Review Reports - Changes in Water Environment in Erhai Lake and Its Influencing Factors

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please, see the comments in PDF file, attached here.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewer:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers comments concerning our manuscript entitled " Effects of climate and human activities on the water environment of Erhai Lake". Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to editor's comments are in the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is about an interesting topic, being in accordance with the scientific interests of Water (MDPI).

In general, it is suggested that all expressions that lead the reader to understand that climate change is analyzed in this study should be removed. In fact, to study the effect of climate change itself it would be necessary to cover a longer period (at least 30 years). Also, it would be important to assess the effects on the quality and quantity of the water of Erhai Lake under different climate scenarios (to which different climate simulations and projections for the region would be associated).

Below are some more specific comments/suggestions, to increase the quality of the paper:

Introduction

The authors should consider removing some of the general information written (such as, the sentence from Line 59 to 61), and introduce more references of other studies that have been developed in the area (or in similar study areas) and whose research questions are alike.

Line 41- 42: Please revise the expression “the contradiction between humans and the environment has gradually become more prominent”. Sugg: “the trade-off between human and environmental needs has gradually become more prominent”.

Study area and data

Line 112: “The GDP and population…”. It is suggested that authors write in detail what GDP means.

Methods

Regarding the creation of the sub-section “2.3 Methods” the reviewer suggests the creation of a section “3. Methods”.

Regarding the description about the calculation of the correlation coefficient between the various variables, it is suggested that the authors introduce more information about the process followed. Namely, a table with the variables for which a correlation was intended to be analyzed.

Results

In general, many of the results described throughout the text could be presented in a systematized way using several tables. This would improve the presentation of the results.

The authors chose to introduce in Fig 2, an adjustment to a linear regression (showing the equation and the R2). Due to the behavior of the demonstrated values, it is suggested that this information be removed from Figure 2.

It is suggested that the authors include in Table 1 the significance level of each correlation developed.

It is recommended that the authors describe more specifically the type of water uses they consider in "eco-environmental supplemental water".

Discussion

Overall, the discussion should include further reference to other studies, demonstrating how the results obtained here resemble those achieved elsewhere in the World with similar climatic characteristics.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewer:

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper analyzed effects of climate and human activities on water environment of Erhai Lake, an important freshwater lake in China, based on a 10-year statistical data. This work has certain significance as a reference for ecological protection for lakes and water ecology. The work is new with scientific soundness, and also interesting for readers. I want to consider this work to be published after some improvements can be applied:

1) Overall writing should be improved. Take the abstract as examples: "and" in line 10 can be replaced by a new sentence "The rapid..."; "Based on statistical data.. ..." can be re-organized "This study analyzed changes of water quantity and quality in Erhai Lake, based on statistical data from 2000 to 2019, combined with........"; "The main conclusions..." in Line 17 can be improved into "The main conclusions include.... ...". Please revise the rest part.

2) State-of-the-art is not sufficient. More recent literatures should be referred. For example, Line 44, studies about human activities that impact water environment can be riched: such as: runoff of combined sewer overflow (CSO) is also an impact factor to the water ecological (C. C. Sun, L. Romero, B. Joseph-Duran, J. Meseguer, E. Muñoz, R. Guasch, M. Martinez, V. Puig, G. Cembrano. Integrated pollution-based real-time control of sanitation systems. Journal of Environmental Management, 269, 110798, 2020.

Lund, N.S.V., Borup, M., Madsen, H. et al. Integrated stormwater inflow control for sewers and green structures in urban landscapes. Nat Sustain 2, 1003–1010 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0392-1)

3) It would be better if you add structure of your paper in the last paragraph of Introduction section before starting the rest: such as, section 2 describes the data sets and methods you used, section 3 present results, section 4 discussions, etc.

4) Section 2.2. It would be better if you can provide some small samples of each data source you used, their structure, important features, etc, in form of table, for example.

5) Section 2.3. Methods section is too weak. Please add more information, for example, any index you used to evaluate performance of your analysis? Besides, please use the right format （e.g. italic, subscript）to present variables, check Line 126-129.

6) Section 3. Can you add discussions every time after your results, for example, because of what the dynamic change in water quantity happen for the results in section 3.1? If the discussions were provided in the following section, it is also better to mention that, or even better, you add a summary of that discussion and then put more detail discussions in the Section 4.

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewer:

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors has improved the manuscript with an extended revision that has included the text, tables and figures, according to the comments of the reviewer. For this reasons, I suggest the publication of this manuscript in the present version on WATER.

Please, notice that there are few small corrections that are however possible:

Lines 10-12: In recent years, the rapid development of population, agriculture and tourism around Erhai Lake has caused increasing environmental problems, which has seriously affected the ecological status of the lake.

Lines 124-125: Table 2 should be formatted following the style of the journal.

Lines 162-163: … specifically, it decreased from January to July and increased from August to December.

Line 282: … in the North and high in the South. (with capital letters).

Line 384: .. is abundant, the….

Line 440: Please, check if the title of the Section 5.3 “limitations Uncertainties” is correct.

Lines 503-571: The format of some references is different from that of the journal.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers comments concerning our manuscript entitled "Changes of water environment in Erh lake and its influencing factors". We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in blue in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to editor's comments are as flowing:

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have modified it to “In recent years, the rapid development of population, agriculture and tourism around Erhai Lake has caused increasing environmental problems, which has seriously affected the ecological status of the lake.”

Lines 124-125: Table 2 should be formatted following the style of the journal.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have modified Table 2.

Table. 2 Correlation analysis factor

Factor a	Factor b
Annual precipitation	water volume
Annual average temperature	water volume
Monthly precipitation	water volume
Monthly average temperature	water volume
Annual precipitation	TN concentration
Annual average temperature	TN concentration
Monthly precipitation	TN concentration
Monthly average temperature	TN concentration
water consumption	water volume

Lines 162-163: … specifically, it decreased from January to July and increased from August to December.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have modified it to “specifically, it decreased from January to July and increased from August to December.”

Line 282: … in the North and high in the South. (with capital letters).

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have modified it to “… in the North and high in the South”

Line 384: .. is abundant, the….

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have modified it to “.. is abundant, the….”

Line 440: Please, check if the title of the Section 5.3 “limitations Uncertainties” is correct.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have modified it to “5.3. Future Work”

Lines 503-571: The format of some references is different from that of the journal.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We checked and modified the reference format.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers comments concerning our manuscript entitled "Changes of water environment in Erh lake and its influencing factors". We have checked the English language and style.

Best wishes!

Hai

Reviewer 3 Report

The revised version has been improved a lot regarding reviewers' comment. And now it is ready to be published.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Best wishes!

Hai