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Dear Editors and Reviewers,
Thank you for your letter and comments on our manuscript titled “Temporal variabilith 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 crassifolia
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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,