Generally all the comments of both reviews have been adopted or discussed, which clearly improved the paper. However, it is still very difficult to accept the concept that pavement joints can be called soil. Due to its evolution, properties and functions, soil differs from pavement joints, just as it differs from ground, horticultural substrate, flowerpot filling or material in gutter. In its traditional meaning, soil is the natural medium for the growth of plants, which have been developed as the effect of physical, chemical, biological and anthropogenic processes working on soil parent material. There are many different definitions of the soil, but they all emphasize its development through processes occurring in the surface part of the Earth. According to second edition of the Soil Taxonomy “Soil is a natural body comprised of solids (minerals and organic matter), liquid, and gases that occurs on the land surface, occupies space, and is characterized by one or both of the following: horizons, or layers, that are distinguishable from the initial material as a result of additions, losses, transfers, and transformations of energy and matter or the ability to support rooted plants in a natural environment”.
I realized that the authors, as geographers, want to treat pavement joints as soil, after the spatial point of view proposed by the WRB. It is worthy to mention, that WRB 1998 defined soil as follows:
“a continuous natural body which has three spatial and one temporal dimension. The three main features governing soil are:
- it is formed by mineral and organic constituents and includes solid, liquid and gaseous phases.
- the constituents are organized in structures, specific for the pedological medium. These structures form the morphological aspect of the soil cover, equivalent to the anatomy of a living being. They result from the history of the soil cover and from its actual dynamics and properties. Study of the structures of the soil cover facilitates perception of the physical, chemical and biological properties; it permits understanding the past and present of the soil, and predicting its future.
- the soil is in constant evolution, thus giving the soil its fourth dimension, time.”
However, in order to comprehensively characterize the whole surface of the Earth, WRB 2014 adopted the definition of classified objects as "any material within 2 m from the Earth's surface, which is in contact with the atmosphere, excluding living organisms, areas with continuous ice not covered with other material, and bodies of water deeper than 2 m”.
This definition is a far-reaching simplification and includes, for example, a continuous rock, in order to avoid problems related to the commonly agreed definition of soil and its required thickness. This approach can be used for WRB purposes, but contradicts both the ecological and pedological approaches to soil definition and definitely cannot be used in soil science and especially in the journal SOIL.
Summarizing, please use through the text the name "pavements joints" or "joints material", but do not call it “soil material” or ”soil”. After this correction the paper can be published.

After revision the paper is ready for publication

Dear Dr Webster

Many thanks for submitting your paper to soil and for engaging in the open review process. I will now pass your paper through to the production office who will be in touch.


With best wishes

John Quinton