Response: We would like to thank you for your valuable comments and directions. We have carefully considered all issues and have revised the manuscript completely (e.g. separation of section and subheadings, revising all the text, adding paragraphs and references, adding or changing Tables and Figures): 1) Abstract was revised. 2) Introduction was revised, and 2 new paragraphs were added. Such modification leaded to the clear description of the objectives. 3) Material and Method section was revised. Revised version contains 5 subheading. 4) The results and discussion sections were separated, and their subheadings were reorganized. In the revised manuscript the Results contain 5 subheading and Discussion contain 3subheading. 5) Presentation of the results are improved with consideration of reviewers’ comments. a) Original Manuscript contained 3 Tables and 3 Figures. Revised manuscript contains 4 Tables and 5 Figures and 1 supplementary table and 1 supplementary figure. b) New subheading (3.2. Land use effect on soil properties) was added. It contains new Table 2, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Figure 1. c). New Table 4 and Figure 4 were added. Table 4 is related to partial correlation analysis with consideration of soil properties, and Figure 4 is related to the principal component analysis (biplot). d) Clarification: Table 1 and Table 3 were not changed. Old Table 2 is new Figure 2. Old Figure 2 is new Figure 3. Old Figure 3 is new Figure 5. 6) Discussion with new 3 subheading was significantly expanded and linked to the references and the novelty was highlighted. 7) Conclusions of the study was modified to show its practical outcomes for the local and international readers. 8) New 12 references were added to update the manuscript to address reviewers’ comments. Due to the separating the Results and Discussion section, overlapping of some comments made by the reviewers and associated changes modified all the text of the manuscript was modified. Thus, to avoid possible confusion we provided the location (subheading or line) for any change introduced. Our point-to-point response to the comments of the reviewers is detailed below. Subheading or line numbers refer to the line numbers in the revised manuscript. Two version of the manuscript was uploaded: edited main manuscript (with track change), and edited main manuscript (clear).
This manuscript attempts to integrate different preprocessing methods (8 kinds), sample grouping designs (88/26, 75%/25%), and soil spectral data to predict 15 soil properties by building PLSR models. Although this manuscript is about the application of proximal remote sensing technology to the prediction of soil properties in mountainous areas, the research focus of this manuscript is not prominent, and the conclusions drawn are not very clear. In other words, the manuscript feels like a lot of work has been done, but it doesn't specify what the important conclusions and innovations are. The abstract and conclusion parts lack conciseness and prominence. Especially in the results and discussion section, most of the content is to state the experimental results (correlation of data), while the discussion (eg. prediction mechanism, prediction accuracy, etc.) is not in-depth, and the analysis of model accuracy is rarely involved in the discussion.