Hydroclimatic Trends and Drought Risk Assessment in the Ceyhan River Basin: Insights from SPI and STI Indices

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Editor.

I have finished my review on the proposed paper “Hydroclimatic Trends and Drought Risk Assessment in the Ceyhan River Basin: Insights from SPI and STI Indices”, hydrology-2501159-peer-review-v1.

 

Summary of the manuscript:

In the proposed paper, the author’s goal is to comprehensively analyze and understand the drought, its events and characteristics are determined and evaluated using multiple meteorological (SPI and STI) indices according to basic definitions of SPI. Various statistical and geostatistical techniques were employed to determine 24 the significance of trends for each climatic variable in the whole basin and its three sub-regions 25 (northern, central, and southern regions). The results revealed that the recent years in the basin were 26 generally warmer compared to previous years, with a temperature increase of approximately 4°C.

 

General review:

1. Generally, the manuscript presents an interesting topic and the specific research seems to include some significant points for the research community of this field.

2. The proposed paper have in general good use of English language. However, there are several grammatical mistakes and word errors. The author should check again the paper to correct these mistakes.

3. The proposed paper is very well structured. It begins with the Introduction with some references that helps the reader to get into the subject immediately. In Introduction there is an effort to provide previous studies with similar scientific content, which took place in the research area and in other countries. Author describes and set very well the scientific problem and how other researchers have approached. At the end of Introduction, authors clearly state the goals of the research. However, I believe that for the specific subject you can enhance the provided literature. You have use only 28 references, which are very few for this scientific issue.

4. The methodology is generally very interesting, and I believe that is well explained. (see below comments).

5. The results are generally OK. However, there some parts that need revisions (see below comments).

6. There is no Discussion in the text.

7. Conclusions are OK.

 

Additional points for revision:

In my opinion, the proposed paper could be characterized as a good research work, complies with aims of HYDROLOGY. 

INTRODUCTION: You have to significantly increase the used references. They are very few.  Please, enhance the state-of-the-art in Introduction. You should add a new paragraph with similar studies from Mediterranean. For example, see the following studies (doi.org/10.3390/cli11050106, doi.org/10.3390/w14162499, doi.org/10.3390/su142013380. Add this studies in the text and use the reference lists to enhance your literature. You can more studies from the same authors for Mediterranean region.

Lines 76-77: “The Ceyhan River basin is already suffering from 76 climate variability.” Here, you should add literature to support this statement.

2.1. Study area and data: I do not understand why the last period is missing from your analysis. The period that is missing is 2014-2022. Please, explain.

Table 1: Please, modify the headings. Replace the “temperature” with “mean annual temperature” and “rainfall” with “mean annual precipitation”. I assume that in high altitude there is snowing. So, I think that precipitation is most accurate.

Lines 104-105: Here, you provide 6 references [19-24] for the use of Mann-kendal test. It is very strange that in these studies, there is no from Mediterranean. Please, use the above mentioned references to find studies from Mediterranean.

Lines 187-188: Please, rephrase this sentence, to improve the meaning. Is not clear.

Results and DISCUSSION: There is no Discussion. Discussion within the context of comparing the results of the paper with other studies, is not exists. I searched the paper, but I did not find references in this section. You should compare and discuss your results with previously published studies. Please, enhance the quality of this section adding more literature form the broader area of Mediterranean. There are studies from Turkey and Greece (south Aegean) with the same scientific subject.

The text should be checked again for word and grammar errors.

Author Response

Reviewer:  Dear Editor, I have finished my review of the proposed paper “Hydroclimatic Trends and Drought Risk Assessment in the Ceyhan River Basin: Insights from SPI and STI Indices”, hydrology-2501159-peer-review-v1.

Summary of the manuscript: In the proposed paper, the author’s goal is to comprehensively analyze and understand the drought, its events and characteristics are determined and evaluated using multiple meteorological (SPI and STI) indices according to basic definitions of SPI. Various statistical and geostatistical techniques were employed to determine the significance of trends for each climatic variable in the whole basin and its three sub-regions (northern, central, and southern regions). The results revealed that the recent years in the basin were 26 generally warmer compared to previous years, with a temperature increase of approximately 4°C.

General review:

1. Generally, the manuscript presents an interesting topic, and the specific research seems to include some significant points for the research community of this field.

Response: The authors are thankful to the reviewer for their time, positive response, and fruitful comments on the manuscript.

2. The proposed paper has in general good use of the English language. However, there are several grammatical mistakes and word errors. The author should check the paper again to correct these mistakes.

Response: We carefully revised the English language of the manuscript.

3. The proposed paper is very well structured. It begins with the Introduction with some references that helps the reader to get into the subject immediately. In the Introduction, there is an effort to provide previous studies with similar scientific content, which took place in the research area and in other countries. The authors describe and set very well the scientific problem and how other researchers have approached it. At the end of the Introduction, the authors clearly state the goals of the research. However, I believe that for the specific subject, you can enhance the provided literature. You have used only 28 references, which are very few for this scientific issue.

Response: Thank you for your kind words. Your positive opinions on the structure of the manuscript highly motivated us to do our best during the revision. Upon the comments, we extended our literature review. Now, we have 42 references. Please see the revised Introduction section. 

3. The methodology is generally very interesting, and I believe that is well explained. 

Response: Thank you so much for your opinion.

4. The results are generally OK. However, there are some parts that need revisions (see below comments).

Response: Thank you for your opinion. We revised the results section.

5. There is no Discussion in the text.

Response: Upon the comment, we added a discussion section to the revised manuscript.

6. Conclusions are OK.

Response: Thank you for your opinion.

Additional points for revision: In my opinion, the proposed paper could be characterized as good research work, complies with aims of HYDROLOGY.

INTRODUCTION: You have to significantly increase the used references. They are very few.  Please, enhance the state-of-the-art in the Introduction. You should add a new paragraph with similar studies from the Mediterranean. For example, see the following studies (doi.org/10.3390/cli11050106, doi.org/10.3390/w14162499, doi.org/10.3390/su142013380. Add these studies in the text and use the reference lists to enhance your literature. You can more studies from the same authors for the Mediterranean region.

Response: Upon the comment, we extended the introduction section using 14 new papers.

Lines 76-77: “The Ceyhan River basin is already suffering from climate variability.” Here, you should add literature to support this statement.

Response: Ref no 24 was added to support the sentence. (Altın, T. B., Sarış, F., & Altın, B. N. Determination of drought intensity in Seyhan and Ceyhan River Basins, Turkey, by hydrological drought analysis. Theor. Appl. Climatol. 2020, 139, 95-107.)

2.1. Study area and data: I do not understand why the last period is missing from your analysis. The period that is missing is 2014-2022. Please, explain.

Reply: As we mentioned in section 2.1, in this study, to better understand temporal variations, the study was conducted in decadal periods (i.e., four decades (including 1975-1984, 1985-1994, 1995-2004, and 2005-2014). When we started this study, the data up to 2016 was available. Thus, we used data up to 2014 to complete four decades as shown in Figures 4 and 6.

Table 1: Please, modify the headings. Replace the “temperature” with “mean annual temperature” and “rainfall” with “mean annual precipitation”. I assume that in high altitude there is snowing. So, I think that precipitation is most accurate.

Reply: Corrected

Lines 104-105: Here, you provide 6 references [19-24] for the use of Mann-Kendall test. It is very strange that in these studies, there is no from Mediterranean. Please, use the above-mentioned references to find studies from the Mediterranean.

Reply: Upo the comment, we added some studies from Turkey.

Lines 187-188: Please, rephrase this sentence, to improve the meaning. Is not clear.

Reply: The relevant sentence was revised.

Results and DISCUSSION: There is no Discussion. Discussion within the context of comparing the results of the paper with other studies, is not exists. I searched the paper, but I did not find references in this section. You should compare and discuss your results with previously published studies. Please, enhance the quality of this section adding more literature form the broader area of Mediterranean. There are studies from Turkey and Greece (south Aegean) with the same scientific subject.

Reply: Upon the comment, a discussion section was added to the revised manuscript. Please see the revised manuscript (section 4).

Reviewer 2 Report

The study is very interesting. I have only minor comments.

Abstract: need to be concise

Introduction: The introduction section is very short, the authors are encouraged to make sure this section cover: background, LR, Problem statements and objectives. The authors are also  encouraged to refer/cite to recent studies such as: A review on drought index forecasting and their modelling approaches and Spatiotemporal variability analysis of standardized precipitation indexed droughts using wavelet transform

Results and discussion: More justifications about the findings should be added.

“Figure 8. Intra-annual trend of temperature”, should be presented in better way.

“Figure 10. Monthly variability of temperature and precipitation during the different decades”, needs to be clear.

 

Conclusions: Should cover the limitations of the study and future work.

 

Author Response

Reviewer 2: The study is very interesting. I have only minor comments.

Reply: Thank you so much for your time and positive response to our manuscript. Upon your comments, we improved our article substantially as explained below.

- Abstract: need to be concise.

Reply: Upon the comment, we shortened the Abstract in the revised version.

- Introduction: The introduction section is very short, the authors are encouraged to make sure this section cover: background, LR, Problem statements and objectives. The authors are also encouraged to refer/cite to recent studies such as: A review on drought index forecasting and their modelling approaches and Spatiotemporal variability analysis of standardized precipitation indexed droughts using wavelet transform.

Reply: Upon the comment, we extended the introduction section by reviewing more recent studies. Accordingly, 14 new papers were added to the revised manuscript.

Results and discussion: More justifications about the findings should be added.

Reply: We revised the results section, and a new discussion section was added to the revised manuscript.

“Figure 8. Intra-annual trend of temperature”, should be presented in a better way.

Reply: We replaced the figure with a new one.

“Figure 10. Monthly variability of temperature and precipitation during the different decades”, needs to be clear.

Reply: We replaced the figure with a new one.

Conclusions: Should cover the limitations of the study and future work.

Reply: Upon the comment, we added the following paragraph to the end of the conclusion section.

This study was limited to analyzing only ground truth drought across/near the basin, and merely meteorological indicators (i.e., SPI and STI) were implemented to detect drought risk. Recent studies have proved the efficiency of satellite data [7], and considering anthropogenic impacts and land use change [9,13] for drought monitoring, prediction, and assessment. Therefore, hydrological indicators for drought assessment and evaluation of the human-water relationship could be considered as topics for future studies. Developing drought resilience plans in the face of increasing water scarcity is also required in practice.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors addressed my comments. I do not have additional comments.

 

The paper needs a final check.