Sustainable Water Infrastructure: Visions and Options for Sub-Saharan Africa

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript was well written, also understandable to potential readers, and helpful for the improvement of sustainable water infrustructure construction and management in SSA.

In 3.5. Political or Governance Factors, the water rights were considered , why were not water markets included and  discussed in the  paper together?

The conclusions need to be refined further.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions in the re-submitted manuscript.

Response to Reviewer Comments (Reviewer 1)

Comment 1: The manuscript was well written, also understandable to potential readers, and helpful for the improvement of sustainable water infrastructure construction and management in SSA.

Response 1: Thank you for your encouraging comment.

Comment 2: In 3.5. Political or Governance Factors, the water rights were considered, why were not water markets included and discussed in the paper together?

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. As suggested, we have included water markets (in Section 2.5.1) and discussed its benefits in managing water scarcity, enhancing water allocation, and promoting water sustainability. We have also included some of the challenges encountered in the implementation of water markets and cited the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia as an example of a success story. These modifications can be found from lines 834 – 846 in the revised manuscript.

Comment 3: The conclusions need to be refined further.

Response 3: The Conclusions (Section 3.0) have been refined with references removed. The modifications are shown in red and blue in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is the best  manuscript I've reviewed in the past year. It is well-written and well-argued. I found no other problems, and the manuscript can be acceptable for publication.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions in the re-submitted file.

Response to Reviewer Comments (Reviewer 2)

Comment 1: This is the best manuscript I’ve reviewed in the past year. It is well-written and well-argued. I found no further problems, and the manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Response 1: Thank you for your encouraging comment.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper analyses the factors affecting water infrastructure sustainability and global solutions to address these challenges, and their relevanche to   Sub-Saharan Africa using the STEEP framework. While the topic is interesting an the analysis rich, sometimes it is hard to follow and the parallel with SSA is missing or hard to identify. I suggest to follow a similar schema for each of the drivers assessed where they are described in general, globally, global solutions or intervention can be cited, and then, the refeence to examples or problem of SSA . If not, there is a risk for the reader to loose the geographical focus of the paper (SSA).

Also, it can be useful to summarize part of findings in a table

Morover the title focuses on design options and infrstructures. in the text, design options are not the focus at all. So please or change the focus (that is in my opinion on water supply more than design options) or revise the text mentioning and focusing on design options and infrstructures as the title states

lines 1006 and 1020: no references in conclusions

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions in the re-submitted file.

Response to Reviewer Comments (Reviewer 3)

Comment 1: The paper analyses the factors affecting water infrastructure sustainability and global solutions to address these challenges, and their relevance to Sub-Saharan Africa using the STEEP framework. While the topic is interesting and the analysis rich, sometimes, it is hard to follow and the parallel with SSA is missing or hard to identify. I suggest to follow a similar schema for each of the drivers assessed where they are described in general, globally, global solutions or inventions can be cited, and then the reference to examples or problems of SSA. If not, there is a risk for the reader to loose the geographic focus of the paper (SSA).

Response 1: Thank you for your constructive feedback. We have gone through the whole paper and agree that in few instances, the SSA link might be weak. We have therefore strengthened this as seen in some structural changes made in the Introduction especially in Section 1.2, lines 133-153; Section 2.1.2, lines 239-241; Section 2.2.1, lines 409-412; Section 2.2.2, lines 478-479; and in the modifications made in the Conclusions (Section 3.0) as shown in red and blue in the revised manuscript.

Comment 2: Also, it can be useful to summarise part of findings in a table

Response 2: We considered this change, but the reviewer is not specific on which part of the findings might be summarised and makes the remark ‘in passing’, not as a request. One critical contribution is the narrative, praised by the reviewers, and this is lost if a summary table is substituted for prose, or indeed if it is added and read instead of the prose. In light of the comments of the other three reviewers (who requested no such change), and our re-review of the manuscript once we had made the changes requested by the other reviewers, we judge that the findings have been appropriately summarised in the Conclusions section (into which we have incorporated bullet points, rather than a table) while the richness (to which this reviewer specifically refers) is captured in the text in the main body of the paper.

Comment 3: Moreover, the title focuses on design options and infrastructures. In the text, design options are not the focus at all. So please or change the focus (that is in my opinion on water supply more than design options) or revise the text mentioning and focusing on design options and infrastructure as the title states.

Response 3: Thank you for your feedback. The title has been modified with the word ‘Design’ removed. The title now reads “Sustainable Water Infrastructure: Visions and Options for Sub-Saharan Africa”.

Comment 4: lines 1006 and 1020: no reference in conclusions

Response 4: Thank you for pointing this out. The references have been removed from the Conclusions as seen in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper Sustainable Water Infrastructure: Visions and Design Options for Sub-Saharan Africa discusses in a well-structured and substantiated fashion the visions and design options for sustainable water infrastructures. It takes sub–Saharan African as a case study.

 

It is overall a good paper, and I only have minor suggestion for strengthening it. In particular i would suggest to revise the paper in order to add more references and proofs of the arguments and sentences throughout. In this way the paper will be better anchored within the relevant literature.

For instance, the section 3.4.3 on the WEF nexus, would benefit from inclusion of the work of Mohammad Saidi et al on WEF Nexus and COVID 19 pandemic. When you discuss the impacts of the WEF nexus due to the Russia Ukraine War, there is also literature, such ast he work of Hussein and Knol published in the International Spectator, that could be used to support your claim. And so on and so forth.

Apart from this, it would be a good paper ready to go.

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions in the re-submitted file.

Response to Reviewer Comments (Reviewer 4)

Comment 1: The paper Sustainable Water Infrastructure: Visions and Design Options for Sub-Saharan Africa discusses in a well-structured and substantiated fashion the visions and design options for sustainable water infrastructures. It takes sub-Saharan Africa as a case study.

Response 1: Thank you for your encouraging comment.

Comment 2: It is overall a good paper, and I only have minor suggestion to strengthening it. In particular I would suggest to revise the paper in order to add more references and proofs of the argument and sentences throughout. In this way the paper will be better anchored within the relevant literature.

For instance, the section 3.4.3 on WEF nexus, would benefit from inclusion of the work of Mohammad Saidi et al on WEF Nexus and COVID 19 pandemic. When you discuss the impacts of the WEF nexus due to the Russia Ukraine War, there is also literature, such as the work of Hussein and Knol published in the International Spectator, that could be used to support your claim. And so on and so forth.

Response 2: Thank you for pointing this out. We agree that references not only anchor the work within the literature but also serve as a pointer for the readers should they want to read more on a particular topic. We have therefore made these modifications and references have been added, as shown in red throughout the manuscript.

The two recommended papers are very insightful in casting light on uncertain events like the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war, and the effects these might have on the WEF supply chain and sustainability. They have been added as references to Section 2.4.2, lines 740- 741 to substantiate the argument.

Comment 3: Apart from this, it would be a good paper ready to go.

Response 3: Thank you!

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Requested changes has been done, improving the manuscript