Assessment of Water Ecosystem Integrity (WEI) in a Transitional Brazilian Cerrado–Atlantic Forest Interface
, Mariana A. G. A. Barbosa, Talyson Bolleli, Phelipe S. Anjinho, Rhayane Roque and Frederico F. MauadRound 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper presents a methodology to evaluate the integrity of rivers and streams in tropical regions of the Brazilian Cerrado-Atlantic Forest. It also validates a Land Use Land Change (LULC) map using results from a Water Ecosystem Integrity (WEI) protocol. For these purposes, authors use GIS techniques and fieldwork. Although the authors use the results of fieldwork to validate the land use map, no further analysis is made in this regard. It would be interesting to know, for example, if there is a correlation between land use and field results, as has been done in other zones (12). Such an exercise would be very interesting for the area where the study was carried out.
On the other hand, I think that validating a Land Use Land Change map with the 11 sampling points obtained from the Water Ecosystem Integrity (WEI) protocol is not enough. Please clarify or discuss this point.
The paper is clear although it lacks some methodological details. For example, although it is mentioned that the LULC analysis was performed using random forest techniques, there is no detailed description of how this was done. It also lacks an explicit definition of ecological integrity.
There is no analysis of the potential areas for establishing payment for ecosystem services programs and there is only a tangential mention of this point in the discussion saying that points rated poor than good by the integrated basin protocol indicate regions that require governmental intervention.
The first two paragraphs of the discussion are too general and not associated with the results of the work. Perhaps they are better in the introduction section.
Minor details
I consider that Figure 12 is unnecessary since the same information is in Table 2.
In Table 1 change "spatial data" and "data" in column 1 to "spatial date" and "date" respectively.
on line 200 change twelve by thirteen.
I suggest moving table 6 to methods.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript reports on an assessment of Water Ecosystem Integrity and applies a series a semi-quantitative scoring approach to determine ecosystem health
line 206 'Table 2. Watershed Habitat Evaluation and Biotic Integrity Protocol' - the ratings approach is an interesting concept and a useful way of scoring features, can more detail be provided of what the ratings mean e.g. is a rating of 35 seven times as important as a rating 5? how the numerical weightings for the ratings derived. any reason why they don't add up to e.g. 100 for each parameter.
same comment for the content of table 3.
line 235 - needs an explanation of what a 'confusion matrix' is
line 337 - 'The points rated poor than good by the integrated basin protocol indicate regions that require governmental intervention' - what type of intervention, if any, is required for zones within the 'fair' category?
any future work e.g. piloting the system over selected areas?
minor comments
line 245 / 262 be consistent with text / font format of graphs
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper was very well organized and edited. I only have a very few comments.
Line 73 - Change “according to” to “Accordingly”
Figure 3 – it is hard to read the numbers. Plus, the figure would be impossible for those whom are color blind.
Figure 4 - Really informative and useful. However, I cannot read the text in the middle.
Table 7 – These images are really useful for comparison to other areas globally. I appreciate their inclusion.
Last, I would suggest that the authors consider some of the work done in the U.S. regarding the evaluation of cumulative downstream impacts (search "watershed integrity". I am not suggesting any changes to the current analysis, but recognition of these approaches as possible future direction for the current work may be warrented.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
If you decide not to make the correlation, just mention this possibility in the discussion. Regarding your comment: We don't quite understand the following phrases "as has been done in other zones (12.- I was referring to the study that was done in French Creek watershed, Chautauqua County, NY, USA by R. R. Goforth and M. B. 2012 quote 12 in your bibliography. No problem at all.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1:
“If you decide not to make the correlation, just mention this possibility in the discussion. Regarding your comment: We don't quite understand the following phrases "as has been done in other zones (12.- I was referring to the study that was done in French Creek watershed, Chautauqua County, NY, USA by R. R. Goforth and M. B. 2012 quote 12 in your bibliography. No problem at all.”
Response: We decided to perform the correlation test. Thanks for the allotted time. We added the information in the paper on the lines: 215 to 217; 311 to 322 and; 393 to 395.
We thank you for your flexibility and interest in improving our article.
