TOC Standards for Sustainably Managing Refractory Organic Matter in Swine Wastewater Effluent

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the abstract: Explain, refractory organic matter

Line 39 and 41, add recent data

Line 56 and 74, the reductions of P and N in manure is good? The message is no clear in this paragraph.

Why the authors explain the manure in many countries? There is more important information for the readers, for example: the difference between refractory organic matter and organic matter. What is refractory organic matter?

In addition, the authors should content of N and P in manure in Korea and other country just.

Explain BOD and CODM in the introduction.

Table 1, is no clear and the data was not explored adequality. Explain, why was there not the same use of effluent. Explore all use of effluent in the text

Where is there information of “the percentage of subcontracted, off-site treatment has continually increase since 2007”. There is no information of both year in the table with the same use of effluent. It was no clear, please check it.

Please, explore the data of Table 2. Effluent water quality standards for livestock manure treatment facilities. I did not see information of BOD (mg/L), COD (mg/L SS (mg/L), Coliform (CFUs/mL), T–N (mg/L), and T–P (mg/L) in text. Demonstrate and explain these results

Again, the results of Tables 3 and 4 are not presented in text. In general, the manuscript has many Figures and Tables and results are not sufficient explored in the text.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

- Abstract. It seems to be too long. I recommend to shorten it.

A general concern on the manuscript is the reason to change the existing discharge limits. I guess that the need of detemining new values is not well explained, for example, showing that even meeting the currents limits, eutophication events or any other deleterious effects on the environment are observed. The need of changing the current discharge limits must be clarified.

- Introduction on L62-64. Please, provide the percentage reduction too. The same applies for L65-68.

- L89. Please, be more specific with the term "purification", do you mean source separation o effluent treatment....? The same applies for L91.

- L174-175. I wonder if passing from 5 % percentile to 50 % percentile is not too much. Could a more reasonable value, such as 20 % be applied?

- L213-214. Please, explain the meaning of "public resources".

- Table 1. Please, translate "Hanwoo". The same applies for L252 and others.

- Table 2. The number of coliforms is measured in CFU/ml or CFU/100 mL? I recommend using "Total N" and "Total P" instead of "T-N" and "T-P", it is clearer. What is the difference between "specific" and "general" area in on-site facility type? And the meaning of "

- Table 4. The 60 % increment correspond to Korean or daily cattle?

- L277-280. Maybe I am wrong but Table 2 indicates the same limit values for public and private facilities. I guess that Table 2 must be better explained.

- L322-328. I would not say that 17, 7 and 9 % are high values of failure. Please, change the sentence to be more exact.

- Section 3.3.1. The manuscript is too long and must be shortened. A good example is this section, that offers a lot of information that will be useless for international readers (L355 to L370). I recommend removing or strongly shortening this section since the evolution of limits in Korea is of limited interest outside the country.

- Discussion, section 3.4.4. In my opinion, the authors should include a comparison with the legal limits for TOC and/BOD, COD from other countries in the text on table.

- Table 9. Are the different percentiles presented necessary? Most of them should be removed and only the most relevant ones left, for example, 5 %, 50 % and 90 %.

- Conclusion section. It is also too long. It is treated as an abstract and only the most relevant information achieved by the researchers should be included.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Congrast. I recommend the publication of manuscript. 

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been notably improved and can be accepted for publication.

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors have tried to respond all the comments and therefore I am appreciate.