Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments about the Paper: “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”

The paper deals with the investigation of ET in Bosten Lake basin from time and space perspective. In overall, the work is interesting and I believe the topic of this paper is appropriate to be published in Sustainability journal.

Please find in the attached file the amendments which I believe are required prior to accepting the paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:  

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”(ID: sustainability-888881).

We have studied reviewer’s comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.

Thank you and best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The findings of the paper are well presented and seem to have practical significance. However, authors should further differentiate the novelty of their work compared to literature, such as Molopo River Catchment and Yellow River cases presented in the manuscript’s Introduction. My other comment is that the final results (Table 3) remain unverified even though the model was combined with the 2013 MODIS ET data. I think the conclusion part can be augmented with more benchmarks such as the results from (1) other ET estimation methods applied to the same region or (2) the same method applied to other regions. Comparing with Li's work [22] more qualitatively would also be useful.

The structure or grammar is good, and the following is suggested to correct minor formatting and punctuation issues: 

Line 55: The meaning of an acronym TM should be explained (Thematic Mapping)

Line 72: The meaning of an acronym MODIS should be explained (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). Adding explanations about the instrument would be useful.

Line 107: The meaning and definition of NDVI (Normal differential vegetation index) are provided in 2.2.3 heading (Line 164), but authors should also explain here where it appears for the first time.

Line 134: (1) “where” should not be indented, (2) △Sis -> △S is

Lines 153-154: (1) “where” should not be indented, (2) w/m^2 -> W/m^2

Lines 158, 168, 182, 187, 190, 194: “where” should not be indented nor capitalized

Line 164: Whar do Band3 and Band4 stand for and why are they important?

Line 196: Single-sentence paragraph. Elaborate explanations for Fig. 2

Line 234: water status (precipitation).Precipitation -> ). Precipitation

Line 260: Table 2 contains two column sets divided in the middle, but the vertical line looks awkward

Line 313: Li [22]used -> Li [22] used

Line 325: arid In the past 50 -> arid in the past 50

Lane 373: forestland (102 mm).Under -> (102 mm). Under

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:  

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”(ID: sustainability-888881).

We have studied reviewer’s comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.

Thank you and best regards,

Yours sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

There is a lack of citations in the point 2. Only two, when is describing the equations and the model. I know that it has not been doing on purpose, but this is plagiarism.

The study is being done with just one year. It is not enough to support the conclusions and generalize the results.

I think that the paper has an error in the approach. Should be a methodological paper using as study case the Bosten Lake. In this way, the paper could win value.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:  

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”(ID: sustainability-888881).

We have studied reviewer’s comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.

Thank you and best regards,

Yours sincerely！

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This manuscript investigates the evaportranspiration estimation using the SEBAL model in the Bosten Lake Basin in China. There are many grammatical mistakes appeared in the manuscript. My serious concern is that how the authors convince the SEBAL model is capable to calculate the daily evaportranspiration. I did not find that the SEBAL model was validated with observed evaportranspiration in the study basin. The other one concern is that how the authors determinate the parameters in the SEBAL model. What are the parameters existing in SEBAL model? It is the basic route to validate the model before using the model to calculate the spatial distribution of evaportranspiration. However the authors missed the route. The future work should be included at the end of Conclusions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:  

On behalf of my co-authors, we thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript, we appreciate editor and reviewers very much for their positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”(ID: sustainability-888881).

We have studied reviewer’s comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.

Thank you and best regards,

Yours sincerely！

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has significantly improved content-wise. The newly added paragraphs contain some minor errors, so spell-checking would be desirable.

Figure 1 & Line 469: Boston Lake -> Bosten Lake

Eqs. 4 & 5: minus sign looks weird (Eqs. 3 & 6 look alright)

Lines 210-215: subject missing. the daily evapotranspiration (-> remove "the")

Line 335: cloudiness of images -> the cloudiness of images

Line 336: with images of similar time -> with images of a similar time

Line 355: 3.09km2.After -> 3.09km2. After

Lines 359 & 380 & 410: land use types -> land-use types

Line 364: shrub land -> shrubland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrubland)

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”(ID: sustainability-888881). We have studied your comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Thank you and best regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper has been improved a lot, but still I think that the implementation, input parameterization used and improvements done in the SEBAL model are not clear. For the parameterzation you can try to do a table that shows the initial parameter and the used. Implementation and improvements can be explained just adding a paragraph for each one. Also I recommend to improve the conclusions, the second paragraph has a lack of precision. Very general and not developed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Evapotranspiration Estimation Based on Remote Sensing and the SEBAL Model in the Bosten Lake Basin of China”(ID: sustainability-888881). We have studied your comments carefully and have made revision which marked in red in the paper. We have tried our best to revise our manuscript according to the comments. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration. We appreciate for your warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.

Thank you and best regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

No more comments. The revised manuscript can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thanks very much for your kind work and consideration on publication of our paper. On behalf of my co-authors, we would like to express our great appreciation to you. Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Thank you and best regards.

Yours sincerely

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for the revised version. Has been improved a lot.