Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript is a revised one. I have raised some comments and suggestions before. The present version has already well addressed the mentioned issues and can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

We deeply thank Reviewer#1 for the positive position about the relevancy of this topic in the first round and for all the valuable remarks about our text that he/she brought to our attention.

Open Review

(x) I would not like to sign my review report
( ) I would like to sign my review report

English language and style

( ) Extensive editing of English language and style required
( ) Moderate English changes required
(x) English language and style are fine/minor spell check required
( ) I don't feel qualified to judge about the English language and style

 

	Yes	Can be improved	Must be improved	Not applicable
Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Is the research design appropriate?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Are the methods adequately described?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Are the results clearly presented?	(x)	( )	( )	( )
Are the conclusions supported by the results?	(x)	( )	( )	( )

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript is a revised one. I have raised some comments and suggestions before. The present version has already well addressed the mentioned issues and can be accepted for publication.

 

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author, I'm interested in you presented work, however, in my opinion the presentation must be improvedconsiderably. Try to avoid annoyable listings in your text as you did by the majority of the cited literature. If literature is reelvant to your work, cite it also in the discussion part.

I also suggest a reorganisatio of your text, as some interesting introducing parts can actually be found in the method section. The method description can be improved either (the GIS method used) or maybe the GIS interpolation has to be redone, as there are some strange results (at least without more informations they seem strange).

Suggestions which came into my mind and which may help:

• a map iwth the aswan city and the areas of the mentioned problems
• a joint presentation of the water levels / volumes for all members of the water budget. This makes it more obvious which correlate and which don't (yes, you explained this in the text, but an additional figure would make it more transparent)

There are also some typos and language may be improved a bit. A the beginning there are some very long sentences, which lead to misunderstandings. You'll find some more detailled and further comments in the PDF attached. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We deeply thank Reviewer#2 for the positive position about the relevancy of this topic in first and the current round and for all the valuable remarks about our text that he/she brought to our attention.

Q1: Dear author, I'm interested in you presented work, however, in my opinion the presentation must be improvedconsiderably. Try to avoid annoyable listings in your text as you did by the majority of the cited literature. If literature is reelvant to your work, cite it also in the discussion part.

R1: Thanks, it was done; please see lines from 51 to 222. 

Q2: I also suggest a reorganisatio of your text, as some interesting introducing parts can actually be found in the method section. The method description can be improved either (the GIS method used) or maybe the GIS interpolation has to be redone, as there are some strange results (at least without more informations they seem strange).

R2: Thanks, it was done; please see lines from 437 to 447. 

Q3: Suggestions which came into my mind and which may help:

• a map iwth the aswan city and the areas of the mentioned problems

           R3-1: Thanks, it was done; please see Figure 2. 

• a joint presentation of the water levels / volumes for all members of the water budget.This makes it more obvious which correlate and which don't (yes, you explained this in the text, but an additional figure would make it more transparent)

R3-2: Thanks, it was done; please see Figure 10. 

Q4: There are also some typos and language may be improved a bit. A the beginning there are some very long sentences, which lead to misunderstandings. You'll find some more detailled and further comments in the PDF attached. 

R4: Thanks, it was done; please see the following

• A space too much?

It was edited the space in line 24 between "investigate" and "the".

 

• Shorter sentences are easier to read

It was edited and shortened the sentences (line 19-23).

 

• Again, shorter sentences: "hazards for the people using field investigations"???

The authors have edited and shortened the sentences (line 23-26).

 

• Through?

It was replaced the word "throw" with the word "in" (line 42).

• This is very very general; I don’t think it is necessary in a journal like this.

The general sentence has been removed (line 55-56).

 

• This might all be correct, but where is the specific link to your work?

The specific link to my work in these sentences is the study of factors that affect the quantity and quality of groundwater (line 60-72).

• I'm stick not sure, what you mean by gw-logging? Are you sure it is the right term?

The authors mean the phenomenon of groundwater rise (line 73).

 

• Mediterranean environment in sw Australia?

The authors have removed this sentence, but the author of the research (Hatton et al.) means that the soil of the study area is similar to the soil of the Mediterranean region (line 83-84).

• Overall comment regarding the intro: too much listing of references without a clear link to your work. I would be more interested in your specific regional problems as I can google by myself what others have done elsewhere in the world.

In the first paragraph of the introduction, the authors make a literature review of references that show some places where groundwater is scarce as well as those where groundwater quantities are increasing. In the second paragraph of the introduction, the authors made a literature review of references that illustrate the problem of groundwater rising. Then, in the third paragraph, the authors make a literature review of the references explaining the methods used to assess groundwater levels. In the fourth paragraph of the introduction, the authors made a literature review of the references that worked on the problem of increasing the groundwater level in the study area. In the fifth and final paragraph of the introduction, the authors explain the main objective of the study.

• This section is good! But I would have expected this in the introduction, as it seems not to be a method.

Indeed, this part does not appear to be a method, but it is data on the study area, and therefore it is under the heading material and methods.

 

• What do the different colors in the right part of the figure mean?

The authors modified the figure and added the Legend (line 273).

• ArcGIS is a specific product, don’t mix it up with GIS! Further you should explain how the spatial analyzer word/ interpolates or how you used it. And perhaps you should shift this section behind the field investigation, because you do the field investigation first and do the GIS analyzing after that.

The authors modified the paragraph and moved it after field investigation

• How do you measure here

The authors explained the method of measurement (line 287-289).

• Section 3 was results and discussion. Now section 4 is discussion. You should clearly distinguish between results and theis discussion. The following maps for example are still results, while you had already discussion in section 3 (as you promised by the section title)

The authors have edited and modified the results and discussion section.

• Please provide dots in the figure where your data points are. Honestly, I doubt if you have chosen a good inteterpolation technique. For example: how would you explain the up an down in the north of the 2020 map? Can you add the kima lake as blue area in the figure?

The authors have edited and modified the Figure 4 and Figure 8.

• I think you provided the table. Thus, is not nesseray to explain in such detail the general observations.

The authors agree with the reviewer that it is not necessary to explain the general observations in the table in this detail, but at the same time this serves to further clarify the data.