The Effect of Rainfall on Aquatic Nitrogen and Phosphorus in a Semi-Humid Area Catchment, Northern China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The effect of rainfall on TN and TP concentrations in rivers and Yuqiao Reservoir is analyzed based on the data during the high flow season for three years (2019-2021). The results are important for the management of water quality in semi-humid catchment. However, some issues should be addressed before it can be accepted for publication. Here are some comments and suggestions.

 

-L117, insert space between word “Tianjin” and brackets.

-L136-138, the dry year is missing. Moreover, is this a reliable way to define a dry year, wet year or normal year? How about define them from the point view of meteorology?

-For section 2.2, I suggest move it to the results section.

-L154, is the concentration of TN and TP measured for filtered water? or raw water? This should be made clear.

-In the section 2.3, please supplement the analysis method of TN and TP.

-L182, section 2.2 should be corrected as section 3.2.

-Figure 4, I suggest adding the rainfall data in the Figure 4.

-L208, L261, the first letter of the sentence should be capitalized.

-L227, Figure 7 should be corrected as Figure 5.

-L273, grammar error.

-Figure 6, significant differences should be marked.

-In section 4.1, how about the relationship for 2019 or 2021?

-In section 4.2, there is a lack of analysis on the influencing factors of Li River, the water diversion river.

-L283, grammar error.

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Line 302 suggest move [47] to line 300 after Anna.

Lines 318 has three good references for atmospheric deposition of chemicals, but suggest adding more about this potential "source of N and P" to the introduction.  Were measurements made for N and P from the rainwater collected?  That is something that would be useful as it is an unknown as far as I can tell.  

Line 319 authors state, "This needs attention as a high TN concentration (8.6 mg/L) has been observed in the study area."  This reinforces my suggestions, especially measurements should be made of collected rainwater.  Authors could use this information in regard to their future climate change e.g. will there be additional sources of N and P to the atmosphere?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/atmospheric-deposition

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147651321002918

 https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-019-0208-y

 https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.13063

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10533-019-00634-w

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369344/ 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23584188/

 

Working with colleagues in Puerto Rico, atmospheric deposition has become an important issue.  Of course that is a unique geographic location with Saharan Dust, but we were very surprised by other chemicals transported in the atmosphere even in areas without the dust issue.

Line 347 Suggest use [29] to replace (2008) after Liu et al. to be consistent.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors successfully responded to the questions and the necessary corrections to improve the manuscript.