Willingness to Pay for Irrigation Services in the Cold Winter Deserts of Uzbekistan
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study estimated the willingness to pay for irrigation services in the cold winter deserts (CWDs) of Uzbekistan by using discrete choice experiment (DCE).
Since there is no previous research on this topic, novelty can be acknowledged. In addition, since the results are beneficial for policy makers, this study can be evaluated as having sufficient contribution. However, there are a few points that should be corrected. I hope the following suggestions will help to improve this paper.
l.26-l.27
How about changing the random logit model to a random parameters logit model to match the text?
l.51
Prior studies that measured willingness to pay for irrigation services in other regions should be presented.
l.71 and others
The 3 in km3 should be a superscript.
l.74-l.76, l.120-l.125
Other methods including the best-worst scaling can also be used to study the user preferences of the irrigation system; the contribution of this study would be better understood if the significance of using DCE to measure WTP is also mentioned.
l.233
A more detailed explanation of the hypothetical scenario of DCE is needed. Why were the respondents asked to choose, in what position, and what were they asked to do? Appendix is fine, and I would like to see an example question and the text of the question shown before it. Also, the pictorial cards used in the survey should be included in the appendix.
Table 1
Is the "semi-volumetric irrigation water user charge/annum" paid per household or per individual?
l.237
It is difficult to know if nine cards means nine profiles or nine choice sets.
l.287
The latent class model (LCM) in this paper does not seem to estimate a membership function. It would be useful to know the characteristics of the respondents who belong to each class, but why is that analysis not done? It would be better to state the reason why the LCM in this paper focuses on the answer pattern (ANA) rather than individual characteristics.
l.311, l.490
The sample sizes for the pilot survey and the actual survey should be explained clearly, respectively. Is the sample size for the actual survey 200 or 300?
l.331-l.333
A more detailed explanation of the direct questioning of WTP for irrigation water should be provided. Would it be possible and useful to compare these results with those of the DCE?
4.2 Willingness to pay
There is no explanation about the coding of the variables; it would be better to explain whether the authors are using Dummy variables or effect coding. An explanation of ASC should also be added. Then, the interpretation of the ASC estimats should be done.
Table 3
Can you show the 95% confidence interval for WTP?
l.380
Table 4 is actually Table 3, and there are few interpretations of SD parameters. For example, can you say something about the large estimate of water sharing with downstream?
l.463.
I have the impression that the detailed analysis of the diversity of preferences and ANA does not have any concrete implications. What specific recommendations the authors can make based on these analyses in this case should be indicated.
l.473
Was the Mixed logit model also estimated with this software?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Willingness to pay for irrigation services in the cold winter deserts of Uzbekistan was well written by the authors
I suggest the authors read through and manuscript again to be sure there are no typos.
Add a map to the description of the study area, that will enhance the visibility of this paper.
Kindly explore and cite this article also, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/10/5458
Check and add missing references in the work, i want it more scholarly discussed.
Your reference section is not in order, needs to conform with the journals format.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
