Modeling the Effectiveness of Cooling Trenches for Stormwater Temperature Mitigation

Review Comment

Response

Reviewer 1

1. The introduction should be supplemented with information related to: impact of elevated stormwater temperature on the urban areas, the importance of the study and to add more information about studies made worldwide about this topic.

I added 3 more external references on heat loading to provide more context to the issue of elevated temperatures in stormwater. See Introduction lines 25-34 and lines 46-49.

The Reference section was also updated with these new references.

2. Figure 2 i think it misses some words in the bottom (line 68) the explanation seems incomplete ("Heat flux between rock and ...").

Figure 2 caption fixed  – changed to a picture embedded in text rather than graphical elements.

3. Put the equation in the same format. Lines 132, 140, 146, 152, 166, 174, 177, 185, 187, 188, 195, 197,202, 211, 214, 216, 225, 27, 228, 241, 243, 264

Moving from a Word document to the MDPI template caused all the equations to be slightly off. I will work with the editor to fix all formatting issues with equations.

4. Table or figure error citation

Missing references were corrected for all Table and Figure internal links that were broken from the original paper.

5. table 2 - is having some format errors: title description for table column 4, on the second and last row it is a problem at the equation (some characters are overlapped).

Yes, this is a formatting issue with the transfer from original Word document to the MDPI template. I tried to reinsert the table with the proper formatting.

6. how the model was validated? this is not given in the paper. so, in the end, the proposed mathematical model is good and how it can be used?

I assume you mean experimental validation. These were not compared to field data. This paper was meant to provide the theoretical framework for modeling the temperature impact. As suggested in the conclusions, a next step would be to use field data to compare to the assumptions of the mathematical framework. I added on Line 320, the following text: “To further advance this research topic, comparison of field data to the mathematical framework presented in this paper and exploring the impact of water loss from the infiltration system into the groundwater would also prove useful.”

7. what kind of software was used in order to made those calculation? please specify this in the text of the article

I added the following sentence in Line 155: “All the model examples were solved using a FORTRAN computer code even though they can be computed in a spreadsheet.”

Reviewer 2

8. The equation given in Table 2 is illegible. For example, equation (2), equation (7). The author on page 10 refers to equation (8) in Table 2; there is no such equation. Therefore, the correctness of the reference to particular equations used in the calculations should be verified in Sections 4.1 to 4.6.

Thank you for finding that issue. Yes, this issue arose in copying the original paper into the MDPI template and the equation numbers were reset. I apologize for not noticing that before submittal. I have corrected those equations in Table 2 and re-verified in Sections 4.1-4.6 that the references are correct.

Review Comment

Response

Reviewer 1

1. The introduction should be supplemented with information related to: impact of elevated stormwater temperature on the urban areas, the importance of the study and to add more information about studies made worldwide about this topic.

I added 3 more external references on heat loading to provide more context to the issue of elevated temperatures in stormwater. See Introduction lines 25-34 and lines 46-49.

The Reference section was also updated with these new references.

2. Figure 2 i think it misses some words in the bottom (line 68) the explanation seems incomplete ("Heat flux between rock and ...").

Figure 2 caption fixed  – changed to a picture embedded in text rather than graphical elements.

3. Put the equation in the same format. Lines 132, 140, 146, 152, 166, 174, 177, 185, 187, 188, 195, 197,202, 211, 214, 216, 225, 27, 228, 241, 243, 264

Moving from a Word document to the MDPI template caused all the equations to be slightly off. I will work with the editor to fix all formatting issues with equations.

4. Table or figure error citation

Missing references were corrected for all Table and Figure internal links that were broken from the original paper.

5. table 2 - is having some format errors: title description for table column 4, on the second and last row it is a problem at the equation (some characters are overlapped).

Yes, this is a formatting issue with the transfer from original Word document to the MDPI template. I tried to reinsert the table with the proper formatting.

6. how the model was validated? this is not given in the paper. so, in the end, the proposed mathematical model is good and how it can be used?

I assume you mean experimental validation. These were not compared to field data. This paper was meant to provide the theoretical framework for modeling the temperature impact. As suggested in the conclusions, a next step would be to use field data to compare to the assumptions of the mathematical framework. I added on Line 320, the following text: “To further advance this research topic, comparison of field data to the mathematical framework presented in this paper and exploring the impact of water loss from the infiltration system into the groundwater would also prove useful.”

7. what kind of software was used in order to made those calculation? please specify this in the text of the article

I added the following sentence in Line 155: “All the model examples were solved using a FORTRAN computer code even though they can be computed in a spreadsheet.”

Reviewer 2

8. The equation given in Table 2 is illegible. For example, equation (2), equation (7). The author on page 10 refers to equation (8) in Table 2; there is no such equation. Therefore, the correctness of the reference to particular equations used in the calculations should be verified in Sections 4.1 to 4.6.

Thank you for finding that issue. Yes, this issue arose in copying the original paper into the MDPI template and the equation numbers were reset. I apologize for not noticing that before submittal. I have corrected those equations in Table 2 and re-verified in Sections 4.1-4.6 that the references are correct.