Bottom Sediment Characteristics of a Tropical Lake: Lake Tana, Ethiopia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors, your way of presentation is good but the paper missed the following main issues
- It is unclear either the sample you have taken for the analysis is from the deposed soil or from the original bed of the lake
- You have analyzed some of the lake bottom sediment parameters/characteristics/. But all of this parameter will depend on erosion and deposition nature of the lake. Yet your study is not connected with erosion and deposition nature of the lake. Unless you show us the sediment deposition pattern of lake, it can’t give a full sense.
- Moreover, the standard Ekman grab sampler can’t show the depth of the lake where the sample is taken. So first you have to determine the sediment deposition pattern of the lake and connect your bottom sediment property with sediment distribution pattern of the lake.
- Reference number 1 inside the text.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Please find attached our responses to your comments and the marked-up manuscript.
Thank you for your time and comments
Best regards
Tammo and Mebrahtom
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper presents sampled sediment data from the bottom of Lake Tana in Ethiopia which can be used as a reference to other pieces of research in the field. While this paper is a potentially good fit for publications, it requires minor adjustments, edits, and enhancements. Here are my suggestions;
1- Check and correct the punctuations all through the paper. For instance line 31, " rivers . Most..".
2- Abstract: The goal of the work is not clearly defined. Please clearly state what is the goal and how it was achieved.
Introduction:
3-It is too slim. This section can be expanded around similar researches on lakes sampling, their findings, their techniques of sampling, why it is important, and so.
Here are some paper suggestions in the filed that can be used to improve the quality of the background and literature review:
- Reservoir Sedimentation Handbook
- Integrated measures of anthropogenic stress in the U.S. Great Lakes basin
- Fifteen-year monitoring of the turbidity dynamics in large lakes and reservoirs in the middle and lower basin ofthe Yangtze River, China.
- Using MODIS remote sensing data for mapping the spatio-temporal variability of water quality and river turbid plume
- Natural Streams of Water-Powered and the Legacy Mills
4- The goal of the research is not clear. Usually, the last paragraph of the introduction states the goal(s) of the paper explicitly. Authors should clearly what they want to achieve and what is the goal clearly.
Materials and Methods:
Figure 1- Mark and differentiate between input streams to the lake and the output.
Line 88- cite the sampler
Figure 3- What are the two colors in the boxplot? needs to be clarified.
Figure 4- The sample data points don't seem 60 points, any explanation?
Line 217-218: cite
Line 233: citation 29 should come after the sentence.
Conclusion:
This part needs more work as it is too slim. The conclusion should include a brief explanation of all the sections of the paper so that one can read the conclusion and can fully understand the paper.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Please find attached the responses to your comments and the marked-up manuscript. Thank you for your help in improving the manuscript
Sincerely yours
Tammo and Mebrahtom.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Please refer the attached file
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for your comments.
You find our response in the pdf below
Regards
Tammo
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
