Adaptation to Extreme Hydrological Events by Javanese Society through Local Knowledge

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a very innovative paper.

The  introduction, methodology, results and conclusions  are well presented. 

The results are sound.

Figures and tables  are well  presented. 

The references are up to date.

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for taking time to review our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

I am grateful for this opportunity to review a very innovative and potentially important manuscript, and also to add my comments in the hopes of making the paper more accessible to a broader audience. 

I’ll start with a few broad questions that I found I could not answer after reading it through a few times, and then finish with some specific comments about individual lines.

1)  When you talk about integrating local and scientific knowledge, is the focus to be on encouraging farmers and policymakers to blend both forms of knowledge, or is the focus to be on cross-referencing scientific knowledge to in order to verify the usefulness of local knowledge?   The paper currently seems to go back and forth between the two perspectives, though the last paragraph in your conclusion suggests there are more political barriers in place that affect this balance.  Given the history of green revolution in Indonesia, to what degree is “scientific knowledge” locally equated with the politics, as well as science, of that era?  When you state (on lines 270-272) that your “results showed that local knowledge and scientific data can be integrated to inform policies supporting farming activities and empower communities to make informed decisions . . .” is scientific data integrated just enough to confirm the community practices are working, or is the integration needed to enhance/replace community practices?

2)   As a reader who never heard of the Pranata Mangsa before, I was not able to figure out whether it offered predictive insight to farmers (e.g. ‘if the cicididae does not sing until after this day, expect a dry season next year…’) in addition to more general timeline advice, or whether there were different versions localized to different geographic regions.  Also, how much adaptability is built into the calendar?  I assume the months always adhere to the same numeric length 41, 23, 24, 25, etc., though wasn’t sure if significant changes in weather patterns might affect it (e.g. 63 days later and still no rain -- does that postpone transition to the next phase?).  I was also curious to learn more about its formalization as a written document in 1855 (how common was it to formalize local knowledge in that manner, especially that long ago?), and its fate during the green revolution. 

3) I had several questions about the methods and results, and Figure 3 sums up most of them.  The analysis methods used to create Figure 3 were not clear to me, as I can’t tell what else the table shows beyond a straight count of the number of drought/flood events as they fell into each respective ‘month’ designation (Gregorian vs. Pranata Mangsa), and even then I’m not confident that’s what the table conveys.  I’m hopeful that if those methods are more clearly explained, then other questions I had might be answered too:  what is being compared in order to ascertain ability to “mitigate the effects of drought/flood?” Is the assumption that if flood/drought occurs during specific times then the agricultural practices called for on the Pranata Mangsa calendar will likely be best for mitigating their effects?  Again, the question of whether the Pranata Mangsa helps predict extreme events came up, and if so, are you proposing that be combined with scientific knowledge for mitigation processes?

With regard to specific lines:

82 – 90: Study area.  Could you also provide a map of the areas you identify by latitude/longitude?

108-112: clarify data source for SPI?

116-137:  Scientific View of Local Knowledge. I would recommend making this its own sub-heading “2.4” and clarify you are describing the general LINKS definitions but not yet details of Pranata Mangsa.  I would also recommend introducing it with a bit more background information about its creation and purpose, but only maybe one or two sentences more.  And if possible, could you provide an example or two to help illustrate the differences between LINKS categories III and IV?

269-270:  LINKS IV analysis.  You may have already defined “Sesajen (pest management)” earlier, but I must have forgotten and it would be helpful to again remind readers what that means here.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx