Challenges in Quantifying Losses in a Partly Urbanised Catchment: A South Australian Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is focused on "Challenges in Quantifying Losses in a Partly Urbanized Catchment: A South Australian Case Study", which is interesting. It is within the aim and scope of the journal

In general, the paper is well structured with sections appropriated. In my opinion, although this work presents some interesting ideas, it contains, in this form, few weaknesses which, make it suitable for publication in Water after a minor revision based on the following points:

1. For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges, and your original achievements to overcome them, in a clearer way in the abstract and introduction. The abstract paragraph is too general and reflect what is written in the Introduction. There is little quantified information offered here, which makes the abstract too general and unattractive. The introduction seems dedicated to describing Australian experiences Quantifying Losses. Please, authors, provide to expand the introduction by investigating other case studies in different parts of the world (if it is possible) and providing more details on how the present work would help to improve knowledge of the cases discussed in the literature.

2. The materials and methods sections appear good. The case study is well described and observed data are sufficient. I have some questions related to the Methodology: a) How did you define the selection of the events? The selection of storm events is generally related to a Minimum Inter-Event criteria that is strictly correlated to the investigated phenomena. Why did you choose 5 hours and a volume of 10 mm? What are the advantages of adopting this value over others in this case? How will this affect the results? More details should be furnished adding more references over the ones already present. b) In your dissertation, you indicate the parametric and non-parametric methods to obtain Quantifying Losses in Urban Catchment. What are the other feasible alternatives to these methods? Are in the literature present other methods, models, or anything else to estimate Quantifying Losses in Urban Catchment? What are the advantages of adopting this particular method over others in this case? How will this affect the results? More details should be furnished.
3. Some assumptions are stated in various sections. More justifications should be provided for these assumptions. Evaluation of how they will affect the results should be made.
4. Results and conclusion sections in the present form are relatively weak and should be strengthened with more details and justifications, in particular, section 3.4., your analysis seems to have few values of coefficient of correlation, please authors furnish a better explanation between TL and inflow.

Author Response

Hi,

The attached documents shows the author's reply to the review report 1.

Regards,

Dinesh Ratnayake

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I enjoyed reading the paper and I would recommend it for publication after some revisions. My comments are as follows:

1. Introduction: I think in its current format missed a chapter which the research can be summarized.
2. Figure 1: The locations of the gauging stations are missing. I would strongly recommend to amend. Also a layer with the extent of the sewer network could be helpful
3. IL-PL was considered to be the most appropriate empirical approach to quantify losses. Could you please justify that and also amend the methodology with more information. Flow chart is helpful, however, I would recommend some details of the selected non-parametric model.
4. Selection of events: More details to provide on the AEP of the selected events, probably table 1 need to expanded with more details on the selected events?
5. The study area is small, and the catchment response time is quick. More information on that as the time of concetration/peak is big task in urban hydrology and flood hydrology in general.
6. Discussion: A chapter to summarize limitations of the study and future research would be helpful.
7. Challenges of selecting appropriate storm events: Estimated based on rainfall, flow gauge statistical analysis
8. only a few of them had caused flash floods in the area. It would critical to expand your analysis and provide more insigths on the most serious recorded flash flood event. 

Author Response

Hi,

The attached document shows the author's reply to the review report 2.

Regards,

Dinesh Ratnayake

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper seeks to address an internationally sensitive issue of Quantifying Losses in Partly Urbanized Catchment. The paper is well structured and needs minor revisions before publishing

 Specific comments

1. in the abstract the authors use a lot of abbreviations but some of them did not have any descriptions (for example RORB)
2. the authors must clearly estate why they use Lyne and Hollick algorithm to separate base flow from entire flow instead for example Chapman or Eckhard algorithm
3. the results and discussion part must be dived separately to reflect the connection between the results obtained in this paper to others results obtained in the same topic and in the same area
4. the conclusion part seems to be very systematic without any solution regarding the objectives of the paper proposed

Author Response

Hi,

The attached document shows the author's reply to the review report 3.

Regards,

Dinesh Ratnayake

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I'm happy with authors response and I would recommend it for publishing with its current format