Moroccan Groundwater Resources and Evolution with Global Climate Changes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have no further suggestions as the authors have addressed all of my comments from my first review.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

On behalf of all of the co-authors, I would like to thank you for reading our paper and for giving us the opportunity to publish it in Geosciences.

Respectuflly.

Reviewer 2 Report

Significant changes are still required:

The abstract is not informative. Authors do not explain what they will do and how. Amend this.
Section 2.1 should be an independent section, titled ‘case study’. Explain here why you focus on Souss and Draa – what makes them unique?
Section 3.2.4 should be expanded. Building an index of demand/supply would be useful to give an idea of the water exploitation in the area.
The numbering used in section 3 is confusing and very difficult to follow. There are also errors. For example, section 3 is followed by 3.2 (?). Authors should put more effort into editing the paper.
You present in the same section results at a national level with results for the 2 case studies (Souss and Draa). Why? Use different sections.
Also please consider dividing the results section into more sections, so that the document becomes more readable

some additional editing is necessary as well.

This are just some suggestions. Please be aware that I would expect a thorough and proactive revision. Adding new text is fine, but the paper needs to be rearranged. Section 3 needs to be completely re-structured, and some sections rewritten.

Author Response

On behalf of all of the co-authors, I would like to thank you for you extremely thoughtful and comprehensive reviews. The reviewers' comments are reproduced in black; our responses are detailed below in red:

The abstract is not informative. Authors do not explain what they will do and how. Amend this. 

We amended the abstract of our paper following the classical structure (Problematic, Methods, Results and discussion, Conclusion). We hope so that the abstract is now informative and reflect the content of the paper.

Section 2.1 should be an independent section, titled ‘case study’. Explain here why you focus on Souss and Draa – what makes them unique?

Done. The title of this section is changed and became “Case study” as an independent under-section . By the end of this section we explained why we are focused on Souss-Massa and Drâa basins.

Section 3.2.4 should be expanded. Building an index of demand/supply would be useful to give an idea of the water exploitation in the area. 

The section 3.2.4. (became section 3.4) is expanded and some statistics about water demand/supply are added. In the methods section (2.2) we mentioned the source of used data.

The numbering used in section 3 is confusing and very difficult to follow. There are also errors. For example, section 3 is followed by 3.2 (?). Authors should put more effort into editing the paper. 

The numbering of all sections is rectified and updated.

You present in the same section results at a national level with results for the 2 case studies (Souss and Draa). Why? Use different sections. Also please consider dividing the results section into more sections, so that the document becomes more readable

We rearranged and restructured the entire paper to be more readable and less confusing.

Some additional editing is necessary as well.This are just some suggestions. Please be aware that I would expect a thorough and proactive revision. Adding new text is fine, but the paper needs to be rearranged. Section 3 needs to be completely re-structured, and some sections rewritten.

Now the section 3 is divided into 2 independent sections. The first one as a result at national level and the second at regional level. Some paragraphs are modified and we added some additional discussions.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper can be accepted, but conditional on the following :

-you mention irrigation modernization as a means to address overexploitation. Many recent works suggest the contrary (namely, irrigation modernization increases water use and depletion). This includes a major fao report. Amend this accordingly

Perry, c., steduto, p. Does improved irrigation technology save water? Fao report, 2018

-include a discussion on demand management instruments (charges, quotas, markets, insurance) as a means to manage overexploitation

Gómez, c. M., Pérez-Blanco, c. D. Loch, a., Adamson, d. Managing water scarcity at a river basin scale with economic instruments. Water economics and policy, 4(1),2018

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

I am grateful to you for the valuable comments and suggestions provided.

1) Language editing for the manuscript has been done by Dr. Bogus Kara (native speaker);

2) Some text is added to explain the relationship between modern irrigation and over-exploitation (see page 20, Lines 525-537);

3) A discussion on demand management instruments is added (see page 14, Lines 375-384).

I would be happy to make any further changes that may be required.

King Regards.

Mohammed HSSAISOUNE.

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

General comments

The manuscript provides a helpful summary of the groundwater conditions of the Morocco and successfully integrates groundwater management concepts. The annual water budget numbers are very helpful for the national water budget analyses included in the manuscript. The groundwater basins selected for the case studies are interesting and helpful to explain how management is impacting the hydrogeological systems.

General questions

Are there any issues with subsidence in the unconsolidated aquifer with the significant groundwater depletions? A brief mention of subsidence, if it has been studied, would be important to include.

Does Morocco have any management guidelines for environmental flows? Management or regulatory guidelines for leaving some base flow in streams to support dependent ecosystems?

How many natural springs occur in the country or in the case study basins? If this information exists, it would be helpful to include as a brief summary.

Does Morocco implement any UN, African Union, or other international groundwater management directives? If so, please include a brief discussion.

Methods

Are there summaries on the number of bores in the country or by individual aquifer?

Please include the methods for how the qualitative descriptions of water quality were obtained? How many bores were sampled? What water constituents?

A statement on the sources of energy used for desalination should be included. Are they renewable or nonrenewable sources of energy?

Figures

Line 137 Show these six hydrogeological domains on Figure 3.

Table 1. Please show the location of all of these groundwater basins on Figure 3.

Line 176 and Figure 5. Please display the locations of all of these aquifers on Figure 3.

Figure 9. refer to Figure 3 and show the location of the Draa basin on Figure 3.

Figure 12. include in the legend the explanation for the dashed and solid lines. Are these faults?

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,  

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend the publication of the manuscript in its current form. Most of the text can be considered as a long introduction or review of the water situation in Morocco. It seems to be compiled from other sources without any significant contribution from the authors. Also, most figures are taken from other studies while figures 2b and 5 are plots of datasets not showing any analysis of the data.

Some parts, mainly at the Abstract and Introduction chapters requires significant editing to improve their focus to the subject while other parts seem to be redundant. Furthermore, there is a mixture of topics such as national and individual basin water budgets, and climate change is argued to be a major factor in groundwater table decline based on models computed (by others) since 2005, with 14 years of data this can be verified.

Confusion of basic ideas is evident across the text such as in lines 47-53, This part is dealing with the general Moroccan groundwater exploitation stating that only 70% of the safe yield is being used. That should not damage the aquifer. There might be several reasons for the alarming values (line 52), the two reasons provided by the author are confusing. Agricultural use is not a reason for the decrease in groundwater level, it might be a reason for excessive pumping. Similarly, less rain (due to climate change) will be the cause for change in the specific safe yield at a certain year in a region.  

Finally, the conclusion and recommendation chapter suggest stakeholders to use all textbook solutions without clear adaptation to the regional or local situation, limitations and needs.  Even while describing what has been done in the Souss-Massa basin (starts at line 527), as an example to the stakeholders, the authors provide a partial list using “e.g.” at the start of the sentence. Furthermore, no evidence or indication of success is provided.

I strongly suggest major editing.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper deals with an interesting topic and case study site, but the structure is not satisfactory, and the contents insufficiently developed.

As a first major comment, English should be improved before proceeding to submission. Also the structure of the paper should be improved. Before this is done, the paper should not be considered for publication.

Therefore I recommend major changes. If authors cannot provide a satisfactory structure and text flow, I suggest rejection.

Other major comments follow:

-Methods should be clearly described, and in detail. Authors do so in just 10 lines, which is insufficient even for a review.

-Authors should try to be more specific in their comments and arguments, for example:

"The deep aquifers are often not accessible 143 due to the high economic cost of drilling, whereas the shallow aquifers are more accessible, but also 144 more vulnerable to climate change, overexploitation, pollution and evaporation". what do you mean by high cost? provide some more data on depth or pumping costs.

-I understand your study focuses on two basins: Souss Massa and Draa. But then in the case study description you talk about Morocco. What is the case study area? Specify

These are just some examples. I could provide many more but I feel it is not sensible to proceed any further until authors address the major changes above (re structure and English)