Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations on an interesting and, potentially, very useful paper. I have enjoyed reading your development of the AHP-SCF-Cloud model to enable evaluation of canal serviceability as a means of targeting maintenance resources. 

I have marked up a number of places throughout the draft paper where I find the structure of the sentences to be overly complicated. This detracts from the ease of understanding your key ideas and messages. May I suggest you define the key terms in a similar way to the use of acronyms for other ideas. For example, you could substitute "serviceability" in place of "sustainable use status" which would reduce the length and complexity of a number of sentences.  I have marked up a few other phrases that are repeated which could also be reworded to clarify the sentences. 

The text in a number of figures (notable Fig. 1, 4,5,7, and 9) is too small to be readable. Please consider revising with a minimum font size of 9.

With careful editing the length of the paper can be reduced and the readability improved. I look forward to reading a revised version.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

We would like to especially thank you for taking the time to review our paper and for your valuable comments.

Based on your comments, we revised the manuscript again. We have responded to your comments one by one, please see the attachment. Due to the large number of changes in the manuscript, the order of some paragraphs has been reversed, we did not use the "tracking changes" function, and directly marked the modified content in red.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript has a set of deficiencies that support my opinion in rejecting its publication, which are presented below:
1) The general approach is Operational Research and not applied Hydraulics and its sustainability. Thus, it must be submitted in another journal. I note that section 5 "Conclusions and discussion" does not mention anything about the nature and management of the channels.
2) An evaluation model is developed (section 2), but this has not been validated. It is a very weak point.
3) "Evaluation model" is also methodology. It is confused with section 2, "Methods", that also refers evaluation.
4) Regarding the study of the channels, it is not clear how the field data were obtained. It is not clear what the practical justification is, in terms of the design and management of the channels, for the results obtained (section 4).
5) The "Abstract" has low quality of writing.
6) The "Introduction" has very low quality: too long, too many generalities, unconvincing, not effectively integrating hydraulics and operational research components. I notice it has a paragraph (lines 142 to 241) with a length of two pages, which is unacceptable.
7) Figure 1 is not referred to in the text.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:
We would like to especially thank you for taking the time to review our paper and for your valuable comments.
Based on your comments, we revised the manuscript again. We have responded to your comments one by one, please see the attachment. Due to the large number of changes in the manuscript, the order of some paragraphs has been reversed, we did not use the "tracking changes" function, and directly marked the modified content in red.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors need to improve the English of this paper. Methods are not defined in an adequate way. No results section at all. Also, consider reducing the overall word count. 

First thing, define canal lining first and explain it properly in the manuscript. 

Line 99: because the CL is longer than the general building canal line? what do you mean by this?

Line 100: Sustainable use status? really not able to understand your point

2.1 Cloud Model: mathematical model that coverts uncertainty into certainty? does this make sense?

Define case study and all the equations in the methods section. 

Add a results section and describe the results of your evaluation there in a coherent way.

Discussion should be separated from the conclusion.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:
We would like to especially thank you for taking the time to review our paper and for your valuable comments.
Based on your comments, we revised the manuscript again. We have responded to your comments one by one, please see the attachment. Due to the large number of changes in the manuscript, the order of some paragraphs has been reversed, we did not use the "tracking changes" function, and directly marked the modified content in red.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for your detailed and clear response to previous comments. I find the paper much easier to read and to understand the proposed approach to assessment of canal lining.

I few minor editorial issues are indicated in attached file. Overall you may consider shortening a few sentences that are over long.

I note you use a variety of software to undertake the analysis and presentation. For future work it would be useful to explore translation the process onto a spreadsheet for more general use. Most canal maintenance departments do not have access to MATLAB or the capacity to conduct the maths involved in the process described. I believe your approach could contribute significantly to the assessment of damaged canal lining if it was packaged into a generally applicable tool (recognizing that it would still be necessary to tailor parameters to the relevant local conditions). 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your comments and suggestions concerning our manuscript. The comments and suggestions are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope to get your approval. All the changes were highlighted (in red) in the revision.

Best regards!

Yours sincerely,

Professor Qingfu Li; Mr. Huade Zhou

 

Thank you for your detailed and clear response to previous comments. I find the paper much easier to read and to understand the proposed approach to assessment of canal lining.

I few minor editorial issues are indicated in attached file. Overall you may consider shortening a few sentences that are over long.

I note you use a variety of software to undertake the analysis and presentation. For future work it would be useful to explore translation the process onto a spreadsheet for more general use. Most canal maintenance departments do not have access to MATLAB or the capacity to conduct the maths involved in the process described. I believe your approach could contribute significantly to the assessment of damaged canal lining if it was packaged into a generally applicable tool (recognizing that it would still be necessary to tailor parameters to the relevant local conditions).

Response : Thank you very much for your valuable comments. We have shortened some of the long sentences in the manuscript to make it easier to understand.

Indeed, through on-site investigations, we found that both canal lining maintenance departments and canal lining construction units, they basically do not know how to use MATLAB, and the mathematical calculation ability needs to be improved. For the work to be carried out in the future, the suggestions you provided are exactly the next step we want to solve, we are also actively carrying out the organic combination of complex calculation formulas and drawing, simplify the manual calculation and drawing process, and striving to complete the evaluation by just entering the relevant parameters.

In order to use the method proposed in this paper reasonably, we next plan to develop a canal lining serviceability evaluation system, which will involve the MATLAB drawing and mathematical equations calculate by writing program code to realize the evaluation, thus simplifying the calculation process and drawing, and eventually only need to input the evaluation index, evaluation criteria, field actual measurement data, etc. into a spreadsheet, and then import it into the system, using programming language or algorithms to improve the efficiency of evaluation in a visualized operation, which also facilitates the spread of the use of this evaluation method. The above is added to lines 717 to 724 in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

This revised version of the manuscript maintain deficiencies that support my opinion in rejecting its publication, which are presented below:
1) The general approach is Operational Research and not applied Hydraulics and its sustainability. Thus, it must be submitted in another journal. I note that section 5 "Conclusions and discussion" does not mention anything about the nature and management of the channels.
2) An evaluation model is developed (section 2), but this has not been validated. It is a very weak point.
3) Figure 1 content is also methodology. It has no sense to be included in Introduction section.
4) Regarding the study of the channels, it is not clear how the field data were obtained. It is not clear what the practical justification is, in terms of the design and management of the channels, for the results obtained (section 4).
5) The "Abstract" has low quality of writing.
6) The "Introduction" continues with very low quality: unconvincing, not effectively integrating hydraulics and operational research components.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have done a good job in revising the manuscript. 

Change indexes with indices throughout the text.

Canal lining (CL) is an additional layer which you construct over an existing structure, which is canal itself. Keeping this in mind make adjustments in the text. There are many instances in the manuscript when the reader might think that CL itself is an independent structure that may create confusion. Also, keep in mind that any canal can be lined, either it is the primary canal or secondary and tertiary canal. Authors need to be VERY clear in this. 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you so much for your reviewing! The comments and suggestions are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. To be honest, I have learned a lot from the comments you gave in the first and second rounds. I have improved in writing, the main logic of the article, and the nature of the canal lining itself. Thank you again! We wish you all the best! All the changes were highlighted (in red) in the revision. Hope to get your approval.

Best regards!

Yours sincerely,

Professor Qingfu Li; Mr. Huade Zhou 

Point 1: Authors have done a good job in revising the manuscript. 

Change indexes with indices throughout the text.

Canal lining (CL) is an additional layer which you construct over an existing structure, which is canal itself. Keeping this in mind make adjustments in the text. There are many instances in the manuscript when the reader might think that CL itself is an independent structure that may create confusion. Also, keep in mind that any canal can be lined, either it is the primary canal or secondary and tertiary canal. Authors need to be VERY clear in this. 

Response: Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions. We have replaced "indexes" with "indices" in the revised manuscript, and hope that you will be satisfied. I have great respect for your academic attainments, you directly pointed out the essential characteristics of canal lining. The lining is indeed an additional structure, which is an additional layer built at the bottom of the existing canal structure and on both sides of the slope. Its main function is to transport water, improve the water utilization coefficient of the canal system, prevent the slope collapse on both sides, and improve the effective use of water resources. We have made additional explanations in the revised manuscript, hope to get your satisfaction!

In addition, we deeply understand that the canal lining is a transmission channel that effectively connects irrigation water to farmland, thus constantly conveying water to all areas of the irrigation district. Within the scope to which each irrigation district belongs, irrigation canals can be divided into 5 levels according to the size of the controlled area: main canal, sublateral canal, branch canal, lateral canal and agricultural canal. Any canal can be lined, whether it is the primary canal or the secondary, tertiary or other level canal. Thank you very much for your kind reminder!

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.