Development of a Watershed Sustainability Index for the Santiago River Basin, Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Fig 5 can be combined with Fig 1.

Fig 9, 10, 11 & 12 do not have axis title. It would be better to include axes titles. Secondly, what do bar & line (red) represent?

As per authors & from other literatures, the pressure parameter is human impact on water availability and environmental state of water, variation of basin water demand for life for both rural & urban and policy development for catchment preservation. It is important to clarify, whether authors considered environmental water requirements

Line 313 shows “EPI” which is relevant to the above comments, that represents variation of agricultural and population of the basin. Does this scoring include river (catchment) ecosystem health?

Although state parameter considers environmental conditions, it is not clear in its scoring.

Statement presented in line 354 to 357, is not clear. How does population’s willingness to involve for watershed management exert pressure on decision makers? Is it a constructive pressure?

This review accepts different scoring scales for H, E, L & P. However, the simplification of WSI as given in the equation (1) is not rightly justified as these components are measured in different measurable units. It is very difficult to scale them with a simple equation without concerting them into a same scale. Authors can clarify this.

Figure 14: How does downstream sub-catchment receive better score than immediate upstream considering state parameter? As the upstream sub-catchment may impact downstream while cascading down with poor water quality and impacts. This is not well supported by a possibility of dilution through sub-catchment no 2 as it is very small stream feeding the main river, moreover, number 8 is large and may highly impact catchment outlet at 10. Authors can check the data and scoring calculations.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper combined hydrological basin approach and sustainability indies to evaluate the sustainable development of Santiago-Guadalajara River basin. In general, the research area selected in this paper is very representative and highly necessary for research. In addition to the huge workload of data processing and calculation, this paper not only introduces the hydrology, environment, and policy involved in the method respectively, but also makes a visual presentation and specific analysis of the overall results of watershed sustainability index. However, there are still some shortcomings that need to be properly modified. Therefore, I think this paper can be accepted after minor revisions.

Abstract Section:

Point 1: The description of the region should be reduced, but the important research results or findings of this paper should be appropriately supplemented, and attention should be paid to showing the innovativeness of this paper.

Point 2: The sentence “This study combined the above two approaches by applying the watershed sustainability index (WSI) to evaluate the Santiago-Guadalajara River basin…” should be changed into “This study combined the above two approaches by applying the watershed 18 sustainability index (WSI) to evaluate the sustainable development of Santiago-Guadalajara River basin”

 Introduction Section:

Point 3: The introduction needs to be improved. Literature analysis should be added. For example, in terms of the definition of the connotation of regional sustainability and the advantages of sustainability indicators, please refer to the analysis of sustainable development, coordinated development and sustainable goals in the introduction of the following literature. The specific structure of the Introduction section can be appropriately modified according to this article.

[1]     Decoupling economic growth from water consumption in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China. Ecological Indicators 123, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107344

 Results Section:

Point 4: There are too many bar charts and line charts in the article, and it is not necessary to use both bar charts and line charts to represent the same data.

 Discussion and Conclusions Section:

Point 5: I do not quite recommend putting the discussion and conclusion together. Since the discussion section of this paper is very small, there are two ways to modify it: the first is to supplement the content of the discussion section and make it into a separate chapter, and the second is to move the content of the discussion section to the corresponding position of the results analysis.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript is dealing with a very relevant subject and merits publication. However, the manuscript needs revisions before being considered for publication.

Comments:

The use of sustainability indices for watershed studies needs to be added in the Introduction section. 

Too many figures in the manuscript, some of the figures describing the study area can be combined, for example Fig. 4 and 5 can be combined without any loss of information. Some of the less important figures can be moved as supplementary figures.

Units/Axis title are missing in many figures (For eg., 9, 10, 11)

Discussion section needs to be strengthened to bring out the significance of the present study and compare it with existing studies on WSI.

Aquifer is misspelt  in Fig. 8 (title and legend)

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript has considerable improved and the authors has satisfactorily addressed the major concerns raised during the first review and I recommend that the manuscript may be accepted in the present form.