Potential Solutions for the Water Shortage Using Towers of Fog Collectors in a High Andean Community in Central Ecuador
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The water collected from air or air to water systems can become a promising solution for the water scarcity faced in most of the parts of the World. I would like to appreceate the authors for taking up this contemporary issues and providing a novel solution for this problem.
However, I have some reservations about the paper as I have delineated below :
1)Literature Review is not up to the mark
2)Structure of the paper needs to be improved
3)More in-depth comparative analysis is required about the benefit of the innovations.
4)The 3d fog catcher need to be tested in multiple situations based on air temperature and humidity level. The applicability of the product need to be checked.
5)I would like to see a complete economic as well as water conservation auditing of this new product.
Beside this few points I have no other objections.
If incorpoirated I can accept this paper.
Author Response
Response Letter to the expert reviewer
Dear Reviewer,
As authors of the manuscript “Potential solutions of the hydric need with a 3-D Fog-collector in a high Andean community in central Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your suggestions and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Below, we will detail the changes made and you will be able to find them all exposed and answered since the responses to each suggestion and comments are given in regular style while your comments appear in cursive. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved, where needed.
The water collected from air or air to water systems can become a promising solution for the water scarcity faced in most of the parts of the World. I would like to appreciate the authors for taking up this contemporary issues and providing a novel solution for this problem.
However, I have some reservations about the paper as I have delineated below:
1)Literature Review is not up to the mark
2)Structure of the paper needs to be improved
3)More in-depth comparative analysis is required about the benefit of the innovations.
4)The 3d fog catcher need to be tested in multiple situations based on air temperature and humidity level. The applicability of the product need to be checked.
5)I would like to see a complete economic as well as water conservation auditing of this new product.
Beside this few points I have no other objections.
If incorporated I can accept this paper.
Regarding to your given comments, we need to clarify that some of our literature are (unfortunately) official documents from Ecuadorian Government and Agencies, as well as, a thesis that gathered specific information in the Galte community, therefore we cannot simply stop citing, as we need to cite accordingly. However, we revised more literature and added more recent studies to our manuscript, such as cites 34-53.
About your comment on structure of the paper, we may mention that we needed to follow the common standard article process. First we set our problem with references and had subsequently improved our literature review. Then, we set the objective of this manuscript as well as how we proceeded to present it. Hereby, we established the physical construction of the 3D Fog Catcher, then we analyzed its worthiness through a benefit cost ratio which allowed and supported the applicability of our design. In order to estimate that presented ratio, it is required to determine farmer’s production cost, which we accomplished, and finally we concluded based on these results that this catcher design is worth to be applied, which helped to reach article’s predominant objective. The article is quite innovative in a strongly pragmatic manner as its design is much stronger than typical fog catchers and that even with smaller screens than the traditional ones, as it captures more efficiently water. This is discussed/presented in the conclusion section. Still, we are open and would be really grateful with you if you would specify a bit more in detail how we would be able to improve our paper’s structure.
Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study. Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper deals with an important issue of providing water for inhabitants in rural areas as well as for the crops. The results are very practical and provide useful information. The introduction is well prepared. What is missing is more information about the state-of-art and other constructions of this type. The text is readable but some passages need text editing. Some specific problems that need to be corrected or clarified are listed below:
l. 34. correct 'us' to 'as'
Table 1. The unit for the surface area should be provided.
Table 2. It is not clear what is the 'watertech' and 'watersemitech'
l. 168. It will be more convenient to use a number instead the word 'two'.
In Table 3 the meaning of Upper and lower ring dimensions need clarification.
l. 231 and others: all abbreviations need to be explained at their first use.
Fig. 6. is not clear,
Table 5. The conductivity result is presented in uS/cm, the permissible limits are in mg/l.
Author Response
Response Letter to the expert reviewer
Dear Reviewer,
As authors of the manuscript “Potential solutions of the hydric need with a 3-D Fog-collector in a high Andean community in central Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your suggestions and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Below, we will detail the changes made and you will be able to find them all exposed and answered since the responses to each suggestion and comments are given in regular style while your comments appear in cursive. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved, where needed.
The paper deals with an important issue of providing water for inhabitants in rural areas as well as for the crops. The results are very practical and provide useful information. The introduction is well prepared. What is missing is more information about the state-of-art and other constructions of this type. The text is readable but some passages need text editing. Some specific problems that need to be corrected or clarified are listed below:
- 34. correct 'us' to 'as'
Table 1. The unit for the surface area should be provided.
Table 2. It is not clear what is the 'watertech' and 'watersemitech'
- 168. It will be more convenient to use a number instead the word 'two'.
In Table 3 the meaning of Upper and lower ring dimensions need clarification.
- 231 and others: all abbreviations need to be explained at their first use.
Fig. 6. is not clear,
Table 5. The conductivity result is presented in uS/cm, the permissible limits are in mg/l.
The table we missed adding as surface area as our reviewer suggested. The area is measured in hectares and we add its symbol to the table in parenthesis “(ha)”
Regarding Table 2, you mentioned that the word “watertech” and “watersemitech” needs to be clarified. We used the term “technified” as synonym of mechanized. Yet, we understand that is not really clear and we have changed it to mechanized and semi-mechanized production system. In addition, we added some explanation of these terms in the paragraph just before of Table 2.
Line 168 you mentioned to use the number instead of the word “two”. We changed as you suggested.
You also required an additional explanation of paper terms “upper ring” and “lower ring”. Subsequently, we added an explanation regarding the confusion that Table 3 is able to demonstrate.
Regarding the abbreviations, we defined each abbreviation at any first appearance.
Figure 6 was changed for one that is clearer.
Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study. Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors
Reviewer 3 Report
There are many formatting errors in this article, such as the unit is not superscripted. In addition, this paper does not focus on scientific issues, and the so-called Fogcatcher towers have no scientific basis and practical application value. This paper argues that Fogcatcher towers can alleviate drought, but the fog process rarely occurs in arid areas, so how to collect fog water? There is no value in publishing from the current article.
Author Response
Response Letter to the expert reviewer
Dear Reviewer,
As authors of the manuscript “Potential solutions of the hydric need with a 3-D Fog-collector in a high Andean community in central Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your suggestions and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Below, we will detail the changes made and you will be able to find them all exposed and answered since the responses to each suggestion and comments are given in regular style while your comments appear in cursive. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved, where needed.
There are many formatting errors in this article, such as the unit is not superscripted. In addition, this paper does not focus on scientific issues, and the so-called Fogcatcher towers have no scientific basis and practical application value. This paper argues that Fogcatcher towers can alleviate drought, but the fog process rarely occurs in arid areas, so how to collect fog water? There is no value in publishing from the current article.
We have corrected almost all of the you observations such as units are not superscripted, but to fully accomplish with your suggestions and or comments, we will need a better or more detailed clarification of some of your affirmations. However, firstly, you mentioned that the article does not focus on scientific issues. As you certainly know, a “scientific issue” requires first a problem to be solved. Regarding sustainability, most of the dry areas face a serious water deficit, and to solve this problem, a solution has to appear from science and academia. You also mention that the “so-called fogcatcher tower does not have practical application” Quite the opposite is true and already realized, as plenty assistant-development organizations and institutions such as the World Bank, The Inter-American Development Bank, Organization of American States (OAS), the OECD, USAID from the United States, GiZ from Germany and several other more aid institutions promoted the application of fogcatchers within dry (and poor) regions.
Furthermore, you argued that “fog process rarely occurs in arid areas”. As you must know fog appears when water vapor, or water in its gaseous form, condenses. During condensation, molecules of water vapor combine to make tiny liquid water droplets that hang in the air. This is a very simple way to demonstrate how fog is formed, and, we know it because it has been taken from a non-scientific magazine that explains it to the general public how fog is formed. There are various types of fogs, but we are just going to mention just one of them as it is very close related to “arid areas”. The advection fog forms when warm, moist air passes over a cool surface. This type of fog is frequent in the Atacama Desert in Chile as an article published in Atmospheric Research 87(3-4), 312-323 mentions it. When the moist, warm air get to have contact with the cooler surface air, water vapor condenses to create fog. Advection fog shows up mostly in places where warm air meets cooler ocean water. The Pacific coast of South America from Chile, Perú and South of Ecuador is often covered in advection fog. The problem with fogcatchers screens are that can be teared up by strong winds. This manuscript presents an alternative for that problem, which appeared from science and academia. Our 3-D fogcatcher is built in strong base which deals efficiently with those winds, as it reduces the exposure area and fog screens are in four sides. Therefore, this manuscript is a very valuable contribution to science and communities as well.
Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study. Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors
Reviewer 4 Report
Atmospheric water harvesting is an interesting topic. In this manuscript, there is disconnect between section 3 - which technically should describe theoretical construct. In section 3, authors should provide mode detailed information of various structures under investigation. Cost analysis as mentioned in section 3. Although section 4 has some details, its organization can be improved for flow through the manuscript. In addition to conclusion, please add a section on future directions.
Author Response
Response Letter to the expert reviewer
Dear Reviewer,
As authors of the manuscript “Potential solutions of the hydric need with a 3-D Fog-collector in a high Andean community in central Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your suggestions and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. In the manuscript, we will detail the changes made and you will be able to find them all exposed and answered since the responses to each suggestion and comments are given within the edited text. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved, where needed.
Reviewer 5 Report
In this study, the authors made a practical 3D fog collection system by analyzing the geographical location, crops and people's life style of the Galte area, as well as considering about economic benefits, they used local “Arundo donax” materials and meshes. They assembled the collector and placed it locally for water harvesting and assessments of the quality of the collected water were also performed. The installednets yielded a gain of at least 2,63 L/m 2 and a minimum of 0,65 L/m 2 per day. The amount of collected water can fulfill Galte’s peasants water needs. And after simple processing, it can meet the use standard and have good economic benefits. It is a good practical application research, and only some minor problems need to be corrected. 1. Please unify the wording of units such as square meters in the article.
2. In the section of “2. A social approach and hydric needs of the Galte communities” “Some 83% of the users that access the irrigation water, perform the irrigation by gravity and only 17% use sprinkler irrigation in their irrigation shifts, which produces an important loss of water in its management and use.” And in the section of “Galte’s Crop water needs” in “Results and discussion”, “Around 83% of Galte´s peasants that access the irrigation water, use water irrigation by gravity and only 17% use sprinkler irrigation in their irrigation systems. This high percentage of irrigation by gravity produces an important loss of water and has directly effect in peasants’ production yield.” These two contents are almost the same, please avoid duplication. 3. Line 63, reference should be checked.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
As authors of the current manuscript, we appreciated a lot your suggestions and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Within the manuscript, we detailed your suggestions as well as of your colleagues, some had even the same idea or recommendation, indicating a systematic error on our behalf. All changes made you will be able to find them exposed and answered since the responses to each suggestion and comments are given in a different (edited) style within the resubmitted manuscript. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved, where needed.
Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study. Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors
Reviewer 6 Report
The manuscript " Potential solutions of the hydric need with a 3-D Fog-collector in a high Andean community in central Ecuador " by David Vinicio Carrera-Villacré s Rad and co-authors report a three-dimensional fog collector system constructed with Urku Yaku material to provide water for the local area. The results of this study are expected to provide water harvesting solutions for water shortage areas. The content of the article is clear and easy to read, and the conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments Some minor modifications are listed as follows, which may help to improve the manuscript::
1. The author should pay attention to the missing and mistakes of punctuation marks in the manuscript. For example, there is no full stop at the end of the first paragraph and the second paragraph in the introduction, and the author writes "such as fruits. and certain vegetables" on line 94, where the full stop should not appear.
2. Please make a strict distinction between the use of commas and decimal points. Many data in the manuscript require the use of decimal points, but the author uses commas. For example, "The installed nets yielded a gain of at least 2,63 L/m2 and a minimum of 0,65 L/m2 per day" in the abstract, the data in Table 1 and Table 7 and the horizontal and vertical coordinates in Fig.4.
3. The author should pay attention to the consistency of the format of the preceding and the following text. For example, in line 193 of the manuscript, the author described that "we performed a cut of approximately two cm in width (Fig. 3a)", this should be adjusted to 2 cm.
4. There are many formatting and syntax errors in the manuscript, the authors should carefully check it. For example, the unit problem in the abstract, m2 and m3 need to add superscripts. And in line 226, there should be a space between 35 and m2.
5. The author is requested to check the labeling of references in the manuscript. For example, the 545 cited in line 63 does not exist. When two articles are cited at the same place (line 118), small numbers should be placed first.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
As authors of the current manuscript, we appreciated a lot your suggestions and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Within the manuscript, we detailed your suggestions as well as of your colleagues, some had even the same idea or recommendation, indicating a systematic error on our behalf. All changes made you will be able to find them exposed and answered since the responses to each suggestion and comments are given in a different (edited) style within the resubmitted manuscript. We also confirm that the writing in English has been thoroughly reviewed and accordingly improved, where needed.
Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study. Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
Changes are moderate but acceptable.
Author Response
Thank you for your time and recommendations. They helped us a lot!
