Geospatial Assessment and Modeling of Water–Energy–Food Nexus Optimization for Sustainable Paddy Cultivation in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka: A Case Study in the North Central Province

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewer’s comments

Title of Manuscript: An Analysis in the North Central Province (NCP) of Sri Lanka: Geographical Assessment and Modeling of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Optimization for Sustainable Paddy Production

This work will contribute to sustainable agricultural resource management in a new and methodologically sound way. The authors provide a geospatial assessment and scenario-based modeling methodology that integrates remote sensing, GIS analysis, and the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus approach to investigate resource synergies and limitations in Sri Lanka. The topic is important and related to policy.

The research effectively amalgamates geospatial methodologies, including NDVI, NDWI, SMI, SOC, and energy potential layers, within the framework of a water, energy, and food nexus tailored to Sri Lanka's Dry Zone. It has a clear methodological design and quantitative validation. The Pearson correlation coefficients (r = 0.737 for water, r = 0.582 for energy, and r = 0.273 for food) indicate strong internal consistency and model reliability. This work can be helpful since the model may guide policy decisions on the integration of renewable energy, irrigation management, and the reduction of carbon emissions. However, the external validity is weak. Future studies should use independent or ground-truth datasets, such as field-level yield, soil moisture, or energy access data, to improve robustness. The study ignores institutional and socioeconomic variables that have a large impact on WEF results, such as farming techniques, energy costs, or regulatory frameworks.

The discussion section needs to make a clearer link between the modeled scenarios and specific policy consequences.

A few suggestions are listed below:

In the methodology overview, the reference system should be clarified.

Improve the readability of the figures by incorporating clearer scale bars and legends, particularly in Figures 10–21.

The grammatical redundancies should be fixed (such as the frequent references to "Dry Zone paddy cultivation").

Uniform formatting of all references and data sources in compliance with MDPI guidelines should be provided.

 

   

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article provides a thorough discussion, a clear research process, and highly credible data sources, making it an excellent work of quantitative research. Before publication, I recommend revising the following points:

1. The structure of “3. Results and Discussion” is unclear. It is recommended to separate Results and Discussion into two independent sections.
2. In “3.3. Carbon Footprint Calculation,” the substantive meaning of the calculation results should be further elaborated.
3. In “3.2.2. Interpretation by water component,” “3.2.3. Interpretation by energy component,” and “3.2.4. Interpretation by food component,” the colons “:” can be removed.
4. One of the article’s major academic contributions is the development of its methodology. It is recommended to compare it with previous methods and explain the reasons it is superior.
5. In “4. Conclusions,” the key numerical findings of the study should be briefly mentioned and their significance explained.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors of manuscript
"Geospatial assessment and modeling of the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) Nexus Optimization for Sustainable Paddy Cultivation in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka: A Case Study in the North Central Province (NCP)" 
Awanthi Udeshika Iddawela, Jeong-Woo Son, Yeon-Kyu Sonn and Seung-Oh Hur

I've read your manuscript with great attention and interest, as combination of different natural and anthropogenic factors can sufficiently affect the economic state of the territories, environmental safety and sustainable development. For agriculture among the all factors important role is played by the water sources distribution and rainfall amount - as every plant needs water to yield. Now the energy system properties and strength can alter the restrictions caused by water scarcity, but the analysis made would make it possible to assess the needs and expediency of every decision. This developed model and study itself can become a great advantage, but the explanation of the work made has to be, in my opinion, improved to provide the readers deeper understanding of the processes portrayed and results obtained. 
The basic features to improve are itemized below.
- The abbreviations have to be removed from the Title of manuscript to make it clearer and easy comprehensible.
- The listed 4 objectives of the study are not outlined at all in Conclusions section. All the section is weakly formulated and made of trivial phrases and implications.
- Mentioned mutual dependence interactions listed in lines 191-194 are not fully listed.
- In Fig.2 the difference between arrows and arrows with remark "Scenario creation" is not explained. Model validation and "Getis Ord Gi" is not carefully described in text.
- In Fig.3 "Energy for food" section consider "Nutrients" - what are the nutrients? As the solar energy can hardly be taken as nutrient. And all the picture look more like Table.
- In Fig.4 black solid lines are mentioned (line 198). What about dashed lines? Why arrows look so small?
- Diagrams in Fig.4 and 5 conflict each other as key elements are not located in the same places and reader have to re-configure the vision over this two figures. All the arrows are quite the same and pale to distinguish "loops" in fig.5.
- What about the SMI and NDII terms (mentioned in Eq.3)? What/where are the definitions?
- Tables 2 and 3 have no explained first column values and thresholds.
- Spatial resolution of the data lying under Scenarios and Layers is questioned. What is the "dot" size in Fig. 8 - 21? Why it is so not uniform for different Scenarios? 
- Connection of the Scenarios and "cycles" in Fig.4 is not clearly shown.
- Captions (Fig. 10-21) have to be formulated as statements, and "words" have to migrate from picture to caption: "Figure 10. Spatial resources representation according the Scenario 1. Zones of High_Food+High_Water+High_Energy are painted GREEN" (for example)
- Some explanation is omitted between lines 408-411 to step out from layers to scenarios.
- In Fig.12 there is evidently some border (Eastern and Western clusters are separated) - it would be interesting to put the heights mapping (or else?) under it.
- The result for each Scenario consider only one way to promote, as authors (and government) have to apply diverse approaches to more efficient land use. Am i right?
- Picture in Fig.1 has too low resolution to distinguish signs on the edges. The same is about all the figures from 10 to 21. 
- What is the result of the MODEL application that demonstrated "consistency and reliability" (lines 599-601)? Is it 12 Scenarios listed in Section 2.5 (half manuscript away from the Conclusions)?
- What is the base to put value 4.77 in Eq.8?
- What is the final result of the 3.3 section? What follows from the lines 625-628? 

Technical issues detected:
-First reference in line 50 and all the ref-s further are not numbered consequently and are supplemented with Author's Names and Publication Year - looks like mismatch with instruction for authors.
-Lines 66-69 are repeated in lines 73-76 "word-by-word".
-"NCP" abbreviation is deciphered in line 170, and used for the first time much earlier.
-What is the style of Equation numbering used?
-After Eq.2 SWIR have to be replaced by GREEN (misprint)
-Subsection 2.3.3 followed by Table 4 looks not "ok" and requires some text in between header and Table.

As a conclusion - the work presented is very nice and interesting but have lot more potential than is already shown and demonstrated. The text requires profound changes and major revision.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors of manuscript
"Geospatial assessment and modeling of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Optimization for Sustainable Paddy Cultivation in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka: A Case Study in the North Central Province"
Awanthi Udeshika Iddawela, Jeong-Woo Son, Yeon-Kyu Sonn and Seung-Oh Hur

I've familiarized with changes in your manuscript, the text and has conceptually significantly changed. The added information helped to make "deep dive" into the details of study, which is good.

And my biggest concern is representation of results and analysis of the derived data.
Authors state "used to identify the clusters of high and low values in spatial data" (line 391) but do not describe those clusters in the represented patterns (fig. 10-21).

The concept of "study considered 12 scenarios that could occur in a paddy system" (line 451) implies that all the illustrations from figures 10-21 can be grouped in the single FIGURE with equally-scaled parts illustrating and allowing to compare spatial outputs of the scenarios. So the "problem" of similar boring captions will be solved at once!

And comments about symbols on the sides of each picture in figures 10-21 are still relevant, so i took liberty to make an illustration (attached). Little differences in scales, BIG mismatch in spatial resolution of the pictures in figures 10-21 is still bothering and irritating me - i have no clue to find out why "pixels" are of so different caliber and what are the restrictions to make the images with identical spatial resolution. What is the "dot"/"pixel" size in Fig. 8 - 21? Why it is so not uniform for different Scenarios? 

Diagrams in Fig.4 and 5 (again!) conflict each other as key elements are not located in the same places and reader have to re-configure the vision over this two figures. All the arrows are quite the same and pale to distinguish "loops" in fig.5. Connection of the Scenarios and "cycles" in Fig.4 is not clearly shown.

Technical issues detected:
-Every reference is not numbered consequently (in order of appearance) and are supplemented with Author's Names and Publication Year - still looks like mismatch with template.
-Line 266 have not to be ITALIC(!)
-Eq-s 1-3 look rater good, but then it comes to some changes in style, eq-s become more like citations. Why so?

As a conclusion - the work presented is improved by authors dramatically, but still has some inaccuracies.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf