Skip to Content
MDPIMDPI

Advanced

by
  • Chia-Wen Wu 1,*,
  • Frederick N.-F. Chou 1,* and
  • Yu-Wen Chen 2

Reviewer 1: Hamed Eskandari Damaneh Reviewer 2: Anonymous Reviewer 3: Anonymous

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors and editors,

The title is “Conjunctive-use frameworks driven by surface-water operations: integrating concentrated and distributed strategies for groundwater recharge and extraction,” which is an interesting topic. However, the manuscript's text requires an English revision by a professional editor. This manuscript can be reconsidered after major revisions. The comments are as follows:

  1. Abstract: Please start this section with a few warm-up sentences. The abstract should be rewritten. The results should be presented quantitatively in the abstract section.
  2. Keywords: they must begin with a capital letter, and the words must be different from the words in the title.
  3. Introduction: This section is written relatively briefly and needs to be explained further.
  4. Introduction: Some references are old (before 2019). Please apply recent citations in your manuscript.
  5. Introduction: Please explain more about necessity of conducting this research should be emphasized in the section.
  6. At the end of the Introduction section, you must mention the research gap of the previous studies, the novelty of this study, the objectives of this study, and finally, the research questions.
  7. Materials and Methods: Please explain the sampling method and why you used these parameters to evaluate the research.
  8. Discussion and conclusion sections must be separated. The figures (3 and4…….12) are not of good quality. Please use a higher-quality image. You must discuss your main findings and compare them with other studies in the Discussion section. Please mention the limitations that your study faced in the Discussion section.
    9. The Conclusion section must address the research questions, offer recommendations, mention policy implications, and direct future research.
    10. The whole text needs English editing.
Comments on the Quality of English Language

Dear authors and editors,

The title is “Conjunctive-use frameworks driven by surface-water operations: integrating concentrated and distributed strategies for groundwater recharge and extraction,” which is an interesting topic. However, the manuscript's text requires an English revision by a professional editor. This manuscript can be reconsidered after major revisions. The comments are as follows:

  1. Abstract: Please start this section with a few warm-up sentences. The abstract should be rewritten. The results should be presented quantitatively in the abstract section.
  2. Keywords: they must begin with a capital letter, and the words must be different from the words in the title.
  3. Introduction: This section is written relatively briefly and needs to be explained further.
  4. Introduction: Some references are old (before 2019). Please apply recent citations in your manuscript.
  5. Introduction: Please explain more about necessity of conducting this research should be emphasized in the section.
  6. At the end of the Introduction section, you must mention the research gap of the previous studies, the novelty of this study, the objectives of this study, and finally, the research questions.
  7. Materials and Methods: Please explain the sampling method and why you used these parameters to evaluate the research.
  8. Discussion and conclusion sections must be separated. The figures (3 and4…….12) are not of good quality. Please use a higher-quality image. You must discuss your main findings and compare them with other studies in the Discussion section. Please mention the limitations that your study faced in the Discussion section.
    9. The Conclusion section must address the research questions, offer recommendations, mention policy implications, and direct future research.
    10. The whole text needs English editing.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript presents a comprehensive, technically sound framework integrating WRASIM and MODFLOW to evaluate conjunctive surface–groundwater management across three representative MAR cases in Taiwan. The study provides valuable practical insight and quantitative evidence for improving water-supply resilience. Yet, it requires a more precise articulation of its methodological novelty, additional details on model validation, and a more concise synthesis of case-study results to reach publication-quality standards.

Recommendation: Major Revision

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this study, an integrated conjunctive-use framework which couples a surface-water allocation model with MODFLOW groundwater model is applied for evaluating the interaction between surface-water operations and groundwater recharge or pumping.

The subject matter is internationally important.

Some comments are given to clarify some items. 

C1. If a sketch of the three studied cases is provided (on one figure) at the beginning of the Materials and Methods section, it will help to visualize the overall region, the results and the recommended strategies.

C2. Materials and Methods section:

  1. Can you explain a little bit the geological properties and stratification of the recharging wells in these areas?
  2. Who owns the wells? If they belong to the farmers, does any change in the groundwater management need their permisison?
  3. Do the farmers pay for receiving well water or river water?
  4. What type of crops are presently cultivated?
  5. Knowing that water resources management depends on how much water is used by the high- consuming crops, is it possible to change the cropping pattern in this region?
  6. Are the farmers willing to change their cropping pattern and not worried about water deficiency?

C3. Written materials in Figures 1, 4, 5 and 6 are hard to read.

C4. Line 656: This is a good short summary.

C5. Some conclusions similar to Lines 676-682 could be written in the abstract.

C6. Lines 697-698: Don’t be so optimistic because after several years of recharge, the well-wall porosity starts to diminish and pores will be clogged and polluted.

C7. Did you have any limitation about what you said in lines 702-703?

C8. References are not typed uniformly.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

All items requested in the review form have been completed by the authors and the article is accepted.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the thorough and thoughtful revision. The revised manuscript clearly addresses all reviewer comments, with substantial improvements in the articulation of methodological novelty, model validation, figure clarity, and synthesis of the case-study results. The additions and clarifications have significantly strengthened the paper's overall quality and readability. The study now presents a clear and well-supported contribution to the literature on conjunctive surface–groundwater management and managed aquifer recharge. I have no further scientific comments and believe the manuscript is ready for publication.