Review Reports - Developing a Strategy to Recover Condensate Water from Air Conditioners in Palestine

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please check the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Reply to the Comments of the Reviewers

Manuscript ID water-555148 (water Journal)

Developing a Strategy to Recovering Condensate Water from Air Conditioners in Palestine

Lubna Siam, Issam A. Al-Khatib, Fathi Anayah_,Shehdeh Jodeh, Ghadir Hanbali, Bayan Khalaf

July 25, 2019

First, the authors would like to thank the associate editor and the reviewers for the time and effort made available to review and comment on the manuscript. The comments are constructive and helpful to better demonstrate the concepts and interpretation of results. Second, all comments were addressed as needed and changes are made using the “Track Change” function for easy revisions.

Reviewer 1

Manuscript Number: water-555148

Title: Developing a Strategy to Recovering Condensate Water from Air Conditioners in Palestine

Article Type: Article

Comments for the Authors:

The author have analyzed the potential for recovery of condensate water from air conditioning systems and evaluated this water source in terms of quality and quantity in two Palestinian cities. The topic is interesting for the journal's readership. However, in my opinion some issues should be addressed and improved before the manuscript can be published.

Detailed comments:

1. Please check and modify the format according to the regulation of WATER. For example, you can delete the Section 1.1 and just put it to the Introduction.

Authors: Section 1.1 is put in to the introduction (Lines 64-65).

2. In the Section of “Introduction”, some sentences need references to fully express why you want to do this study:

Duan, W., Chen, Y., Zou, S. and Nover, D., 2019. Managing the water-climate-food nexus for sustainable development in Turkmenistan. Journal of Cleaner Production, 220, pp.212-224.

Zou, S., Jilili, A., Duan, W., Maeyer, P.D. and de Voorde, T.V., 2019. Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources in the Syr Darya River Basin, Central Asia. Sustainability, 11(11), p.3084.

Duan, W., He, B., Chen, Y., Zou, S., Wang, Y., Nover, D., Chen, W. and Yang, G., 2018. Identification of long-term trends and seasonality in high-frequency water quality data from the Yangtze River basin, China. PloS one, 13(2), p.e0188889.

Duan W, He B, Nover D, Yang G, Chen W, Meng H, Zou S, Liu C. Water Quality Assessment and Pollution Source Identification of the Eastern Poyang Lake Basin Using Multivariate Statistical Methods. Sustainability, 2016, 8(2): 133.

Authors: These references and other references were added to the introduction (Lines 39, 41-44, 57, 59).

3. Section 2.1: please give a map to show the location of your study cities. Also, give the climate information about the study area.

Authors: This comment is addressed in a separate section (Section 2.1) and numbers of following sections and figures are updated accordingly (Lines 101-118, 130).

4. Section 2.4: could you please attached the questions.

Authors: A couple of key question are added to the section 2.5 (Lines 265-271).

5. Section 3.1.1: it is better to add boxplots, I suppose.

Authors: This is a good suggestion, yet the number of figures is large compared to the number of tables in the manuscript. Therefore, the authors believe it is better to keep Table 2 as is.

6. Figures 2-8: Maybe you can put them together. For example, put Figs 2-3 to a single figure.

Authors: This is a good suggestion and the authors decide to merge many figures together for a better representation of results. The following changes have been made:

1) Figures 3 and 4 have been merged into Figure 3 (a) and (b) as shown in Line 404,

2) Figures 6 and 7 have been merged into Figure 5 (a) and (b) as shown in Line 469,

3) Figures 9 is deleted as there are only two cities as shown in Line 541,

4) Figures 10 and 11 have been merged into Figure 8 (a) and (b) as shown in Line 541,

5) Figure 12 is deleted as shown in Line 563 and

6) All other figures’ numbers are updated accordingly.

7. Line 83: Figure 7 showed >> Figure 7 shows.

Authors: Fixed (Line 491).

8. Section 3.4.2: Could you please explain the reasons?

Authors: The local residents used to know that refrigerants of air conditioning systems are toxic and exposure to such chemicals might be of high threat to the public health and the environment. The ability to use the condensate water of cooling system safely and properly is still a concern to many people. In addition, people think that the quantity of generated condensate water from cooling systems is not worth it and cannot meet any water need. This is why only 14% of the users support the use of condensate water even for non-drinking purposes. Actually, the reasons behind this trend against the use of condensate water can be referred to the misconception people may have towards this water, quantitatively and qualitatively.

9. Section 4: please simplify the conclusions.

Authors: Fixed (Lines 573-662).

10. Please give more sentences to discuss the uncertainty about your results.

Authors: Added (Lines 662-667).

In summary, this paper is good, and I would like to recommend this paper to be accepted after revision.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General: Paper can be useful for areas where water resources are scarce in spite of the fact that the number of samplings could be higher. There are some needs to improve this paper.

Title: The six authors come from different institutes in Palestine. Who of them is (also?)

from International Hydrology and Water Resources in The Netherlands?

Abstract is short and compact. Write manganese (not Manganese)! You could add (0.19 mg/L) after manganese to line 28.

Introduction: Line 59 from (not form).

Methodology: In lines 113-124 write temperature, turbidity, sulfate etc.

In Table 1 if you studied 7+7+7+7 samples, the sum is 28 (not 24) and in line 142 the total number would be 84 (not 72). In addition, in Table 1 the temperatures in Jericho are 16 and 20, but the results show temperatures at 18 and 20, especially in Fig. 8. Correct!

Results and discussion:

In Fig. 1 change the color for limit D to green since the red and orange are too similar! Consider that some readers read this on laptop screen and under too high or too low illumination!

Line 267 both “below detection limit” and “not detected” are so similar results that join these to “below detection limit”.

Your Table 4 is not informative. You could present the results in four columns. The first column could be your present first column showing parameters. The second column could show the number of samples below detect limit out of 17 samples. The third column could be the number of samples between detection limit and the PSI drinking water standard. The fourth could be number of samples exceeding the PSI drinking water standard and in this column you could present the highest values or all exceeding values. Make clear the difference between 0 and -!

Omit the present figures 2 and 3 since the same result is in the present Fig. 4 (a new Fig 2) and the in text and the same results should be presented only once. Similarly omit the present Figs 5 and 6, since the same is in the present Fig 7 (coming Fig 3). In the new Fig 3 chance the colors so that the lower temperature (18) is blue and the higher temperature (20) is red as they are in the corresponding Ramallah figure and in thermometers where red is usually hot and blue cold.

In page 5 line 105 add air to relative air humidity.

The linearities between air conditioning capacity and formed water are high. Could the small reduction in R²-values be caused by the fact that the exact measuring of temperature is not easy, and can you be sure that the temperature was constant during the whole sampling time?

Omit the figure 9, since you have only two cities to count mean! Join the figures 10 and 11 to a new figure as Fig 4 a and Fig 4 b and use the same colors in both these subfigures. Your colors for Ramallah are rather good excluding that the colors could be lighter (and one totally white) so that the percentage numbers could be seen. Use simple pie figures without leanings.

The figure 12 is too simple. Could you omit this figure but explain a little more in the present page 7 lines135-143?

Conclusions and recommendations: Line 169 give again the high Mn result.

Line 193. Legionella is potential as well as some Bacilli, Staphylococci or Streptococci and viruses in respiratory tract.

Line 198 irrigation is ok. It can be done also avoiding aerosols and it is soil (not plant) which should get irrigation. In cleaning rooms soap and other detergents control also the microbial contaminants.

In references use italic in the names of journals. See guidance for authors!

Author Response

Reviewer 2

General: Paper can be useful for areas where water resources are scarce in spite of the fact that the number of samplings could be higher. There are some needs to improve this paper.

Title: The six authors come from different institutes in Palestine. Who of them is (also?)

from International Hydrology and Water Resources in The Netherlands?

Authors: Sorry for the typo. Deleted (Line 12).

Abstract is short and compact. Write manganese (not Manganese)! You could add (0.19 mg/L) after manganese to line 28.

Authors: Fixed (Line 26).

Introduction: Line 59 from (not form).

Authors: Fixed (Line 65).

Methodology: In lines 113-124 write temperature, turbidity, sulfate etc.

Authors: Fixed (Lines 148-177).

Authors: All errors in Table 1 are fixed (Line 199). The total number (72) is fixed (Line 195).

Results and discussion:

In Fig. 1 change the color for limit D to green since the red and orange are too similar! Consider that some readers read this on laptop screen and under too high or too low illumination!

Authors: The scales of Figure 2 are updated according to the recommendation of the reviewer and based on the threshold values by the standards (Line 341).

Line 267 both “below detection limit” and “not detected” are so similar results that join these to “below detection limit”.

Authors: The authors believe that these definitions are adopted in several studies in the same field. Other references also use NS, not specified, to the above two definitions. Therefore, the authors appreciate the points raised by the reviewer 2 and think that definitions mentioned in the manuscript are acceptable in the scientific community.

Authors: The suggestion is really appreciated and will be much easier to document for the authors. However, the authors decided to better present the results showing the concentration of each heavy metal in each and every sample separately. This will give a better idea about the different systems sampled and if a certain trend is revealed among these results. Therefore, the authors believe that although Table 4 takes more effort and time to prepare, yet detailed information are given.

Authors: All points raised here worth correction and editing of the manuscript for a clearer understanding of the results. Therefore, the authors have made the following changes:

1) Figures 3 and 4 have been merged into Figure 3 (a) and (b) as shown in Line 404,

2) Figures 6 and 7 have been merged into Figure 5 (a) and (b) as shown in Line 469,

3) In Figure 6, colors have been switched as recommended (Line 496),

4) Figures 9 is deleted as there are only two cities as shown in Line 541,

5) Figures 10 and 11 have been merged into Figure 8 (a) and (b) as shown in Line 541,

6) Figure 12 is deleted as shown in Line 563 and

7) All other figures’ numbers are updated accordingly.

In page 5 line 105 add air to relative air humidity.

Authors: Fixed (Line 524).

Authors: A few sentences were added to highlight uncertainty of results and the need for further studies and investigations in this topic (Lines 662-667).

Authors: Figure 9 is deleted as recommended. The colors in Figure 8 are updated and unified according to the different categories (Line 541).

The figure 12 is too simple. Could you omit this figure but explain a little more in the present page 7 lines 135-143?

Authors: Figure 12 is deleted (Line 563). See Lines 556-558.

Conclusions and recommendations: Line 169 give again the high Mn result.

Authors: Fixed (Line 584).

Line 193. Legionella is potential as well as some Bacilli, Staphylococci or Streptococci and viruses in respiratory tract.

Authors: Fixed (Lines 672-673).

Authors: Thanks for the clarification.

In references use italic in the names of journals. See guidance for authors!

Authors: Fixed as recommended and based on the Author’s guide (see Lines 696-886).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The author have modified the paper according to my comments, so it could be accepted.