DSPIR Framework as Planning and Management Tools for the La Boquita Coastal System, Manzanillo, Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Although not exceptional, the manuscript is interesting. It describes and shows the application of a known and tested methodology to assess the current socio-environmental state of a small beach and coastal lagoon from the Pacific coast of Mexico.

There are some recommendations:

Line 102 It is strange to start the first paragraph with a verb. Perhaps what the authors want to say is “The study area is located…”.

Figure 2. Please correct the spelling of Physicochemical parameters.

Although mentioned in this figure as a driving force, “artisanal fishing” was not further investigated. It is referred to in Table 2 as a pressure with increasing trend. In table 2 other important pressures are also mentioned, such as fragmentation of mangrove forest coverage. If the authors did analyze this last aspect throughout photo images, some values could be given. In summary, the authors could have given more information about the pressures, not only the trends.

Line 139 It is strange to start the paragraph with a verb. Perhaps what the authors want to say is “The driving forces were identified …”.

Line 168 – correct the reference: (modified from Cervantes, 2008) to (modified from (8)) or (modified from Cervantes ⁸ ).

Line 187. At what time of the day were the samples collected and the water parameters measured? It is important for some parameters with large diurnal variation, such as dissolved oxygen

Lines 206-207.   The TRIX index need to be correctly cited. It was not proposed by Escobedo‑Urías in a PhD Thesis. This index was firstly proposed by (Vollenweider et al., 1998) and has been widely used by the scientific community. 

Vollenweider, R.A., Giovanardi, F., Montanari, G., Rinaldi, A., 1998. Characterization of the trophic conditions of marine coastal waters with special reference to the NW Adriatic Sea: proposal for a trophic scale, turbidity and generalized water quality index. Environmetrics 9, 329-357.

The TRIX equation needs to be corrected. Please check the original publication.

Also, the names of the variables need to be adopted to English (they are in Spanish). For example, Chla – for chlorophyll a, DIN (instead of NID) for Dissolved Inorganic Nitrogen, the same for DIP instead of PID (which is not explained in the text what it is).

Lines 216-217 and Figure 4 caption: Penna et al. 2004 is not in the references list.

3.1. Driving forces. Some results need to be shown, like the percentage of changes over the last 10 years, or 50 yerars, or whatever is more appropriate. See also the above comments about Figure 2.

Line 276 Erase “(square meters)”

Line 315 Correct the number of the Table. It should be Table 4.

Line 321. What is the interest of only doing Enterococcus concentration before the holyday periods. What happens during the holyday periods and immediately after?

Line 322. The credits of the data need to be included. Who did the analysis? Which laboratory or state department?

Line 337. Oxygen concentration measured in April was very low, around 3 mg l-1. If measured during the day it could imply an oxygen depletion over the night. The authors need to discuss these results in detail.

Line 448. What is LB ? La Boquita? Need to be defined. Previously it was defined as LBCS - La Boquita Coastal System (LBCS),

Line 469-471. “In a recent (unpublished) study conducted during the 2016 Easter in the LB system, which aimed to analyze the diversity index in the beach area, benthic macrofauna was virtually absent in most of the area sampled, a finding suggesting potential ecological issues associated with space occupation in these areas.”

This study Is not published, the sampling methodology is unknow, as well as stations localization and periodicty.  Therefore, it must be omitted from the discussion. 

Line 472 – a reference is needed. Which legislation?

Line 479 – The authors need to be more precise.  In which cases are the generation of waste and wastewater discharges, in the present study site, not regulated?

Line 490- Please avoid long paragraphs! Place a period after risks, strating the next period with “However…”. Nevertheless, you could criticize the fact that no monitoring is performed during and immediately after high beach occupation. Perhaps during that periods the concentration of Enterococcus is above the advisable limits.

Lines 573-576 The authors did not specify the contribution of each one to the work presented.

Annex I could be included as supplementary material.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript in many cases lacks deeper theoretical insights and does not demonstrate the up-to-date knowledge of the topic.

Below are the most pivotal notes that must be addressed:

Lines 34–35: aquatic systems such as coastal lagoons and estuaries. Note 1: Coastal lagoons and estuaries should be classified as ‘Transitional waters’; Refer to McLusky & Elliott 2007, Estuarine, Coastal & Shelf Science, 71, 359–363.

Lines 39–40: make them attractive for the development of socio--‐‑economic activities, such as port development, tourism, aquaculture, and fishing. Note: Socio-economic activities in the regions of coastal lagoons and estuaries should be termed as ‘Emerald growth’. Refer to Tagliapietra et al. 2020, water, 12, 894.

Line 51 [beach-dune system] is a highly appealing destination for tourism. Note 2: It should be even stronger emphasized that beach-dune systems are some of the most appealing destinations for coastal tourism. Refer to Doody 2012.

Lines 66–67. A number of coastal management indicators have been used to evaluate the main environmental, social, economic, and political aspects. Note 3: [15] and [16] citations do not refer specifically to coastal indicators. Refer to Karnauskaite et al. 2018; Journal of Coastal Conservation 22, 549-570.

Line 168 included 17 items (modified from Cervantes, 2008). Note 4: Wrong style of citation

Lines 257 – 278 Arrows pointing up indicate increases; equal indicates unchanged. Line 728 Table ii. Note 5: It would be more informative, if there could be at least two positions of ‘up’ and ‘down’ arrows, i.e, ‘increases’ and ‘increases very much’, or ‘decreases’ and ‘decreases very much’. Both, Table 2 and Table ii should be combined and presented in the beginning of the Results section as a synthesis of the results with the further explication of particular notions and aspects

Lines 398–401: A number of regulatory instruments are applicable to the coastal and marine areas of Mexico, including 38 general and federal laws, as well as state laws, municipal ordinances, official Mexican standards (NOM), and international instruments. Note 6: Is it an own finding by the authors? Otherwise, the citation is necessary.

Lines 409–410: ‘a simulation scenario revealed that the implementation of the legislation is either partial or null.’ Note 7: What is a ‘simulation scenario’ which was never mentioned before and never again?

Lines 418–420: Sun, Sea Sand (SSS) tourist destinations attract a large influx of visitors and represent a major source of income for the economy of some countries, including Mexico. Note 8: This statement is very broad and needs further explication (e.g. 7-S rather than 3-S, including sports etc.). However, some broader Mexican evidence (statistics) of the ‘post-post-mass’ beach crowds, lured by e.g. appealing beach pictures on Instagram, would be informative and useful.

Lines 424–427: In the LBCS, tourism is the main driving force causing changes in the state of the environment, both on the beach area and in the adjacent aquatic systems, mainly due to the increase in the pressures affecting the different ecosystems. Note 9: Discussion on the interaction between the lagoon, the beach and the sea, also taking into account the impact from the lagoon on the adjacent sea beaches is missing.

Lines 430–432: The identification of appropriate indicators to measure the issues in each destination is fundamental; these can be quantitative (e.g., BDU) and qualitative (e.g., user perception). Note 10: Citation is necessary. Refer to Robert, S., 2018. Land Use Policy 72, 138–151.

Lines: 483-528. Note 11: Most of the information related to the environmental impacts from the lagoon should be made more concise and moved from Discussion to the Results.

Lines 554–557: development of tourism activities. The increase in tourism during the Easter and summer holiday seasons causes a change of state in the environment. The above proposes the adoption of indicators for continued monitoring for use in seeking strategies to achieve compliance with current regulations. Note 12: Rather trivial conclusions. Must be completely rewritten with the novel findings and arguments explicitly fleshed-out.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

thank you for providing this very interesting manuscript, regarding a heavy used coastal system in Mexico. By combining water quality observations with socio-environmental indicators, you are undertaking a valuable step to gain interdisciplinary research results. Framing the whole study by applying DPSIR enhances the value of your study a lot. I fully support your approach to combine the different research areas, although it makes your manuscript very ambitious in my eyes - and this is my major critic point of your manuscript. You have so much content to show that readers like me (who are not so familiar with your case study) have severe problems, what are new results by you and what is already known. And at once, for me it did not got everywhere clear, which data you have used to validate your outcome (e.g. the trends shown in table 2 are not justified in my eyes). Therefore, my major suggestion is to reduce the content of the manuscript a little bit, so that you can use the freed space to give some more details on your key output.

Hence, I will try to give you some suggestions, how to improve the manuscript. Please fell free to follow the suggestions.

The introduction reads well in my eyes. What is missing is that the introduction leads to open research questions, which you want to answer within the manuscript, e.g. what is new and not known yet.

A smaller point: throughout the manuscript is that you mix all the time the terms "ecosystem services" and "sustainability indicators", what seems not appropriate from my perspective. I´d prefer you stick the sustainability indicators (as done in the introction), but you need to enhance their description. Have a look into the articles of Karnauskaitė et al. (2018, 2019).

A more important point is the description of your DPSIR framework in M & M section. As far as I understood you, these DPSIR is newly developed by you. Than it should be more highlighted, e.g. by making an autonomous chapter out of the DPSIR, where you justify, which data you have used and why you see an increase of pressure indicators (table 2 should show the numbers, e.g. by comparing the development between 2003 and 2015 or estimating the annual change rate - having just the arrows pointing up seems not appropriate in my eyes). Do you really need the trend analysis?

I´m not sure, if your equations are necessary (DUPF = AF / NP in line 159 is so simple that you can you describe it without showing the equation) or f they need to be revised (the TRIX formula in l. 208 must be checked - the brackets are not even, a[...] and PID are not explained).

In figure 3, I´d prefer to have the x-axis description at all subfigures. Why do you cluster the TRIX results (fig. 4)?

Section 3.4 (Response) is in my eyes the weakest part of your results and must be revised. You write that you have identified and analyzed environmental goods and services in your study (l. 402) - I don´t agree on that sentence. This must be justified by you. Further, you speak about a simulation scenario (l. 409), which I have not seen within your study.

Another minor point - I personally don´t like that you are using 2 ways of refering to the literature within your manuscript (partly you use numbers, partly authors an year). If possible, please unify through the manuscript.

Best regards.

Looking forward to see your revision!

Author Response

Reviewer 3

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Everything is fine. No further remarks.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Attached the manuscript with the revision of English Language and style

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see my comments attached. It would have been really helpful to have a document, where the changes of your manuscript were highlighted.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf