Land Cover Change and Water Quality: How Remote Sensing Can Help Understand Driver–Impact Relations in the Lake Titicaca Basin
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a great paper
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Reviewer 2 Report
I have attached my comments below.
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Reviewer 3 Report
a good and effective Abstract - no changes required
Introduction:
Lines 40-41: The method employed for the LC mapping for the research reported on in this article was unsupervised classification.
Lines 45-46: Tracking the changes of LC throughout the years can help to understand the development of the region and provide references for resources management.
Materials and Methods:
Lines 122-124: The basin also has more than 5000 industrial facilities sited in the urban areas of El Alto and Viacha, most of them with no wastewater treatment plants [24]. Additionally, in the highest part of the basin there are contamination problems due to the large presence of mining waste.
Lines 153: The basin first caught the attention of Bolivian National authorities when the arrival of a large mass of contaminated water to the lake was reported in 2001.
Line 182: A total of 20 satellite images were chosen for this study, and priority was given to images with a cloud cover of less than 10%.
Line 292: Due to the density of aquatic vegetation and eutrophication present in Cohana Bay, in the outlet of the basin, many areas are classified as "Herbaceous wetlands"; therefore, the analysis performed in this research does not take into account these regions.
Results:
Line 301: Error! Reference source not found. shows the resulting LC maps for the dry and wet season, in which the seasonal vegetation dynamics can be perceived, as well as the extent of the urban growth throughout time.
Line 326: A total of 1023 land cover change trajectories were identified, out of which 65 were reclassified as human-made changes with an area corresponding to 3.25% of the total basin.
Discussion:
Lines 382-384: The fast urban growth mentioned in the literature[24,27,30,45] was confirmed, with an increase of 123% of Built-Up areas in 2018 compared to 2006. The Vegetation and Shrubs/Grass classes in the different land cover maps showed a different behavior in both dry and wet seasons from what was expected.
Line 399: This is principally for monitoring water quality in the rivers closer ...
Line 414-415: Literature suggests that water has a standard NDVI of 0 or even negative values indicating non-vegetated spaces [48] ; however, near Cohana Bay the NDVI values fluctuate between 0.3 and 0.8 which correspond to values of a densely vegetated area [49].
Lines 423-425: However, high levels of eutrophication have also been reported in recent years [24, 29 , 32 ,47, 51, 52] ; therefore the high-value areas detected by the indexes was used as a way to measure eutrophication and monitor its expansion.
Line 448: Cohana Bay, located at the outlet of the basin INSERT A COMMA HERE is known to have waters among the most eutrophic of the lake due to the contamination caused by the upstream urban areas and agricultural activities [47].
Conclusions:
these are good & clear - no changes needed
References:
[21] Ozbay, G.; Fan, C.; Yang, Z. Relationship between Land Use and Water Quality and Its Assessment Using Hyperspectral Remote Sensing in Mid- Atlantic Estuaries. In MISSING TITLE OF [EDITED?] BOOK HERE; 2017 ISBN 978-953-51-2881-6.
[31] Buxton, N.; Escobar, M.; Purkey, D.; Lima, N. Water Scarcity, Climate Change and Bolivia: Planning for Climate Uncertainties. 2013. PUBLISHED BY WHICH ORGANIZATION / WHERE?
[37] Congedo, L. From GIS to Remote Sensing: Unsupervised Classification Using the Semi-Automatic Classification Plugin Version 7. From GIS to Remote Sensing IS THIS AN EDITED BOOK? OR PUBLISHED BY WHICH ORGANIZATION & WHERE? 2021.
Vargas-Cuentas, N.I.; Roman-Gonzalez, A. Analysis of Harmful Algal Blooms in Lake Titicaca Using Remote Sensing; 2019; PUBLISHED WHERE?
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
After going through the I found that authors have adequately addressed the comments.
