Urban Self-Supply from Groundwater—An Analysis of Management Aspects and Policy Needs
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper requires a complete rewrite to boil down the material into a coherent format. As it stand now it would take me days to complete the grammar and structural formatting corrections of the paper. All of the abbreviated units of volume, mass, discharge etc need to be defined not just written shorthand. The paper needs a location world map or a series of maps to locate where the cities are located. There are currently no maps. The use of boxes serves almost no purpose since too much information is crammed into them. Recommend integrating the boxes as sections into the paper. Too much useless information that does not add to the crux of the paper should be removed. All of these flaws hamper the message and conclusions offered by the authors.
Author Response
We thank this reviewer for identifying the need for a location map of the 10 specific city cases presented in the paper, and this (along with a short introductory paragraph) has been introduced in the revised manuscript re-submitted with ‘track changes’. However, we disagree with this reviewer’s assertion that the manuscript needs extensive re-writing to eliminate the text boxes, and also refute his allegation that the manuscript contains innumerable English grammatical errors.
Reviewer 2 Report
The reviewed article has a signal-review character. It does not contain any tests on the quality or quantity of water consumed. However, it is based on very difficult to obtain statistical data. The authors have well documented the problem of the existence of numerous wells supplying individual, agricultural and industrial water consumers. They pointed to environmental, technical, sanitary, health and economic implications of their usage.. I agree with the authors' conclusions regarding the need to control these intakes and include them in the overall water balance of urbanized areas. However, the problem of this control indicated in the article is difficult to implement. It is worth publishing the so-called "best practices" from various locations as an inspiration for their wider implementation.
Author Response
We thank these reviewers for their very positive response to the manuscript, both as regards its scientific content and organisational structure (with boxes to present the 10 specific city cases). All of the minor editorial points helpfully raised by Reviewer 2, (including the error in numbering the references) have been corrected in the revised manuscript re-submitted with ‘track changes’. We agree with Reviewer 2 that the need for improved quality monitoring of private waterwells is a high priority, to identify and avoid health risks from pollution, but that the financing of this within many existing organisational set-ups is not straightforward
Reviewer 3 Report
This article tackled very important issues as urban self-supply from groundwater in developing countries. The authors used case studies to analyze the management aspects from different perspectives, then provide policy implications. All ten cases are large cities in developing countries that are highly urbanized or have been rapidly urbanized in recent years, and the need for increased water demand and sewage treatment due to rapid population growth is an urgent issue. On the other hand, environmental problems caused by urbanization are also serious. As policy recommendations, the authors point out that local governments should strengthen regulations and improve water supply, but it is questionable whether these are feasible given the lack of financial resources. I would like the authors to explain, with specific examples, how water quality monitoring and water supply for groundwater users can be achieved in a situation where local governments'/municipalities’ finances are not always sufficient. In that way, this article could be very informative for policy makers around the world.
Further, this is not an important issue but there are many minor mistakes listed below that need to be corrected.
Page 2 reference number [14] doesn’t appear between [13] and [15]
Page 5 Box 4: missing thousands separators (5000 and 9000)
Page 5 Box 5: mixed decimal separator (0,5 and 1.2)
Page 5 Box 7: missing thousands separators (3000 and 4000)
Page 8 line 166 and 170: inappropriate use of parentheses
Page 9 line 189: inappropriate indent/ insert a line
Page 9 line 224-225: bullet point errors
Page 10 line 232: inappropriate indent
Page 10 line 261-262: inappropriate line breaks
Author Response
We thank these reviewers for their very positive response to the manuscript, both as regards its scientific content and organisational structure (with boxes to present the 10 specific city cases). All of the minor editorial points helpfully raised by Reviewer 2, (including the error in numbering the references) have been corrected in the revised manuscript re-submitted with ‘track changes’. We agree with Reviewer 2 that the need for improved quality monitoring of private waterwells is a high priority, to identify and avoid health risks from pollution, but that the financing of this within many existing organisational set-ups is not straightforward
