Geo-Electrical Detection of Impermeable Membranes in the Subsurface

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author:

    I have read your research in detail. This study is creative in the Geo-electrical detection of impermeable membranes in the subsurface .  Overall, it is a very good case study, and there would be many developments in the future. 

I think there are several aspects in your research that need to be clarified or strengthened. Please explain or confirm the following questions:

1. The content of the literature review is too brief, and the literature related to the research is too small, so it should be strengthened.
2. The references in this article are all old, and it is recommended to use articles in the past five years.
3. Fig 2 The colors in the color scale are too close to be distinguished, so there should be a distinction between the shades (for example：The deeper the depth, the darker the color)
4. Fig 4 is recommended to be deleted, it can be clearly explained in the text
5. In the past literature, it was proposed that there will be 3D effects and boundary effects in sandbox experiments, but this paper does not propose and explain how to overcome them.
6. Please explain how the electrods are laid out in the sandbox ? The description in the text is not clear and Fig 3 is not clear either. Please explain whether the electrodes are placed on the ground surface for measurement or buried in the formation?
7. Line 276 , Please explain why RMS can be used as a metrics goodness-of-fit？
8. Line 190 , Please explain in details what is “ on the fly” ?
9. Fig5-9 have poor resolution.
10. Fig5, Fig7-9 Why the vertical axis adopts the apprent resistivity instead of the resistivity after inverse calculation.
11. Line 153 ,Models simulated by COMSOL should be presented and described in the text.
12. The description of Fig7-9 is not easy to understand, please correct the content.
13. If the results obtained in the laboratory test can be applied to the field test, the research results will be more prominent. It is suggested that preliminary field test results can be included in this paper.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript discussed the application of electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) in electrode soil exploration tools and designed a new logging tools pushed into the ground to detect the position of PVC film. The authors used an example to prove that the proposed strategy is more efficient than the classical method. However, its novelty is not significant, and there are major improvements in writing. In my view, this manuscript is not suitable for publication in the current version.

For further improving the manuscript, I have some comments as follows:

1.The Introduction of the manuscript does not comprehensively discuss how other scholars have pursued research about the scientific issue you focused. For the application of ERT, what research schemes have other researchers put forward? Is there a researcher who can explain the feasibility of this research protocol? It is suggested that the author supplement the content of other relevant research scholars and clarify the significance and feasibility of your work.

2.For the scientific problem of the application of new logging tools in your paper, if we use traditional methods (such as traditional logging tool), what results can we get? Then how is it different from the method you proposed?

3.It makes me confused by the subheadings in the manuscript, such as: 4. Laboratory setup; 6. Numerical simulation of the Lab Experiment; 6. Determining the position of the membrane.

4.The format, quantity, and relevance of the References in the manuscript are not qualified. There are various types of reference formats in the manuscript. It is suggested that the author increase the quantity and relevance of the references in the paper and unify the format of these references.

5.There are many figures in the manuscript, but the size and proportion of some figures make me confused, and the results of the items are not clear. I think it is very difficult to observe the information from the images clearly, as shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 10. It is suggested that the author redraw the picture of the inversion result to improve its clarity.

6.Please recheck the layout of the manuscript. Some pages of the manuscript are not well-formed, such as that of page 14.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx