Canopy Interception of Different Rainfall Patterns in the Rocky Mountain Areas of Northern China: An Application of the Revised Gash Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript presents an application of a revised Gash model on canopy inception. All sections of the manuscript need significant revisions.

The rationale of the study is only presented in one to two sentences in the last paragraph of the introduction. The objectives are lost within the rationale making it difficult for the reader to clearly identify what the study has done or addresses.

The methodology fails to clearly present what the researchers have done as it often leaves the reader confused. There appear to be some serious flaws in the collection of data. You only have one canopy throughfall collector. Does this mean that you did not have any replicates for throughfall measurements?

This research fails to draw from similar work in this field. The discussion only cites one study. The authors make statements within this section with no support from previous research. The discussion also fails to elaborate on the implication of this research especially since this is an application.

Please use the comments inserted in the line-by-line review to help improve your research.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper provides interesting results, and the research topic is within this journal's scope. The manuscript is poorly written and organized., so major revisions are recommended.

General Comments:

1. Introduction and discussion do not provide sufficient background and include all relevant references. About rainfall interception on a global scale (see below papers) or even in Pine species (see below), I found many related papers:

**  Global scale (just for your information): https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0176-7; https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1325; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29702-2_4; https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2186

** Pine genus (just for your information): https://doi.org/10.3390/f12070866; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.06.048; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.127765; https://doi.org/10.3906/tar-1312-53; https://doi.org/10.1007/s11056-014-9464-2; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108755; https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2349

2. Title should be more informative: Maybe adding a climate type will be useful.

3. Introduction: By moving from a general subject (first paragraph) to a specific topic of the paper (last paragraph), your audience will have a more concrete understanding of what your paper will focus on.

4. M & M:  It would be nice to add a photo of field measurements (for Tf and SF). Also, I did not find a performance metric section for the evaluation of the model.

Specific comments:

L 20-22: Explain how you divided rainfall into three categories. based on rainfall amount? duration? intensity? and also added a classification range.

L 25: (and rest of paper): When the same name is used more than once in a paper, the first letter of the genus (still capitalized) may be used as an abbreviation in the second and subsequent uses of the name, but the rest of the name is not abbreviated (i.e., P. tabulaeformis).

L 26: Add model performance metrics (such as Nash-Suttclife index or RMSE or error) here for each rainfall class.

L 32-33: It's not related to the author's findings; delete it. 

L-76: Add elevation above sea level.

L 84: Try to improve the quality of this figure.

L 86: Is it reforestation or afforestation? 

L 96:  Why used 1.5 m height? because 1.3 

L 104: I am confused about the crown density (unit?) and crown  (m)? Crown density is the crown closure? crown (m) is the crown width (m) or crown height (m)? Also, add more information, like basal area (m2 per ha), LAI, etc.

 L 195-197: It belongs to the Materials and methods.

L 216: In figure 3, each graph's panel is unclear.

At the end of the results, you must add a table about the performance metrics of the Gash model (for example, see table 5 in the following paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2022.128092).

L 269: "In this study, rainfall, rainfall intensity, and rainfall duration...". Its not clear for me to use rainfall instead of rainfall amount or rainfall magnitude. Try to correct them in the text.

L 279: "Based on previous studies...", Which studies?

L 286-287: Add citations.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have significantly improved the article based on the comments provided by the reviewers. The author's clarifications in their response letter mostly improved my understanding of the methods and results. However, there can be more improvement in the way sentences are structured.

There are a few edits and comments I have made in the document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have adequately addressed all the comments raised by previous reviewers. I believe that this form has manuscript a better impact on the readers from the international research areas.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your review. Your suggestions are very helpful to improve the quality of my article, and I will refer to them in future studies.