Impact of Land Reclamation on Coastal Water in a Semi-Enclosed Bay
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- Please indicate results/conclusions and a bit more contextual information in the abstract
- Authors must indicate all the statistical methods used with relevant equations and references for better understanding
- Please refer to the attached PDF for detailed comments and suggestions
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please kindly open the attached PDF file for our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is fascinating, albeit the subject is very local. However, the applied methods were appropriately chosen and described adequately. Therefore, the results, discussion and conclusions are consequent and reliable. However, the English language could and should be improved to avoid ambivalent expressions like "enforcing coastline retreat", etc.
these are my additional comments on the manuscript Impacts of Land Reclamation on Coastal Water in a Semi-Enclosed Bay:
1. A brief summary outlining the aim of the paper and its main contributions.
The paper aims to investigate the environmental impact of a massive land reclamation project when a new international airport was built on a parcel of land newly reclaimed from the sea. Hence its main contribution – delivering new findings to the integrated coastal management of semi-enclosed tropical coastlines where extensive land reclamation projects are taking place in East Asia and beyond (e.g., in the Gulf States).
2. Broad comments highlighting areas of strength and weakness.
The most evident strength of the manuscript is its excellent design. Within the extent of my professional competencies, the methods applied were aptly chosen, up-to-date, and described flawlessly. Therefore, the results and conclusions are convincing. There is no need to respond in that sense. The only weakness is the very narrow geographical scope of the target area. The manuscript deals with just one airport on a tiny island. It would be good if authors could frame their results into a broader picture of research results of environmental impacts of massive land reclamation projects in semi-enclosed tropical coastlines worldwide. Also, issues and perspectives of transboundary environmental collaboration between political entities sharing the Xiamen (Amoy) Bay (PRC and RoC) could be discussed in the Discussion section.
3. Specific comments referring to line numbers, tables or figures.
Line 40. “actively enforce shorelines to retreat.” Typically, the word ‘enforce’ has an opposite connotation to ‘retreating’ in coastal research.
Lines 249-273. Consider moving Chapter 5.1. to the Results section.
Line 296: “nutrient elevation in the bay.” Consider improving the clarity of the text.
Kindest regards,
Author Response
Please kindly open the attached PDF for our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The MS explored the impacts of land reclamation on coastal water, including TSS, DIN and coastline. The following issues should be addressed before it goes to any further.
Major issues:
(1) Just one site has been chosen, I don’t think the characteristics and regularity of the region can be represent. Can you use the production obtained by numerical simulation and satellite remote sensing images?
(2) Line 131-132 on page 5, the MS indicated that “Landsat images are used to determine the surface water quality of the whole bay with high spatial and temporal resolutions”. For ocean, the revisiting period of Landsat satellite is 16 days, which is not high temporal resolutions.
(3) How to use Landsat images to determine the surface water quality, and what parameters does surface water quality contain? The equations should be introduced, and the corresponding references souled be cited.
(4) For 4.3, five oyster growing areas are on land, like coastal ponds aquiculture ponds? I don’t understand what’s the point of coastline analysis for aquaculture areas.
(5) Since major reclamation projects may affect the current and suspended solids in the water, I think the entire coastline of the Kinmen Island should be analyzed.
(6) To be honest, I don’t know the role of remote sensing images in the MS, just I feel that the correlation between reflectance and site data is calculated.
Minor issues:
(1) For Fig. 5 and Fig. 6, the residual error and measured TSS/DIN can be distinguished by different colors.
(2) Change CONCLUSION to CONCLUSIONS.
Author Response
Please kindly open the attached PDF file for our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for addressed the comments raised during the initial review.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer: Thanks for your kind response.
Reviewer 3 Report
I don't think that the proposed issue is addressed. (1) Although remote sensing images are used, I am not clear about the purpose of usign remote sensing images. (2) The subsequent application value of the case study is not clear.
Author Response
Please kindly refer to the attached PDF file for our response.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
