An Evaluation of Radon in Drinking Water Supplies in Major Cities of the Province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript is very interesting and will be useful, I will suggest the author to show radon concentrations in a spatial map and the following manuscripts can be read and cited

Radon Concentration in Groundwater of East Coast of West Bengal, India. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry. 303(3): 2221-2225. DOI: 10.1007/s10967-014-3808-4.

Estimation of Radon concentration in groundwater of coastal area in Baleshwar district of Odisha, India. Indoor and Built Environment. 24:1147-1152. DOI: 10.1177/1420326X14549979 

Author Response

Dear expert reviewer,

As authors of the manuscript entitled “An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to eliminate obvious errors and to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Hereunder, you will be able to observe all of your suggestions in the revised version of the manuscript, which seems for us that we have accomplished to change each mentioned point based on your input. Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript entitled ' An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador' provides information on the activity concentrations of 222Rn were measured in 53 public water supplies of underground (50) and surface (3) origin, located in five geological units in the central Ecuadorian Andes. Despite the authors devoting a great deal of time and attention, this manuscript's research topic and result show weak relevance. Furthermore, the scientific and novelty of the manuscript are lower. The manuscript should be rejected.

1. Line 14, abbreviations should be explained when they appeared the first time.

2. The variables of the formula in this paper need to be italicized.

3. Material methods were not statistically analyzed.

4. In Figure 1, all plots should use the international standard for latitude and longitude.

5. Figure 3 has no p-values and no scale lines.

6. Line 382, Check the serial numbers of the Figure in the manuscript.

7. In Table 1 and Table 2, authors should use international standard latitude and longitude coordinates.

8. In Table 4, the coefficient of variation of the sample should be mentioned to show the rationality of the classification more scientifically.

9. Provide detailed figure captions to enhance the readability of the Figure. Are the lines in Figure 2 error bars? I suggest using box plots as they can provide a more concise and clear representation of the concentration range of data points 222Rn.

10. Section 3.2 should not be described in the Results section. Please move it to the Materials and Methods section.

11. Please check the order of references in the manuscript.

12. More feasible and meaningful suggestions were needed according to your analysis. More improvements were expected in Conclusions and limitations.

13. The conclusion of the manuscript is cumbersome and the reader cannot grasp the focus.

14. Despite the authors devoting a great deal of time and attention, this manuscript's research topic and content show weak relevance. Additionally, there is a lack of logical coherence in the Results section. The manuscript appears to be more focused on validating the feasibility of the testing method rather than assessing the risk of drinking water.

 Extensive editing of the English language is required.

Author Response

Dear expert reviewer,

As authors of the manuscript entitled “An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to eliminate obvious errors and to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Hereunder, you will be able to observe all of your suggestions in the revised version of the manuscript, which seems for us that we have accomplished to change each mentioned point based on your input. Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Thank you for your invitation to "An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador". I read the manuscript carefully, and I think it needs some improvements before it can be published.

1. I suggest that authors refine the expression abstract, and highlight the innovation and necessity of research.

2. Proofreading of the manuscript by an expert of English language is required.

3. 1. I suggest that authors add discussion section. The discussion section needs to be improved, including "comparison with other experts", "limitations of this study", "future prospects", etc. In addition, the corresponding references should be added.

4. Could you please explain the additional contribution of your researches compare with the previous studies in Conclusions section.

However, I believe that this manuscript could make a contribution to this research filed, and suggest that the author carefully revise it.

Author Response

Dear expert reviewer,

As authors of the manuscript entitled “An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to eliminate obvious errors and to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Hereunder, you will be able to observe all of your suggestions in the revised version of the manuscript, which seems for us that we have accomplished to change each mentioned point based on your input. Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Reviewer 4 Report (New Reviewer)

The authors investigated the concentrations of 222Rn contained in surface water and ground water in Ecuador. The reviewer suggests minor revision before the publication.

1) In the section "2.3 Sampling protocol", the details of sampling points must be explained in the text, referring to Figure 1. The numbers of sampling points in the text must be identical with the points in Figure 1.

2) In table 1 - 3, "length" may be "longitude". In addition, check again for the unit of latitude and longitude, although the unit is consistent with that in Figure 1.

3) In table 1 - 3, the concentration of Rn is shown with error range. The reviewer thinks that the error range shown in the table is the standard deviation of three samples taken on different occasions at the same location. To avoid misunderstandings by the readers, please clearly mention the sample numbers and the definition of the error ranges.

4) Experimental findings are generally written with the past form sentences in scientific presentation, although the authors wrote most of the sentences in the conclusion with the present form sentences. Please follow the general way of scientific presentation. The same revision must be applied for a part of other sections than the conclusion.

4) Experimental findings are generally written with the past form sentences in scientific presentation, although the authors wrote most of the sentences in the conclusion with the present form sentences. Please follow the general way of scientific presentation. The same revision must be applied for a part of other sections than the conclusion.

Author Response

Dear expert reviewer,

As authors of the manuscript entitled “An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador”, we appreciated a lot your description and comments on the document, as we are certain and convinced, that they have been useful to eliminate obvious errors and to enrich the fluency and clarity of the entire article. Hereunder, you will be able to observe all of your suggestions in the revised version of the manuscript, which seems for us that we have accomplished to change each mentioned point based on your input. Once again and with all due respect, we are very thankful for your comments and corrections, which helped to see a few unclear parts and or even faults of our side within our manuscript. With your comments we were able to smooth the text, clarify missing parts or wrong spellings, which resulted to a much better than the initial version of this current study.

Thanks a lot on behalf of all authors

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

1. The reference order on line 109 is still incorrect.

2. Table 6 is unreadable.

Author Response

Thanks you, our bet. Both issues have been accomplished.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

The author has made comprehensive revisions in accordance with the reviewer's comments.

Author Response

Thank you very much, please find enclosed the polished version.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The publication shows sufficient new and interesting results, especially concerning by evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cities of the province of Chimborazo. The language is good. However, there are some drawbacks of the paper due to the inclusion of different parts in it, which is not well described. Therefore, I suggest that the authors should have a major revision and collation of the article. For more details see the comments bellow.

Q1. In the abstract section the first two sentences need to be modified.

Q2: Introduction section must include parts about regions.

Q3.  The novelty of the work must be represented in the introduction section.

Q4.  In materials and methods section, please measure pH and TDS for groundwater samples.

Q5 . Are the concentration of radon will affect by pH and TDS of groundwater, please discuss.

Q6. Please compare between this works with other previous works connecting to studying same regions.

Q7. The conclusion part needs modification.

Reviewer 2 Report

My comments to the manuscript (ID_water- 2387686: An evaluation of radon in drinking water supplies in major cit- 2 ies of the province of Chimborazo, Central Andes of Ecuador) were given below.

Introduction is poorly written. Objective is simple.

Methodology is presented long, but it is hard to follow.

Results are presented in 4 sections (3.1 Activity concentration of 222Rn; 3.2 Sampling technique; 3.3 Doses; 3.4 Activity concentration measurements of 226Ra). Only basic results are presented.

Very simple and poorly discussion is presented. Conclusion is very long but poorly written. The novelty is not found in the present manuscript. Therefore, it could not be recommended to publish in the Water.

English should be checked by the English native speakers.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

unfortunately there are some problem with methodology of research which you should consider the sampling error and also the QA is missing.

the paper is a very simple and normal monitoring work and it is mainly looks a report.

not new finding, now developing in methodology.

Thank you.

Reviewer 4 Report

Please see the attached document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Moderate editing of English language