Terrestrial Water Storage Dynamics: Different Roles of Climate Variability, Vegetation Change, and Human Activities across Climate Zones in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is overall quite clear and well written. Giving more details about the novelty of the approach compared to the existing literature (indicated as rather qualitative) would highlight the significance of this work. Below is the list of items requiring some minor clarification and some minor suggestions.
- The use of abbreviations should be reviewed: sometimes abbreviations are not introduced or not used (e.g., Line 35, ET? Evapotranspiration?). An abbreviation and symbol list could help the reader.
- Please avoid unnecessary abbreviations in the abstract (e.g., GRACE and ADF).
- L 118: The first number is always the latitude, and the second is the longitude.
- Conclusion: It would be interesting to have some implications for the National and International scientists.
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Page and line numbers correspond to the marked version (PDF) of the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This MS provides a detailed analysis of the dynamics of TWSA and its drivers in different climate zones of China, which helps to improve the understanding of the relationship between climate change and anthropogenic activities and TWS. I think the MS needs to be revised with the following points.
Major comments:
1. The abstract is too long to read, there is no need to write so much content.
2. The authors' results and discussions in the MS are mainly presented between different climatic zones and do not involve the 214 watersheds mentioned in the title. I suggest that the authors could add detailed information and results for each watershed, such as watershed area, meteorological and hydrological conditions, TWS dynamics, and major drivers, in an appendix or in the text.
3. The title only mentions the role of vegetation change in TWS dynamics, but the discussion in the MS includes three kinds of factors: climate variability, vegetation change, and human activities. I suggest the authors revise the title to match the text.
4. How do the authors deal with the effect of signal leakage when using the spherical harmonic coefficient to calculate TWSA for 214 watersheds. And how to solve the problem of large uncertainties in TWSA due to the limitation of spatial resolution in small watersheds.
5. In equation 3, is pi calculated by area or population density? If it is a simple area average, I think it is not reasonable. Please elaborate on the processes for calculating A and pi.
6. Authors should add quantitative descriptions rather than simple qualitative generalizations about the correlations between different drivers and trends.
7. Figure 5, what is the long-term average TWSA in 214 watersheds in China? The GRACE TWSAs are anomalies with respect to 2004.0 to 2009.999 mean baseline. It makes no sense to calculate the long-term average TWSA.
Minor comments:
1. The results described in this MS should be in the present tense.
2. Line29, “in-creasing” to “increasing”
3. Line 50: in-suit → in-situ
4. Line149-150, “C20”, the “20” should be subscript.
5. Line 433: TWA → TWS
Author Response
Please see the attachment. Page and line numbers correspond to the marked version (PDF) of the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I have gone through the revised manuscript and found that the authors have substantially improved their manuscript. The revised manuscript meets the standards for publication in Forests. I suggest publication.
