Determining Water Isotope Compositions for the IAEA WICO and North West Villages, South Africa
, Naomi Dikeledi Mokhine 1, Namhla Mkiva 2, Samuel Che Nde 1,2, Ingrid Dennis 3, Johan Hendriks 3, Lobina Palamuleni 2, Tebogo Gilbert Kupi 1 and Manny Mathuthu 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
see the attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
attached
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Line 65: Craig 1961 is the author of the Global meteoric water line. You initially ignored my correction regarding this fact.
The introduction has been improved but needs to be organised. Background information on the first objective should appear before the second.
Line 95: This should be a paragraph
It is not possible that out of 40 wells, you do not have information on at least one or two of them. This is blind research.
You mentioned in your review response that you had provided the results of the 40 samples in a table. I can't find this.
Line 104 in the initially submitted paper mentioned ACIDIFIED. But the modified phrase in the revised paper (Line 154) made no mention of ACIDIFED. This was omitted without any scientific explanation. So which samples were acidified and why? Which sampling protocol did the authors apply?
Line 190: Present the results in a table. Is the range from -2/04 to -5.34 extensive? If extensive, what is the reason? you should be able to use the groundwater level and isotopes to suggest the recharge mechanism-an important water quality determinant as in your introduction
223: Rainy season and not rain season
Conclusions: From the geology and the isotopes of the 40 samples, something should be said about groundwater recharge mechanism/process-diffused recharge? Focused recharge? Preferential flow pass?
References: Your referencing style is different from that of WATER
Author Response
attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
In my mind, this Ms has been revised well. But, just some minor problems as follows: 1. In abstract (2nd sentence), 2H and 18O should be written as δ2H and δ18O. also in line 43, 46 2. Line 102-103, write as -115‰ to 0 ? 2H and -16 ‰ to 0 ? 18O， and the authors should check other problems like this.Author Response
attached
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The revisions made by the authors are satisfactory and enough to ensure the publication in water.
Author Response
attached
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper has been improved. It could be accepted after minor revision, and technical improvement of Figures 2 and 4.
line 26. delete ).
line 27. slope should be given with two decimals
line 52: the isotope effects --- cause (not causes)
line 65: deuterium excess has never ever been defined as stated here, especially not in ref. [7], IAEA gives definition d = delta2H - 8*delta18O, and the authors should use this definition when they talk about deuterium excess; some other parameters should have different names
line 76 - the sentence with latitude effect is here on the wrong place; recommend to delete the whole sentence
line 80: affect
line 101: replace ; with :
line 105: 0 sould also have "unit" %o (permil), and I think that "in" should be added "in d2h" and "in d18O"
Figure 1 caption - delete "Shows", start with "A map..."
Figure 2: use decimal dot (.) for the numbers in legend; the x and y axes should be placed close to the numbers (down and left), and tick marks added
line 212: the results ... show
line 213-214 - the sentence "The groundwater samples ..." is very strange and has no meaning, should be deleted as a whole
Figure 4 - the title "Deuterium vs oxygen" must be removed, x and y axes placed below and on the left and tick marks used (similar comment as for Figure 2)
References - formatting is better, but noz all references are formatted as required
ref. 19 - I found the following authors of the report: H. Dallas and J. Fowler, while the authors say: Fowler, H.D.a.J.
Author Response
Please see the attached.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
