Analysis of the Temporal Changes of Inland Ramsar Sites in Turkey Using Google Earth Engine

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This work is an interesting review of the evolution of the water mirrors of Ramsar wetlands in Turkey during the last 35 years.

Page2 Line 60: 17.269 or 17,269?

Line 61: Nine hundred twenty-two of these ...

Line 86: The same correction: Twelve of the Ramsar ...

The authors might consider merging Tables 2 and 4 to avoid repeating information. Thus, table 2 could contain the following fields: Ramsar site name, Ramsar #, Wetland Type *, Ramsar Criteria, Coordinates Area (ha), Designation Date, Implementation Year of the MP *, Other Protection Status, and # Threats (refer to Table 3)

L103 ...management decisions [9]. It is confirmed by ...

L183-185 Only 5 DEMs are shown and not the 9 inland wetlands. What about the rest?

L207-208 and L240-L247 are statements of methodological aspects, rather than results. I recommend paraphrasing and moving them to section 2.2. It is necessary to explicitly clarify that only 9 Inland wetlands were analyzed, and not the 5 Marine and Coastal

In Tables 8 and 9 the Wetland Type column is not necessary: they are all interior.

The discussion could deepen several aspects of the manuscript:
Lines 433-443, You need to incorporate bibliographic references that support the claims made here. Clarify: pessimistic scenario (RCP 8.5?), Optimistic scenario (RCP 4.5?)

Kızoren Obrouk is the only site that has decreased its rate of change since DY in autumn (not in spring, tables 7 and 8). However, it has no management plan. It also has the highest evapo./precip ratio. (Table 6). This could be argued ...

Nemrut Caldera does indeed show the lowest rates of change of the surface of your water body, but isn't this linked to the topography? (figure 9). Note further that since DY its rate of decline increased by an order of magnitude ...

Section 5: Conclutions ...

There is no justification for this statement in the summary: "As a result, inland wetlands have decreased at different rates from 1985 to 2020, with 20 a total loss of 39% and 23000 ha. Since the announcement date of the RS, the total amount of 21 reduction was 23% constituting to 20000 ha land" ...

Author Response

Thank you for your revision. I am pleased to resubmit for publication the revised version. I hope my revision turned out as you expected.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript with the title “Analysis of the Temporal Changes of Inland Ramsar Sites in Turkey Using Google Earth Engine” presents a study that use multi-temporal Landsat TM, OLI images, and NDWI from Google Earth Engine to obtain the surface water areas of the temporal changes of inland Ramsar Sites in Turkey, and to evaluate the surface water areas change from 1985 to 2020.

The paper takes into a worthy and interesting topic.

My main worry was the accuracy of the surface water areas from NDWI. See Tables 2 (e.g., Meke Maar = 205 ha, Nemrut Caldera = 2145 ha), is that ground truth data? See Tables 7 (e.g., Meke Maar = 50.75 ha, Nemrut Caldera = 1254.23 ha) and 8 (e.g., Meke Maar = 47.39 ha, Nemrut Caldera = 1258.13 ha), I would say there is a huge gap between the ground truth data and the estimated surface water areas. Please check. Also, the discussion L429-464 was not comprehensive, it is more likely an analyst of the results, the conclusions should more focus on your findings.

Author Response

Thank you for your revision. I am pleased to resubmit for publication the revised version. I hope my revision turned out as you expected.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The work deals with a pertinent subject and uses appropriate methods.
However it has some issues that can be improved prior to the acceptance for publication, such as:
- it is not explained what are the main differences beffore and after the so-called Designation year, and how this landmark is important;
- a litle bit more informantion about the management plans and their mechanisms will help to understands the effects of it (or the absence of effects)
- a statement on the objectives of the work must be placed at the end of the Introduction section
- in Tables 7 and 8 maybe annual rates of change for surface areas can be more informative, as the periods 1985 to DY and DY to 2020 are not uniform.

Please see also some other revision notes in the PDF file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your revision. I am pleased to resubmit for publication the revised version. I hope my revision turned out as you expected.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

great job! the manuscript improved significantly