Mapping Water Levels across a Region of the Cuvette Centrale Peatland Complex

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of: Mapping water levels across a region of the Cuvette Centrale peatland complex

Authored By:  Georgiou et al.

Submitted to:  MDPI: Remote Sensing

The authors are addressing an important hydrology and biogeochemistry problem: how the Cuvette Centrale gains and loses water.  Overall, the paper was a joy to read!  I was happy to see that the authors referenced back to the pioneering work of Charon and Aki while carrying forward all the way to the truly excellent work by Dargie and Lewis.  Most of all, I am happy that many Congo authors are involved in this research and their previous works are referenced and built upon to create the manuscript’s research.

I am glad that the authors addressed the regions of the Cuvette that are rainfed and those that receive waters from nearby rivers.  This is an important hydrological and carbon distinction.  I look forward to future efforts by the authors that match the results of this hydrological study to the carbon fluxes that they have measured.

It will be exciting for the authors to produce follow-up research that compares their results to SWOT measurements.  This will be particularly useful given that SWOT will provide water elevations across rivers and wetlands, hence an ability to hydraulically map water flows.  In some cases, we know from previous altimetry measurements that the river water levels in some locations are always lower in elevation than the adjacent wetlands and hence those immediately adjacent river waters cannot supply the wetland.  In other words, the hydraulics available from SWOT will help to further clarify rainfed from fluvially fed wetland water pixels.

While I no longer review manuscripts for nitty gritty details, I note that this manuscript is missing a couple of words in the body of the paper and needs more information for a couple of the references.  I’m sure that an editor will capture these needs; these are very minor.  Overall, the grammar and wording are good and easy to read.

This is an excellent manuscript and is ready to be published.  No further review is needed.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Please find attached a Word document with our responses.

Kind regards,

Selena

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

-Reduce number of keywords - do not repeat the words in title

- seems Figure 2 needs citation and source

 - Some figures i.e. Figure 1, Figure 4 Figure 6 and Figure 9 has extended captions - include those details in the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Please find attached a Word document with our responses.

Kind regards,

Selena

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Reviewed manuscript “Mapping water levels across a region of the Cuvette Centrale
peatland complex” is an original and interesting study. Authors comprehensively demonstrated/calculated the data of water levels across a region of the Cuvette Centrale
peatland complex. Study is very interesting and it would add scientific contribution in literature. Authors collected lot of data with strong reasoning. I would suggest minor revision.

Following are some suggestions for further improvements:

First few lines of the abstract should be about the importance of study area.

Lines 43-50: Consider revising the lines.

Lines 101-104: Please rewrite these lines.

Lines 376-379: Consider revising the lines.

Lines 858-863: please rewrite.

Introduction and Discussion section needs to further strengthen by latest studies on the subject. Improve the discussion section. Discussion is so long, please summarize it.

At some places in the text, there are grammatical mistakes that need to be corrected by some native English colleague. Please summarize the conclusion.

To further strengthen introduction, latest studies etc. are suggested to cite for water levels across a region of the Cuvette Centrale peatland complex or some other regions.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Please find attached a Word document with our responses.

Kind regards,

Selena

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Peat areas play a very important role in the serious changes of the global ecological environment. Peat is also an important component of wetlands. The Congo Basin is an important ecosystem component in the African region. The study on the evolution of the ecological environment in the Congo Basin is of great significance for regional response to global change.

Raise some questions to discuss with the author.

1-It is necessary to adjust the topographic map to highlight various physical geography features of the study area.

2-The research method is the focus of this study. The author can provide a detailed introduction to the applicability of the methods used in this study in the Congo Basin region.

English is good for reading.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Please find attached a Word document with our responses.

Kind regards,

Selena

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf