The Effectiveness of “River Chief System” Policy: An Empirical Study Based on Environmental Monitoring Samples of China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

To the authors:  The manuscript reports an interesting study of RCS in China.  Overall the paper is very good with scientific merits.  I do suggest that the followings which may improve the paper:

1. Diffuse pollution sources should be mentioned as a potential water pollution source in river water quality assessment.  China has promoted and implemented sponge city initiatives since 2015.  River water quality is affected by diffuse water pollution.
2. On Line 450, the word "correct" should be used with definition.  
3. For recommendations, you may consider the watershed management approach in North America like river authority in US and conservation authority in Canada which manage the whole river instead of piecemeal manner.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting and very well-written paper that seeks to use river water quality data to assess approaches to environmental management across China. The authors provide a useful context and background to the study and present some interesting results. I think that the paper is of wider interest, and while there is evidently considerable variation between rivers, I found the discussion of individual catchments very useful and wonder if there's scope to explore more of the data anomalies (e.g. catchments which have received significant investment, but with seemingly poor water quality). However, the results provide useful evidence of the importance of basin size / river length in catchment management. 

I think the paper is suitable for publication, with minor revision, although I wonder if the authors could shorten the paper by moving sections 4.3 and 4.4 to a supplementary section. I would also suggest referring to COD (in the text) as Chemical Oxygen Demand (rather than the permanganate test), and wonder if the authors could clarify that when, in the paper, they refer to sewage discharge: is this discharge of treated effluent (ie. treated wastewater from water treatment works) or discharge of raw sewage (ie. untreated effluent)?

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.