurus? It seems that there were discussions around it but perhaps where was a more structured way of testing the definitions. Can this be explained further?
- The gatekeepers are listed as Scientific and Technical Committee of the 4 per 1000 Initiative. How often will these meet to discuss new entries? Will previous entries be reviewed?
This paper describes a first attempt to synthesise definitions of interventions known from the literature to affect soil organic carbon. The output of this is an openly available database, DATA4C+, which can be accessed online and downloaded. The target end users include researchers and land managers. The objective is to improve consistency in the terms used to describe land management interventions to assist the ease of use of experimental data in e.g. metanalyses.
The aim is commendable and consistency in definitions and description will undoubtedly aid more powerful analyses of data to be conducted. Since this is a descriptive manuscript rather than experimental, this is reflected in the review.
This work is of scientific value, and as the first attempt of its kind represents a novel contribution. It is well presented and the language is very well written.
It certainly falls within the scope of the journal and should be of broad international interest and therefore warrants consideration for publication.
There are a few points I would like to address to the authors:
- How was the initial literature search conducted? There is information regarding how certain definitions were excluded, but not how papers were searched in the first instance.
- I am not sure what value Table 1 gives? I don’t think I understand it (my fault, probably) but think it needs explaining in more detail or excluding.
- Was there a quantitative method for ‘testing’ the thesaurus? It seems that there were discussions around it but perhaps where was a more structured way of testing the definitions. Can this be explained further?
- The gatekeepers are listed as Scientific and Technical Committee of the 4 per 1000 Initiative. How often will these meet to discuss new entries? Will previous entries be reviewed?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-115-RC1 - AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Julien Demenois, 24 Aug 2022
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2022-115', Jonathan Sanderman, 20 Nov 2022
I laud the authors for undertaking the development of a thesaurus for land use/management terms as they relate to soil organic carbon. I absolutely agree that imprecise terminology hinders our field. Overall, this manuscript is in good shape after the authors have addressed the comments from the first round of review.
I do disagree with the authors that all conventional tillage can be lumped together but I also understand their reasoning. There are well known differences between moldboard and shallow disk tillage (disks can cut anywhere from 5 to 20+ cm into the earth) with the former truly inverting the soil and the later only breaking up the surface.
My only concern, and I’m not sure how this would or should even be addressed in this manuscript, is that there seems to be an assumption that just because the authors have made this thesaurus, other scientists are going to start using it. Is there a plan to promote and educate? Perhaps that is the job of the 4p1000 initiative.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-115-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Julien Demenois, 25 Nov 2022
Dear reviewer,
We would like to thank for your positive feedbacks and your comments and questions. In a time of scarcity of reviewers it is particularly appreciated.
Please find attached our detailed answers.
Yours sincerely,
Julien Demenois on behalf of the co-authors.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Julien Demenois, 25 Nov 2022
Peer review completion
Journal article(s) based on this preprint
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Kenji Fujisaki
Tiphaine Chevallier
Antonio Bispo
Jean-Baptiste Laurent
François Thévenin
Lydie Chapuis-Lardy
Rémi Cardinael
Christine Le Bas
Vincent Freycon
Fabrice Bénédet
Vincent Blanfort
Michel Brossard
Marie Tella
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
- Preprint
(2200 KB) - Metadata XML
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Supplement
(301 KB) - BibTeX
- EndNote
- Final revised paper