Water Environmental Functional Zoning at County Level and Environmental Contamination Carrying Capacity Accounting in the Mainstream of Xiaofu River
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Editorial Office,
Dear Authors,
Review of paper entitled “Water Environmental Functional Zoning at county level and Environmental Contamination Carrying Capacity Accounting 3 in the Mainstream of Xiaofu River”.
Paper concern interesting topic but manuscript needs major improvements.
Most of paper refers to zoning descriptions, the lack of discussion and any deeper considerations. Is not clear what the authors did/designed themselves and what was taken from government data. Paper is divided on chapters but adopted scheme is very unclear – reader gets the impression that whole paper is one big introduction. From second point of view the literature data are very poor.
Whole paper must be completely rewritten.
Same comments are listed below, the rest are included in ms file.
- Introduction – because paper concern water quality, it would be necessary to add same paragraph about how water quality is assess in China? Based on what - only water chemistry ?
- Line 102-233 - Municipal functional zoning and water quality situation of Xiaofu River ..ect. This part of manuscript in very hard to read and contain a lot of geographical and local/city information. In fact, these chapters occupy the greater part of ms. In may opinion are hard to understand and even imagine how this classification system works – Authors should prepare map or a few maps showing this zoning. The corine land cover map will be also useful.
- Is not clear what Authors did personally (lack of clear method chapter), and what was adopted from government legislation/classification. Tables with many local names and regions are not also helpful – the map will be the best way to show the discussed division/zoning.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is addressing an important problem. This is a contribution that is worth publishing.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper in this form presents some problems at different levels. From the point of view of the structure of the work, the information as it is presented does not allow a reader to differentiate by age between the literature data and those resulting from the work. It is therefore kindly requested to subdivide topics by specifying better the data used (time series and classification of functional areas) from those processed. It is also recommended the inclusion of figures that frame the area under examination in the Chinese territory and, in more detail, the subdivision of the hydrographic basin into the identified functional areas. It is also advisable to review the tables making them "lighter" and easier to read. They could be accompanied by figures in which the quantities shown in the table are related to the areas to which they refer. This will also accompany the conclusions highlighting the situation and the differences that emerged between the current and the proposed one. The text is also unbalanced as much space is given to the explanation of the criteria of the functional areas in use and little to those proposed; it is advisable to deepen the data concerning the data used and accompany by figures and better specify the results in the conclusions. The reference to GB3838-2002 does not make it possible to compare the values ​​measured in the basin of the watercourse in question and the legal limits. Furthermore, it is not clear what parameters the regulation takes into consideration. It is kindly requested that the aforementioned parameters be inserted and explained in a dedicated table and to insert the reference in the bibliography. Line 88, 90: format Km2 with the number in superscript format Line 247, 315: insert space between paragraph and title of the next paragraph; in general, check everything in the text for spaces between titles and subsequent ones. It is also unclear how many significant figures are used for COD values. We kindly ask you to check and correct any errors deriving from lack of approximations of calculated values ​​(eg tables 4 and 5).Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
Dear Editorial Office,
thank you very much for sending the corrected text. Same minor additional comments are includes in ms file.
Best regards
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you for having understood the information that, from my point of view, makes the paper suitable for publication. There are still some small corrections: Figure 1: Specify the images that make up the figure (for ex.1a, 1b, 1c) and insert the kilometric scale at least in the rightmost one and explain the meaning of the blue line (as in figure 5) which represents the area of study in detail Report the images with the meaning in the legend (eg Region, Province etc.) Fig. 2 and 3: If possible, increase the resolution. Figure 3: Correct zones with zones in the legend In general: check the spaces between sections and below and paginate so as not to separate the title from the next page.Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
