Prediction of the Mine Water Inflow of Coal-Bearing Rock Series Based on Well Group Pumping

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

This study has endeavored to evaluate the water inflow of the water-bearing system on the roof and floor of bauxite using numerical simulation and analytical methods. It seems to be a timely and appropriate study since the outcome can have a positive contribution to industrial applications. The paper contains original results and deserves to be published after minor revision. The English of the paper is acceptable.  

Abstract: This section is too long. It is suggested to revise the section and write it concisely.       

Introduction: Line # 56-61: Appropriate reference(s) should be cited.

Introduction: Line # 82-96: Appropriate reference(s) should be cited.

Introduction: A paragraph, highlighting the importance and applications of the bauxite can be added to the text.

Introduction: Although the authors stated the main aims of the study in the final paragraph of the “Introduction” section, it is recommended to clearly address the novelty of the work as well.

Overview of the Research Area: If possible, please cite appropriate reference(s) for the reported precipitation range (line # 118-121).

Results: The authors have done systematic and sufficient numerical simulations and the results are well-arranged. However, it would be excellent if they can do some experimental tests to approve the main outcomes.

Discussion: It is suggested to provide the results of some of the published papers in this field, discussing the R² value. This may give the readers a perspective of reliability in the presented simulations.   

Author Response

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript.

We thank the reviewer for reading our article carefully and giving the above positive comments. The revised article is attached, please check.

Thanks again!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript "Prediction Mine Water Inflow of Coal-bearing Rock Series Based on Well Group Pumping" by Hongtao Zhai, Jucui Wang*, Yangchun Lu, Zhenxing Rao, Kai He, Shunyi Hao, Aidi Huo*, Ahmed Adnan was submitted for review. 

I have read this manuscript with great interest. The authors have addressed a rather urgent topic studied using on numerical method, and the groundwater level is reduced to the bottom height of aquifer or the critical safe water level by means of well group pumping.

The manuscript has a number of significant shortcomings that need to be corrected.  Correction of the deficiencies listed below is necessary to improve the quality of the manuscript, enhance the ease of perception of the material presented and increase the interest of the reader.

1) The abstract is not quite correctly formed. It is very much blurred and not properly organized. It seems that the authors took some phrases out of the context of their research and put them in the abstract. The abstract should clearly indicate the purpose of the research and its importance for society (i.e. characterize the problem), indicate the methods and materials of the research, and the conclusions should be clearly and briefly formulated. The abstract lacks a "starting point", i.e. information about previously conducted research (one sentence is sufficient). From my point of view in the abstract such information begins with the statement: "Previously conducted studies have established that ....".  

- It is desirable to avoid narrative text in the abstract. 

- Try to use words and phrases: analyzed; conducted; conducted; studied; developed; proposed; established and others. It is desirable to start sentences in the abstract with these words and phrases.

- At the end of the abstract it is necessary to indicate the final result obtained by the authors, for example: A model has been developed that allows...; A dependence has been established that is...; An effective system (technology) has been proposed, and so on.

2) In the introduction, the authors did not summarize their analysis. When conducting a literature review, the authors relied only on the research of scientists of the Chinese scientific school, which does not fully characterize the actual question posed, the purpose of the study and the tasks to be solved to achieve this goal. For example: "Analyzing the above it can be noted that ......" is a very relevant issue. Hence, the aim of this study is ..... and to achieve which the following tasks need to be solved:1); 2); ......  

Such a conclusion at the end allows the researchers to properly formulate the conclusions of the study and the reader to understand the vector of the study. 

3) From my point of view, the authors misuse the surnames of scientists when mentioning the research. The authors indicate the name of the researcher (or group of researchers) then indicate their achievement, followed by a reference to the study. In my opinion, a reference without mentioning the last name at the beginning of the sentence is sufficient. If the reader will be interested to know the name of the researcher, he/she will refer to the reference. The reader is interested in the essence of the issue being disclosed, not the surname of the researcher who disclosed the issue.

4) Group references should be avoided. Each paper you cite is unique and the research you cite deserves more appropriate and careful review to demonstrate (and prove) its importance to the current research. You should demonstrate in detail the essence of each study and their necessity in your work (Example: .... for predicting inflow water volume[30-33]). No more than 2 references are allowed.

5) The authors use computer modeling for Hydrogeological conceptual models, the boundary conditions of modeling should be specified

6) Conclusion - these are the results of the study made by the authors, without repetition. Such presentation of the material reduces the ease of perception by the reader of the presented information. The error of incorrect formation of conclusions is a consequence of incorrect presentation of the introduction, which I noted in comment (5) due to the fact that they did not formulate goals and objectives when writing the introduction.

Conclusions should briefly characterize the result of the study, for example

As a result of the research.

(1) the dependence..... is obtained

(2) it is established that......

(3) and so on.

EXAMPLE: 

Authors of the manuscript should conceptually write what the study was conducted for.

7) The manuscript has a sufficient reference list (45 references in total). However, there is a lack of comprehensive coverage of research in terms of citation geography. There are no references to the world experience of research in the field or related fields, especially to the works of Eastern European, Ukrainian or Russian scientists, for example:

- Gabov, V.V., Zadkov, D.A., Babyr, N.V., Xie, F. (2021). Nonimpact rock pressure regulation with energy recovery into the hydraulic system of the longwall powered support. Eurasian Mining, 36(2), 55-59. doi:10.17580/em.2021.02.12

- Zadkov, D. A., Gabov, V. V., Stebnev, A. V., & Teremetskaya, V. A. (2022). Adaptable and energy-efficient powered roof support unit. Mining Informational and Analytical Bulletin, 2022(6), 46-61. doi:10.25018/0236_1493_2022_6_0_46. 

The article proposes to consider the problem of comprehensive assessment of project risks as applied to the energy industry.

As follows from the presented works, the authors of the manuscript submitted for review missed a rather large layer of research. If the authors of the manuscript submitted for review familiarize themselves with the presented works, they will be able to properly form the introduction and enrich their manuscript with international studies of scientists.

It is mandatory to supplement the reference list with studies of scientists from different countries in the last 3-5 years to show geographical (general/world) interest and relevance.

8) Additional comments.

- There are spelling errors in the manuscript. Example: missing spaces before references [ ].  

- first mentioning the figures in the text, then the figures themselves. Example: figure 1,2.

- references in the text should go in the order of mentioning.

- Only references should be cited: "The predicted value from the large well method is higher than that from the numerical method, 448 consistent with the findings in references 17 and 18 [17,18]."

Summary: The manuscript is not a completed research paper. Corrections are needed. The chosen research topic is indeed topical. From my point of view, the authors were not able to present their research clearly and competently, which greatly reduced its value and the ease of perception of the presented material.

From my point of view, the manuscript cannot be published in the open access without correcting the deficiencies mentioned in my recommendation.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Thanks very much for taking your time to review this manuscript.

We thank the reviewer for reading our article carefully and giving the above positive comments. The revised article is attached, please check.

Thanks again!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The manuscript is a completed research paper. The chosen research topic is indeed relevant. After correcting the comments, the authors were able to present their research correctly and distinctly, which reflects its value and ease of perception.

I thank the authors for the work done and from my point of view, the manuscript can be published in the open access without correct. 

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 manuscript is a technical report describing the application of standard methods to model groundwater flow in a mining area.

This is the revised version of a previously submitted manuscript, as demonstrated by the fact that in the acknoledgments the authors thank the editor and the reviewers "for providing positive and constructive comments and suggestions". However, I had not access to the original submission.

The manuscript is written in a rather poor language, so that it is difficult to understand many sentences. In some cases, the logical development of thoughts is not clear, if not questionable.

The quality of figures is often low. For instance, the legend and the caption of Figure 1 are not fully informative; what is represented in the lower part of this figure? Is it a vertical cross-section or a plane view of one of the areas marked with polygons in the geological map? If so, the geometry of the borders do not correspond to any of the polygons in the large scale map. Figures 3 to 5 are not completely visible in the pdf version that I downloaded for review.

As far as I could ascertain, the work applies very standard methods and is not innovative. Moreover, equations (1) to (5) include several inaccuracies, if not errors. The method described in section 3.3 is taken from a paper written in Chinese and is presented and discussed in a unclear and not fully rigorous way.

I am sorry, but the poor quality of the language prevent me from further scientific comments.

In conclusion, I am sorry, but I think that the manuscript cannot be considered for publication on an international scientific journal.

The manuscript is written in a poor language. I am sorry, but I cannot provide specific suggestions, as they would almost refer to the whole mansucript.

Author Response

Thank you for your questions, the author has carefully revised according to the revised opinions.  if there are different opinions, please point out, I will carefully modify, thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript Number: water-2535758

 Title: Prediction Mine Water Inflow of Coal-bearing Rock Series Based on Well Group Pumping  

In this manuscript the water inflow of water-bearing system in roof and floor of bauxite was studied by numerical simulation method and such analytical method as large well method. The hydrogeological conceptual model and numerical model of mining area were established by MODFLOW module in GMS software. I think the manuscript is well written and the text is understandable, although the manuscript needs some revision to improve its quality. There are some points in the manuscript which should be clearly addressed. These comments will be helpful in writing up future versions of this work.

1. In Abstract, provide detail of scenarios developed for prediction.

2. In Abstract, describe key conclusions and also provide research based recommendation.

3. In Abstract, add prime results Figurative results

4. Provide title of the Figure in the Graphical Abstract.

5. Better keywords should be inserted in new version of manuscript. Don’t repeat with Title words.

6. Introduction: The background and problem should be focused with major explicitness in the novel version of manuscript.

7. Kindly clearly describe the novelty of the research study.

8. Introduction:  The objective is not clear; in the new version of manuscript, the objective of research should be highlighted and major number of relevant references and up to date should be inserted in introduction part. It is suggested similar cases in other regions of the world are mentioned. This reviewer suggests mentioning similar cases from other regions of the world.

9. Introduction: The related papers should be cited in the revised manuscript which is very useful to this paper 

10. Figure 1: Provide map of the country also, for the ease of international peers. Also provide Lat. Long. of large area mentioned in the Figure.  

11. Improve the resolution of all figures and tables.

12. Study area: Provide climatic conditions of study area including average annual rainfall.

13. Provide the average values of these variables: thickness, porosity and fracture development degree of aquifers, hydraulic conductivity etc. Also provide the source or method of determination.

14. The values of recharge volume (rainwater infiltration, irrigation return, infiltrated water from the channels) and discharge (pumping) must be included (water budget). 

15. Figure 5: Both are incomplete in PDF version. Please check it. Also improve its quality.

16. In calibration of the model: some statistical comparison should also be added. Also justified their results.

17. Sensitivity analysis of the model should also be added.

18. The description of scenarios developed are missing. If not conducted, it is strongly recommended to add some prediction scenarios.

19. Review the conclusions based on the discussion of the results.

20. Also provide research based recommendations

I am not qualified to assess the quality of English in this paper however I suggest Moderate editing of English language is required. 

Author Response

Thank you for your questions, the author has carefully revised according to the revised opinions. if there are different opinions, please point out, I will carefully modify, thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

(1) The reviewer suggests replacing or deleting the map of China in Figure 1 with a more standard one. This is because non-standard maps may cause political misunderstandings. At the same time, the introduction content related to the research area in the second part is appropriately simplified.

(2) In section “3.2. Establishment of Mathematical Model of Hydrogeology”, what are the innovative points of the mathematical model? In other words, what are the highlights of the model? Additionally, how is the model embedded into the simulation platform? 

(3) In table 1, the unit of Permeability coefficient is m/d. Please check if this unit is correct? If there are no issues, please explain its physical meaning. In addition, International unit (SI) are recommended for all parameters in the manuscript.

(4) It is well known that boundary conditions and initial conditions are crucial for numerical simulations. However, nothing about these was mentioned in this study. The study would not be complete without stating these boundary and initial conditions.

(5) Some references should be cited to support the sentences in Lines 34-35 that These accidents seriously threaten the safety of people's lives and property and hinder the development of mining industry. ① https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2023.114949; ② https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-023-10202-7; ③ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2022.12.160

(6) Figure 5 is unclear and incomplete. Please update and modify the drawings, while checking the clarity and completeness of other drawings.

(7) Although the manuscript gives some engineering suggestions, it is not specific. Can the authors give some quantitative preliminary engineering measures?

Generally speaking, the language of the manuscript is OK, just check the basic Syntax error (long difficult sentences, etc.).

Author Response

Thank you for your questions, the author has carefully revised according to the revised opinions. if there are different opinions, please point out, I will carefully modify, thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This revised version of the manuscript does not fully addresses the main problems with the work.

In particular, the language quality has not been improved. I started annotating the sentences to be rewritten on the manuscript, but I soon realised that most of the text should be rewritten.

The format of the figures has been improved and some errors have been coorected, but a lot of flaws remain to be fixed, as far as I could ascertain, despite the difficulty with interpreting the English language.

Sorry, but I cannot provide a full list of specific comments, which requires much more time than that allocated for this review (few days only).

Another major concern is the fact that the cover letter, which includes answers to reviewers' comments, is written with the first singular person. Therefore, only one of the authors revised the manuscript. This is not appropriate for a manuscript involving several co-authors, in particular, because in the "Authors' contribution" section four or five co-authors are mentioned as contributing to writing.

The quality of English language is unacceptably poor.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper can be accepted for publication now, and the quality of english language is fine now.