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The material presented in the manuscript is of high quality and relevant, and the main results obtained are reasonable and interesting for specialists in the field. The manuscript has been successfully reviewed and meets the high level of the PeerJ journal.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Monika Mortimer, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
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The authors have revised the manuscript in detail according to the reviewer's suggestions. All my concerns in the previous version have been addressed and I therefore recommend it for publication in the journal.
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I went through the revised manuscript and the responses. The authors addressed all my concerns. I have no other comments and suggestions and think the manuscript can be accepted in this form.
The submitted manuscript is significantly improved and of higher quality in presenting the results of scientific research. After reviewing the manuscript again, the reviewers made a number of minor comments that can improve its quality. Please read them and respond.
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This manuscript reports an important factor that determines the erosion process of the collapsing gullies in South China. Detailed experiments have been designed and the data sets have been thoroughly analyzed. In general, this manuscript is well written and the methodology is sound. The results would be helpful for people to further understand the erosion mechanism of collapsing gullies and the conservation measures. I suggest that the manuscript be published after addressing the above issues.
The abstract section
A brief description of the current research gaps and the necessity of this study is needed at the beginning of the abstract. Meanwhile, some data and quantitative results would be helpful to support the main conclusions in this section.
The introduction section
I suggested that the last paragraph of the introduction should be expanded to state specifically what challenges the current knowledge gap might pose for collapsing gully erosion research.
The method section
Perhaps the sampling location should be added to the photos in Figure 1, or a new photo is needed to show the sampling soil profile.
The Methods section has too many subtitles, perhaps some of them could be merged.
The discussion section
Some of the discussion content should refer to specific results (table or figure), e.g. L355-362, L381-384.
I suggest that the authors add some content in the discussion to show the implications of the results for gully erosion assessment or conservation.
The conclusion section
The novelty of this study should be highlighted in the conclusion.
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Dear Editor, I reviewed the manuscript in these days and now can give an evaluation and recommendation. Benggang is a typical erosion badland that only occurred in southern China, and have been focused on by the government and scientists for a long time. I think this manuscript have important theoretical and practical significance for Benggang control and treatment. The objective of this manuscript is to study the specific ion effects on shear strength and clay surface properties of benggang soil, and showed some interesting results that could help to increase the research effort in a much-needed direction, i.e. the understanding of underlying mechanisms behind soil erosion. I appreciate the author's effort in understanding mechanisms, coupling calculations, and experimental approaches that make the study important to increase the understanding of fundamental mechanisms in collapsing gully erosion. The study provides a new perspective and facilitate a better understanding of mechanism on the collapsing gully. Therefore, the objectives of the research carried out falls within the journal's scope and is interesting for a wide audience. Therefore, I want to give a recommendation of acceptance after minor revision.
Specific comments:
1. The title: ‘collapsing gully’ can refer to many things, not only benggang. Zhang Wanlu et al. (2020) and Zhu Xuchao et al. (2023, Geoderma) have discussed the concept and name of benggang, and I think ‘benggang’ is more local and designated. So, I suggested the authors cited related papers and use the term of ‘benggang’.
2. L148-150: The reason of choosing Li+, Na+, K+, NH4+ and Cs+ should be discussed more detail, especially NH4+.
3. L158: Why use 0.1 mol L-1?
4. L168: Why use 15% and not use the original value of soil water content?
5. L233: Soil texture of each soil layer should be given in table 1.
6. Section 3.1.2: What was the purpose that the authors did the XRD under different temperature?
7. Section 4.2: I suggest the author discuss more about the reason of the specific ion effects on the stress‒strain curves.
8. L441-443: “The absolute ζ of clay particles of studied soils was followed the order of Cs+ > K+ > NH4+ > Na+ > Li+, while the xs values of clay particles saturated with Li+ and Na+ were higher than those saturated with K+, NH4+ and Cs+”. I suggest the author give the reason of xs values of clay particles saturated with Li+ and Na+ were higher than those saturated with K+, NH4+ and Cs+.
9. Figures 3, 4: Quality should be improved.
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