The Large Rivers of the Past in West Siberia: Unknown Hydrological Regimen
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Review of the manuscript “The large rivers of the past at the western Siberia: unknown hydrological regime”
The manuscript analyzes the distribution and size of the paleo rivers and the geographical distribution of mean maximum runoff depths in the basins of these paleo rivers in the West Siberian Plain. To this end, the authors used more than 60 well-preserved fragments of large paleochannels within the Western Siberian Plain for paleo hydrological investigations. It’s intriguing research that perfectly aligns with the Water scope. The introduction section identifies the previously published literature dealing with the same issue. The author mentioned the rationale of the present study. The methods seem more likely to be acceptable/reliable, and the originality of the research is unquestionable. The artwork is appropriate and legible. However, I would like to mention some minor comments on the overall body of the manuscript, title, and figures.
1. The structure of the manuscript needs revision. Please move the discussion section including figures to the results figure. You can focus on the observed results and previously observed results in the revised discussion section.
2. Please mention the unit of width in Figure 3. The legend for the black and red triangle is missing.
4. Please mention the legend of orange and blue circles in Figure 5.
5. Please mention the name of the blue rectangle in Figure 6.
6. Similarly, the name of the red triangle in the caption of Figure 7 is missing.
7. Please mention the blue and orange circles in Figure 13 A.
Please remove the full stop from the title and rectify the spelling of regimen as regime throughout the manuscript.
I will recommend a minor revision of this manuscript.
End of review.
Author Response
The manuscript analyzes the distribution and size of the paleo rivers and the geographical distribution of mean maximum runoff depths in the basins of these paleo rivers in the West Siberian Plain. To this end, the authors used more than 60 well-preserved fragments of large paleochannels within the Western Siberian Plain for paleo hydrological investigations. It’s intriguing research that perfectly aligns with the Water scope. The introduction section identifies the previously published literature dealing with the same issue. The author mentioned the rationale of the present study. The methods seem more likely to be acceptable/reliable, and the originality of the research is unquestionable. The artwork is appropriate and legible.
Thank you for the appreciation of my work
However, I would like to mention some minor comments on the overall body of the manuscript, title, and figures.
1.The structure of the manuscript needs revision. Please move the discussion section including figures to the results figure. You can focus on the observed results and previously observed results in the revised discussion section.
In the revised version of the manuscript, part of section 4.1 of Discussion with the figures is mostly moved to section 3.1.2, and section 4.2 is moved to section 3.4. In the new Results section, the moved parts are shown in blue. Discussion section now begins with an analysis of differences in parameters of the relationship between channel bankfull width and mean maximum discharge. Then I analyse a possibility of application of Schumm’ works to this research. The last part of Discussion is now focused on the comparison of old and new methods of paleohydrological calculations (new section 4.2, in red). All other changes made in the text are also marked in red.
2.Please mention the unit of width in Figure 3. The legend for the black and red triangle is missing.
Figure 3 and its caption are improved.
4.Please mention the legend of orange and blue circles in Figure 5.
Figure caption is improved.
5.Please mention the name of the blue rectangle in Figure 6.
Figure caption is improved.
6.Similarly, the name of the red triangle in the caption of Figure 7 is missing.
Figure caption is improved.
7.Please mention the blue and orange circles in Figure 13 A (now Figure 9A)
Figure caption is improved.
Please remove the full stop from the title
Removed
and rectify the spelling of regimen as regime throughout the manuscript.
I changed spelling in my text, but not in citations from Dury or in the titles of cited articles.
Reviewer 2 Report
I think it is a very solid study and I have no major suggestions. My main concern is that the datasets referred to throughout the results section (first mentioned at L217-218) are not adequately described.
Author Response
I think it is a very solid study and I have no major suggestions.
Thank you for the appreciation of my work
My main concern is that the datasets referred to throughout the results section (first mentioned at L217-218) are not adequately described.
All main datasets mentioned in sections 2 and 3 are included as Tables in the supplement with descriptions.
Reviewer 3 Report
This manuscript is devoted to an interesting topic, the study of Siberian paleohydrology. Many studies have already been devoted to this topic, including those of A. Sidorchuk and co-authors. Apparently for this reason, this manuscript is not a full prototype of a research article, but rather a hybrid between the type "Article" and "Review". And for this reason, the manuscript has the following important remarks:
1. The structure of the manuscript does not correspond to its content. But most importantly, based on the introduction, it is not at all clear what is the novelty of this work, how it differs, for example, from previously published ones, such as: Sidorchuk, A.Y., Panin, A.V., Borisova, O.K. The Late Glacial and the Holocene palaeohydrology of the Northern Eurasia. In Palaeohydrology: Understanding Global Change; Gregory, K.J., Benito, G., Eds.; Wiley and Sons: Chichester, 2003; pp. 61–76. ; Sidorchuk, A.Y., Panin, A.V., Borisova, O.K. Climate-induced changes in surface runoff on the north-Eurasian plains during the Late Glacial and Holocene. Water Resources 2008, 35(4), 386–396; Sidorchuk, A.Yu., Panin, A.V., Borisova, O.K. Late glacial palaeochannels in West Siberia (2008) Izvestiya Akademii Nauk, Seriya Geograficheskaya, (2), pp. 67-75. Without these explanations, this manuscript has signs of partial self-plagiarism. Yes, new graphs and color maps have been drawn, but they partially repeat previously published data. I think this has all been posted before.
2. In previous similar articles there were always several authors, but in this one there was only one author. It is very strange. Did the authors fight? Will the former co-authors of A. Sidorchuk be happy about the release of such an article?
3. Section 2 contains two figures that are more likely to be attributed to the results than to the graphs related to the methods. In addition, it is not very clear where the data for these graphs came from.
4. In the results section, there is an active citation. This is against the rules of the magazine. We advise authors to carefully study the acceptable formats for manuscripts of the "Article" and "Review" types.
5. It looks very strange in an article about Western Siberia to discuss other regions. Maybe then it should have a broader designation of the region of research in the title?
6. The author does not sufficiently cite recent sources, such as this one: Panin, A.V., Astakhov, V.I., Lotsari, E., Komatsu, G., Lang, J., Winsemann, J. Middle and Late Quaternary glacial lake-outburst floods , drainage diversions and reorganization of fluvial systems in northwestern Eurasia (2020) Earth-Science Reviews, 201, article no. 103069, DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2019.103069
7. The discussion section is not much different from the previous sections.
Based on the foregoing, I cannot recommend this manuscript for publication in its present form.
Author Response
This manuscript is devoted to an interesting topic, the study of Siberian paleohydrology. Many studies have already been devoted to this topic, including those of A. Sidorchuk and co-authors. Apparently for this reason, this manuscript is not a full prototype of a research article, but rather a hybrid between the type "Article" and "Review". And for this reason, the manuscript has the following important remarks:
1.The structure of the manuscript does not correspond to its content.
The structure of the manuscript was changed according to suggestions of Rev. 1. The section 4.1 was mostly moved to section 3.1.2, section 4.2 was moved to section 3.4. The moved parts are shown in blue in the new text. The discussion is now focused on the comparison of old and new methodology of paleohydrological calculations (new section 4.2, in red). All other changes along the text are also in red.
But most importantly, based on the introduction, it is not at all clear what is the novelty of this work, how it differs, for example, from previously published ones, such as: Sidorchuk, A.Y., Panin, A.V., Borisova, O.K. The Late Glacial and the Holocene palaeohydrology of the Northern Eurasia. In Palaeohydrology: Understanding Global Change; Gregory, K.J., Benito, G., Eds.; Wiley and Sons: Chichester, 2003; pp. 61–76. ; Sidorchuk, A.Y., Panin, A.V., Borisova, O.K. Climate-induced changes in surface runoff on the north-Eurasian plains during the Late Glacial and Holocene. Water Resources 2008, 35(4), 386–396; Sidorchuk, A.Yu., Panin, A.V., Borisova, O.K. Late glacial palaeochannels in West Siberia (2008) Izvestiya Akademii Nauk, Seriya Geograficheskaya, (2), pp. 67-75. Without these explanations, this manuscript has signs of partial self-plagiarism.
I agree with the reviewer that the explanation of the differences between this paper and our previous works is required. Relevant additions are included into Introduction (marked in red) and detailed analysis of the novelty of present approach was added to Discussion, as Rev. 1 also suggested (new section 4.2, in red). The paper in Izvestiya Akademii Nauk is not devoted to paleohydrology of West Siberia, but only to morphology of paleochannels in the region. This paper is added to the references (No. 25), the adapted data from this paper with additions and corrections based on more precise space images, are represented in Table S1.
Yes, new graphs and color maps have been drawn, but they partially repeat previously published data. I think this has all been posted before.
In this study, all figures and maps in Materials and Results sections are based on renewed and corrected databases. All main databases were added as the tables in supplement (according also to a comment of Rev. 2). I agree that some figures look similar to those in already published papers. As these new figures are based on new data, this similarity largely shows a stability of the used models and regressions.
2.In previous similar articles there were always several authors, but in this one there was only one author. It is very strange. Did the authors fight? Will the former co-authors of A. Sidorchuk be happy about the release of such an article?
As this comment is addressed to my colleagues, I asked them to answer to the reviewer (see below).
Dear sir/madam,
I would like to assure you that I carefully read Dr. Sidorchuk's article prior to its submission to the journal and believe that its content extends well beyond the scope of our previous joint research, to which the article has appropriate references, and does not contain new materials or data with my authorship.
Therefore, I see absolutely no reason for a conflict of interest in the publication of this article by Dr. Sidorchuk in Water magazine.
Sincerely yours,
Olga Borisova
Dr. of Geography,
Principal Investigator
Institute of Geography RAS
Dear Reviewer,
Dr. Sidorchuk offered me to become a co-author of the article that you reviewed, but after reading the article, I declined, because I did not participate in the development of the new reconstruction technique that he applied. As for the data on the morphology of paleochannels in West Siberia used in this article, Dr. Sidorchuk added new measurements and refined old ones, and the data that were obtained earlier in the course of our joint research were used with appropriate references to our publications.
If you need further comments, you can contact me via email.
Dr. Andrei Panin, Institute of Geography RAS
email: [email protected]
- Section 2 contains two figures that are more likely to be attributed to the results than to the graphs related to the methods. In addition, it is not very clear where the data for these graphs came from.
The reviewer did not specify which of the figures this comment refers to. I can assume that these are figures 2 and 3A. From my point of view, Figure 2 shows the possibility to use paleomeanders as hydrological indicators, so it must be in section 2. Figure 3A shows the relative sizes of paleomeanders, which also corresponds to section 2. Data used for compiling figure 3A are given in Table S1; data for figure 2 are taken from [25] with some corrections. This information was added to figure captions.
4.In the results section, there is an active citation. This is against the rules of the magazine. We advise authors to carefully study the acceptable formats for manuscripts of the "Article" and "Review" types.
I checked the “Instructions for Authors” at the website of WATER, but could not find such restriction. I also see the statement “Water now accepts free format submission: We do not have strict formatting requirements…”
5.It looks very strange in an article about Western Siberia to discuss other regions. Maybe then it should have a broader designation of the region of research in the title?
The title was slightly changed, but it still includes only West Siberia. Periglacial climate was geographically more homogeneous than the modern one. The same ecosystem analogues are determined for periglacial landscapes of Europe, West Siberia and East Siberia. Therefore, it is possible to use for the West Siberian Plain the hydrological data on climatic and hydrologic analogues, estimated for the East European Plain and East Siberia. This method using information from broad territory in regional studies is common in the paleogeography and was applied in our previous papers listed by the reviewer and cited in this paper.
6.The author does not sufficiently cite recent sources, such as this one: Panin, A.V., Astakhov, V.I., Lotsari, E., Komatsu, G., Lang, J., Winsemann, J. Middle and Late Quaternary glacial lake-outburst floods , drainage diversions and reorganization of fluvial systems in northwestern Eurasia (2020) Earth-Science Reviews, 201, article no. 103069, DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2019.103069
There are only a few papers about the river paleohydrology of West Siberia – old papers by Volkov and our publications, and most of these papers are cited here. Numerous papers on mega-floods from Altai are very interesting, and a few of them were also cited, but most of them do not relate to the issues discussed in this paper. Publications about ice-dammed lakes on the lowlands of West Siberia are rather speculative. At present, such lakes are believed to have greater geological ages (as in the paper suggested by the reviewer) and therefore they are beyond the problems discussed in this paper.
- The discussion section is not much different from the previous sections.
The discussion was renewed (see answer to comment 1).
Based on the foregoing, I cannot recommend this manuscript for publication in its present form.
I hope that I answered the comments of the reviewer and made improvements in the paper according to them. I am grateful to the reviewer for pointing important omissions in my paper.
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Author,
many thanks for the changes to the manuscript. Your responses and comments have made the manuscript clearer to me. I think that in this form it can already be published. I think that you answered all my remarks quite fully. Good luck in your scientific endeavors.
