The Response of Dissolved Organic Matter during Monsoon and Post-Monsoon Periods in the Regulated River for Sustainable Water Supply

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject of the manuscript „The Response of Dissolved Organic Matter during Monsoon period and Post-Monsoon Periods in the Regulated River for Sustainable Water Supply” is interesting and important for evaluation of water management.

Detailed comments:

1) What is presented in Table 1 in the column “Total length (km)”. There are much higher values that length of the rivers. For example HR river has length ~500 km while in the table is value 53900 km.

2) For which years temperature and monthly rainfall in Table 1 is presented? It is not clear.

3) Were the samples collected in one day in July and in one day in September or in different days in different location? It should be explained in subdivision “2.2. Sampling Strategy and Physicochemical Analyses”

4) What does it mean “-“ in Table 3? It is lack of data or zero (not detectable level of the element)? Moreover I suggest to add means for rivers as well means of months in the Table 3 and statistical comparisons between months and between rivers.

5) I suggest to add columns which will present means for rivers as well means of months in the Fig. 2 and statistical comparisons between months and between rivers. The same in the Fig. 3

6) Tables and figures should be self-explanatory. Please explain letters B, T, A, D, and C under the Table 4.

7) One of most important disadvantage of the study is small number of samples which were collected only in one season. It is not known if the results would be similar in other years. Could you provide any proof that the results are similar in different years?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this paper, Mei-Yan Jin et al. used the fluorescent spectroscopy to examine the response of dissolved organic matter during monsoon period and post-monsoon period in the regulated river. It is a good research paper. This paper is well-written with solid idea, experimental design and clear results. I suggest this paper to be published after some modifications.

My major concerns are: 

(1) In the abstract, could the authors briefly (one short sentence is good enough) introduce why dynamics of dissolved organic matter (DOM) since it may be more clear to the scientists outside your field? 

(2) Due to global warming effect, the monsoon period might be totally different in the future. Will this affect your main conclusions or not? The authors might discuss briefly in the discussion.

(3) In Figure 4, the data from H2U are significant different from H1U and H3U. Please check the data. If no problems, the authors might briefly discuss why there are significant differences. 

Minor suggestions are:

(1) In the title, why are "Monsoon period" and "Post-Monsoon Periods"? Please confirm the singular and the plural.

(2) In the Figure 1, is that possible for the authors to enlarge the font size? Some words in the Figure 1 are too small. For example, the "Upper area sampling zone" might be short for  "Upper area" with larger font size. The 500-m bar might be replace by 1000-m bar with larger font size.

(3) In the Figure 3 and Figure 5, please confirm the consistency of the font and font size.

(4) The fonts of °C are different in page 3 and page 4, if I am correct.

(5) Page 4 Line 11: "total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), Total organic carbon (TOC)" to "total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), total organic carbon (TOC)"

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript was corrected according my comment in the review report.