Vietnam’s Water Resources: Current Status, Challenges, and Security Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper is a literature review of current and future perspectives on the water resources conditions in Vietnam. The authors assessed the water resources security based on four aspects, which is claimed to be the significant novelty of this review paper. Overall, the approach of this paper is proper for its purpose. However, as a review paper, some statements in this paper require more literature citations to support them. Besides, this paper’s quantitative analysis is limited, and some issues exist. Overall, I suggest a revision before its publication.

Literature citation issues:

1.       Page 2, lines 60-64 generally lacks references.

2.       Page 3, line 80, “the previous studies show….” What is the citation?

3.       Page 5, lines 139-141, there’s no citation on the water availability indicator data.

4.       Page 6, Figure 157. Please add citations and methodologies on how the “adequate water level,” “water shortage level,” “water scarcity level,” and “threat to life level” are derived.

5.       Page 9, lines 201-202. Add citation to the “The international standard….”

6.       Page 13, line 361. Please add citations to prove “Vietnam is one of the countries that most severely suffered by climate change.”

Quantitative analysis issues:

1.       Page 6, lines 145-148. Discharge is not the only indicator of water availability. So it is incorrect to use discharge level to indicate the potential water shortage.

2.       Page 15, line 470, instead of “water consumption,” it should be “water use.”

3.       Page 15-16. Sections 3.3 and 3.4 generally list a lot of numbers. But I do not see any further calculations showing how water use or transboundary water quantity impacts water security. They should be compared with water availability.

4.       The conclusion on page 17, lines 573-577, claims this study is an “in-depth analysis.” However, as the article generally does not perform any water balance calculation considering all the mentioned aspects, I would not consider this study an “in-depth analysis.” But rather, a review of the current and future schemes. I would encourage the author to add additional water balance calculations to this article to improve its impact.

Other grammar, presentation, or logic issues:

1.       The term “water waste” in this article should be replaced with “wastewater.”

2.       The term “rainy season” should be replaced with “wet season.”

3.       The expression on page 1, lines 33-43, is chaotic. I suggest adding a leading sentence to summarize the point before line 33, such as: “Several studies on water security assessment exist outside the Vietnam or climate similar regions.”

4.       Page 2, lines 51-53, “average rainfall is large, the river network is dense,” is not an objective description unless compared with a certain standard (such as the world or regional average).

5.       Page 2, figure 1. This figure lacks information. I will suggest either removing this map or overlaying the map with climate or river network layers.

6.       Page 2, line 64, remove “both materially and spiritually” as they are unnecessary descriptions.

7.       Page 2, lines 67-68. Please explain how the MBMs have not been “operated effectively.”

8.       Page 3, line 70, please describe how the GWSI is calculated, are they based on “climate change” and “socio-economic development” (line 72)?

9.       Page 3, line 77, what are the definitions for “traditional” and “non-traditional” security?

10.   Page 4, Figure 2. Instead of using categorical colorways for the river basins, please use transition colors to show the quantitative differences in the rainfall.

11.   Page 5, lines 120-123. The leading sentence of a paragraph should summarize the whole paragraph. However, this sentence is irrelevant to the rest sentences in this paragraph.

12.   Page 5, lines 126-127, please check the symbol “-“.

Author Response

Thanks for valuable comments and please see attached file for our respond.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thanks for valuable comments and please see attached file for our respond.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Review report for paper

Review paper entitled “

Vietnam’s water resources: current status, challenges and security perspective”

General remarks:

·      Extensive editing of English language required

·      Quality of all figures should be improved (600dpi is proposed)

Specific remarks

·      The challenge of water resources in Vietnam should be described by a figure before detailing all factors influencing water resources status.

·      The Figure of localization is missing coordinates, projection system, legend;

·      In the presentation of the study area, climatic, hydrologic, hydrogeologic and human activities context should be presented and added because this can have a high influence on the water resources status and challenge.

·      The vulnerability to pollution should cited and used as a strategy for water resources protection; you can add a vulnerability map

·      The Transboundary water resources section should be detailed (section 3.4)

·      Discussion part is missing

·      Conclusion part is too short

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thanks for valuable comments and please see attached file for our respond.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf