The journal management is performed by the Editorial Board, composed of two Editors-in-Chief, a Technical Editor, and Associate Editors. The submitted manuscripts are forwarded by the technical editor for technical pre-screening. A general check is performed to ensure that the manuscript: i) is complete (i.e., title page, cover letter, main document, figures, and tables); ii) complies with instructions provided in the Guide for Authors; iii) is within of journal scope; and iv) is original, which means that the manuscript will be checked by an originality detection service. Submitted papers not meeting these requirements will be returned to the authors, who may re-submit their manuscript after corrections.

A manuscript with accepted submission is assigned to one of an Associate Editor (AE), who verifies the manuscript suitability to the journal scope and, in additionality, he/she examines if the manuscript is novel in Soil Science. The AE also assesses the specific scientific merit, and then sends the manuscript to at least three ad hoc reviewers with appropriate knowledge, skills, methodological expertise, and experience to assess the manuscript. Based on the comments of at least two reviewers and on its own experience, the AE recommends if the manuscript should be rejected, accepted, or needs revision before acceptance for publication. The final decision is taken by the Editor-in-Chief, based on AE and reviewers’ recommendations. Manuscripts whose processing were interrupted by the AE, will also be forwarded to Editor-in-Chief for final decision. Other responsabilities of the Editor-in-Chief are coordinating activities developed by AE and reviewers, and keeping a communication channel with the authors. The manuscript processing is conducted without anonymity until reaching the AE, which means that identities are not disclosed only between authors and ad hoc reviewers. However, authors that choose to place their manuscripts in Preprint servers will be under the modality of single-blind review, in which only the identity of the authors is revealed. After concluding the corrections required by editors and reviewers, the author should submit a revision. After concluding the corrections required by editors and reviewers, the author should submit a revision. The author should access the author center (at ScholarOne) and click on Create a Revision. In step one, authors must prepare a text with general and specific answers to ALL questions raised and suggestions made by the reviewers and editorial board, indicating in which lines changes were made; this text should be inserted in a text box designated “your response”. In the following steps, the author will be required to upload the revised version of the manuscript (main document). In this step, the author must provide a main document file with ALL changes (deletions and additions) made in the revision process. All revisions should be clearly highlighted using the “Track Changes” function in Microsoft Word so that they are clearly visible to the editors and reviewers. A revised clean version of the manuscript must also be provided. In line with Open Science practices, RBCS has made progress in opening up the peer review process and publishing the names and ORCID of the editors responsible for conducting the evaluation in the final article.