Assessing Climate Change Impact on Rainfall Patterns in Northeastern India and Its Consequences on Water Resources and Rainfed Agriculture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript examines the characteristics of long time series precipitation in India, using several statistical methods such as the Sen slope test. On the whole, the study has a certain significance for in-depth understanding of the characteristics of this area, but the author still needs further improvement in some places.

 

In Figure 1, the author uses serial numbers to represent a number of regions that are not given specific names.

 

In Table 1, the average values, etc. are missing units and should be mm/mon

 

The manuscript contains a large number of abbreviations, which make it difficult for people who do not know the place to read, and as an international journal, should increase the readability.

The precipitation data set used by the author should be more explicit, the author says that this data set is based on observations from more than 300 sites, which in my opinion is still too few for all of India.

The author divides the whole period into two parts, one is before 1943, and the other is 1944-2016. What is the basis for this division? What are the geographical and meteorological explanations?

Some of the text in Table 4 is covered by a border

Author Response

Please see the attached file for the detailed response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study focuses on precipitation changes in the Northeastern  India different statistical tests. It is an important topic for regional water resources and rainfed agriculture under global climate change.  However, there are still some shortages in the manuscript that need improvement, including: 

(1)  Is this article focused on climate change impact on rainfall patterns, or rainfall pattern change impact on water resources and rainfed agriculture? The title is unclear.

(2) Introduction needs to be reorganized. The first paragraph contains too much information about the importance of precipitation changes, and does not focus on the scientific issues that this study focuses on.  The introduction lacks discussion on the impact of rainfall pattern change on water resources and rainfed agriculture.

(3) The description of the methods for trend analysis is very detailed, but the data analysis process should be discussed in conjunction with the data presented in this study, rather than just introducing the algorithm. For example, analysis of return periods of assured rainfall.

(4) There is no analysis of the impacts on Water Resources and Rainfed Agriculture in the research results, which is important according to the title. Also, the impact of climate change on rainfall patterns has not been well represented. 

(5) This study does not visually present intra regional variations. I recommend using visual graphics instead of tables.

(6) The conclusions need to be summarized.

Author Response

Please see the attached file for the detailed response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

1.       Remove Climate change from the title. Add northeastern India to the title instead of India.

2.       In Line 88, add rainfall value for Mawsynram (near Cherra-88 punji)

3.       In Lines 99-101, information is provided based on A1B scenarios from CMIP3. It would be better to update this information based on the CMIP6 model's output and scenarios.

4.       The introduction section lacks a literature review and knowledge gap in this literature. Please add some studies that evaluated rainfall patterns for the study area and highlight what is the knowledge gap in these studies.

5.       Also, you need to justify what is the novelty of your research.

6.       Add more details regarding the study area? What is the climate classification for the study area? What is the annual temperature, precipitation…. Add more details about geology and topography of it.

7.       The results section lacks of spatial distribution map for rainfall changes.

8.       To present the Mann-Kendall Z value, it would be better to present it as multi-temporal MKZ as a figure (see literature as an example).

9.       The results presented in Fig. 4 are not clear. Improve the quality or form of this figure.

10.   There is no discussion section. You need to compare your results with previous studies and justify the corresponding and differences between your results and previous studies.

 

11.   The conclusion section is too long. Only keep summary and important information.

In general, the results and discussion section should be improved. It is not appropriate to present all results in tables. 

Author Response

Please see the attached file for the detailed response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No comments.