Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Exposure to Fluoride in Drinking Water in Victoria de Durango, Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have gone through your mauscript and observed that you have studied only Fluoride and pH parameters. Why other water quality parameters are not included in the manuscript.

Moderate revision in English langauage are required 

Author Response

Good morning reviewer 1
Thank you very much for your comments, your observations have been addressed. 

"please see the attachment"

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attachment.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Good morning reviewer 2
Thank you very much for your comments, they were very useful to improve the manuscript.

"Please see the attachment."

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Exposure to Fluoride in  Drinking Water in Victoria de Durango, México

It focuses on the Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Exposure to Fluoride in  Drinking Water in Victoria de Durango, México. The manuscript in its current form is not adequate to be published. It is suggested suitable revision. The authors must revise it and follow the following suggestions to improve their work.

Other comments

Revise your abstract.

Principal and other specific objectives of the study

What is the novelty and significance of this study?

Line 21-22 Therefore, it is important to implement actions to reduce the concentration of fluoride in drinking water.

How did you conclude this?  On what basis do you conclude this? I do not think authors do this work in the current MS.

Introduction

The authors need to clarify the novelty in the introduction section. The introduction section misses the logical flow and connectivity of sentences. Several sentences repeat the information. Moreover, a robust justification for this study is missing. This section is not clearly explaining the overall picture of your paper. Previous studies were done in the study area, México, and international premises using this method. It is suggested to add some literature globally and make it more attractive for readers.

I would like to ask you to cite a similar latest publication. I suggest the following paper for your guideline.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.1020028/full

https://doi.org/10.5004/dwt.2021.27913

 

1.2.    Health risk assessment

It is suggested to add some related references that verify your methodology approach. What parameters are targets not clear?

1.3.  Exposure and risk assessment

It is suggested to add references to the equations.

Results and  discussions

 

The results are not supported by existing literature. The discussion section requires more discussion referring to the existing literature. The authors thoroughly discussed their findings with similar studies done worldwide. I suggest the authors highlight the new findings and add the contents for the contribution in the discussion section.

NA

Author Response

Good morning reviewer 3
Thank you very much for your comments, corrections were made and the manuscript was substantially modified.

"Please see the attachment." i

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Highlight changes in yellow in a next revision, please. No track changes.

 

Dear authors, there is some significant similarity in the text that needs to be addressed because of the numbers all together. Please see the similarity starts in the abstract. Why...?

 

Even when the reference is presented, authors need to consider that the text needs to be rewritten to translate their own thoughts.

 

Extensive parts of the introduction present complete similarity in specific sentences.

Some with NO references being mentioned.

 

All these issues need to be necessarily addressed.

 

It would be important to briefly characterise the methodology Because if these are the objectives, then they need to be more clear.

“In this research, the fluoride concentration of the wells that distribute drinking water in the city of Durango was analyzed at two times of the year”

 

Significant similarity here and no references.

“2.3. Health risk assessment”

Same here.

“2.4. Exposure and risk assessment”

OR

“2.5. Monte Carlo simulations and sensitivity analyses”

OR

RESULTS...

 

Please consider that any known acquisition needs to present the necessary references immediately before.

As define units in parameters, where available.

And address italics in parameters variables.

 

Please do not start captions with “The”.

“Table 1. The”

References in tables need t be preceded by the authors names. Direct citation style.

 

Add the meaning of each parameter under notes in Tables, SD, etc, and address italics please.

 

Captions need to be self/explanatory. they are not, add region, time frame...

“Figure 1. Fluoride concentration in the two periods sampled.”

 

add complete legends to XX axis

 

Please address international unit system. “1.67 meters”

 

Where are the subcaptions per letter.

“Figure 3. Potential effects on human health associated with fluoride ingestión.”

Check typos at the end...

 

Please avoid using abbreviations in axis legends, compare to previous figures.

Font size, upper lower letter, etc

 

I need to see more survey methodology being included in the abstract.

“Crystal ball software and survey data were used for the simulation.”

Could not find informed consent and ethics authorization.

 

Strangely, the conclusion section also presents some significant similarity, something I cannot understand in the conclusions section. Please use plural.

The conclusions section is extremely important.

It needs to contextualise the paper. It needs to briefly present the methodology, the main findings and practical implications.

Add the limitations and future prospects.

 

The number of references is rather scarce.

Many of them are old were outdated, leave only the essential ones and update the rest.

Why upper letter in some cases

 

Please add more recent relevant and international references since the study is aimed at an international audience.

 

The only intention of the above comments is to assist the authors in obtaining a more relevant text.

moderate

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4.
I am very grateful for your comments, which were very helpful in making the necessary modifications to improve the manuscript. The corrections were made to the manuscript and it was substantially improved.

"Please see the attachment."

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is much improved. The authors have done a great job of responding to comments all over the article and improving the English as well. This manuscript will make a good contribution to the literature as a state of the art research article. Thank you for all your efforts. I recommend to accept this article to publish.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors  improve a lot of the paper quality during revesion.

Author Response

I would like to express my deep appreciation for your valuable comments, which have been of great help in raising the quality of our manuscript. We have made some final changes, especially regarding reference checking, thanks to your suggestions. Your contribution has been instrumental in this process and we are sincerely grateful for your dedication and support

Reviewer 4 Report

Highlight changes in yellow in a next revision, please. No track changes.

 

Dear authors, the answer is given to the reviewer comments needs to be detailed. No copy paste. What we need to understand is what has been changed in response to the comments.

 

Dear authors figure one is a set of different figures. Each one needs to be identified by a letter and the subcaption corresponding to each letter needs to be added after the main caption.

 

This is an example of the lack of references. The reference corresponding to this institution needs to be here and presented at the final list.

“The probabilistic risk analysis was carried out following the guidelines established by the Office of Emergency and Remedial Response U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).”

 

Table one last column should be data source because “data obtained from fluoride analysis” is not references.

 

I would like the authors to understand that, despite the effort done, there is still some significant similarity through the entire text. And also in the limitations, for example.

Moderate

Author Response

"Please see the attachment." 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx