Improvements and Evaluation of the Agro-Hydrologic VegET Model for Large-Area Water Budget Analysis and Drought Monitoring

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The study describes several upgrades for the software previously generated by the same authors. I have found the details interesting and worthy of discussion. However, when reading the text one can easily get confused by the excess of contents. I recommend a revision in the structure of the article. The first choice is to move the case study details to the appendix. The second choice could be using the topic "confirmation of the methodology". Either using the former or the latter, the application and results of the case studies should clearly be separated from the methodology development which is the main objective of the study. But in this article, I could not be sure if you want to show us the upgrades or their applicability in the study area. You may initially clarify the necessity of the upgrades and on the last pages, you can confirm its applicability or give the results in the appendix. Maybe you can compare the results of the old version with the new one as well.

I also want to ask about the separation process of runoff into surface runoff and deep seepage! and I wonder if you're going to highlight the combination of subsurfaceflow+groundwater discharge as the "base flow" in the streams or if it is more about the snow melting procedure? please clarify it in the text as well. 

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Authors by Reviewer #1:

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The submitted manuscript, " Improvements and Evaluation of the VegET Agro-hydrologic Model for 2 Large-area Water Budget Analysis and Drought Monitoring " proposes a strong methodical contribution mainly for deep drainage and surface runoff partitioning, estimation of top 1-meter soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and drought monitoring. Indeed, the contribution could be interesting to a wider audience of the “Hydrology” journal. However, it may need one major and some minor revisions before publication, as follows:

Major Revisions:

1-     While the paper highlights advancements in the VegET model, notably the addition of snow accumulation and snowmelt processes as well as partitioning runoff into surface runoff and deep drainage, it doesn't clearly indicate their impact on soil moisture and ET estimation compared to the previous version. A comparative analysis between the results of the two VegET model versions would enhance the paper's informative value.

Minor Revisions:

1-     The paper includes an excessive number of figures, some of which are difficult to follow. For instance, the images in Figure 7 are misaligned, making comparison challenging. Please, realign the images in all figures.

2-     In figure 9, it may be better to remove the October and July figures since they have no to very little snow in most areas. Please just consider mentioning this fact in the caption of the figure and in the manuscript. This can help reduce the number of figures.

3-     Line 18: Please correct “(Person correlation, r: 0.22-0.97)” to “Pearson correlation”.

4-     Line 198: The equation (6) needs adjustment.

5-     Line 497: Please consider revising the phrase "getting good quality soils data" to something more academic, like "acquiring high-quality soil data."

6-     Line 616: Please correct the precent in this sentence: “These precent bias numbers ….”

7-     Figure 13: Using a semi-transparent box for the inner-box in each image, or relocating it to the bottom right corner, would reduce interference with the points beneath the box.

8-     As mentioned in lines 552-556, if the quality of ground-truth data for that particular time and location is questionable, it should not have been used as a case study from the beginning and should have been replaced with more reliable data to provide a meaningful evaluation of the proposed model.

9-     Lines 450-456: The description of the SM change trend is not universally applicable across the CONUS, especially in the middle and southern regions. Please review and amend this section.

10- Figure 9: The distinction between input and output data is unclear. Please provide a more comprehensive figure caption. Also review the caption for all figures, making sure to provide a comprehensive description.

11- Lines 436-438: This part can be moved to the methodology section if it has not already been mentioned earlier in the paper.

The general quality of English was acceptable and some minor revisions was necessary (as mentioned in earlier part) to improve it further.

Author Response

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf