Agent-Based Modelling of a Coupled Water Demand and Supply System at the Catchment Scale

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript sustainability-618309 concerns the simulation of the water resources in a coupled demand and supply system via a devoted platform implemented in NetLogo and termed Agent based Modeling of Resources (Aqua.MORE). The simulation considers the water fluxes and the socio-economic actors which are represented by individual entities that mutually interact and cause complex feedback loops.

I read carefully the manuscript and I think that it can be accepted with minor revision. In the following the main comment.

Separate the Discussion from the Conclusion, rewording the Conclusion paragraph with the bullet-point approach.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The work concerns a certain tool for managing water resources. The authors try to approximate the method of generating conclusions based on the model system. Generally, this research is part of the scope of ecosystem services, although there is no direct reference to this at work.

The assumptions of the work are interesting but formulated very ambiguously. The phrases used do not seem to fully reflect the intentions of the authors. You should re-edit this piece of work because it is important for potential readers.

There is no explanation in the text why alpine area was chosen as the model object. However, it is a specific topographic system that cannot constitute a representative model for the area of Europe. It is necessary to perform the simulation for another localisation (e.g. lowland area). This can bring very interesting observations and indicate differences resulting from the location of the managed area.

Sociohydrology is only an element of ecosystem services. There are no premises for it to become a mainstream research. The omission of environmental elements is in my opinion erroneous and therefore the proposed management scheme is only partly consistent with the assumptions of sustainable development. This should be considered in the work so that it is consistent with the topics of the journal,s research.

The discussion of the results is cursory and the conclusions are rather a summary. I am asking for some specifics including a reference to the set goals of work.

Detal comments:

Lines 27-29 It is hard to agree that in hydrology it is only now that the meaning of water in nature has begun to be understood. This sentence needs to be changed.

Line 38 It is unclear fifteen years since when?

Line 49 Is Danubia an acronym for the program/model? If so, what is the full name. There is no connected to the previous sentence.

Line 64 please give an example

Line 72 Is the sentence instead of "... a water supply and demand model ..." shouldn't be "... the supply and demand water management model ..."? Assigning human traits to things is incorrect

Line 76 this wording is unclear "... different decision and behavioral rules"

Line 81 microprocesses or microinteraction ?

Lines 90-91 This sentence explains nothing. Please corrected it.

Blue circles appear in Figure 1. What is the meaning of their size. You need a legend to assign a hypothetical value to the size.

Line 259 It is not understood how farmers can trade water? Despite the hypothetical assumption it's hard to understand. I am asking for clarification in this matter

Line 278 How was the simulation start year estimated? 

Line 278 I suggest correcting the entry for e.g. 21 years (beginning of the 3rd decade)

Lines 282-283 and more. What the reference error information means? 

Line 285 Why were all the simulations carried out only for 50 years? What is the methodological basis for this approach?

The caption under the figure is unclear. On what scale of variables are the data visualized? What do the numbers 1-7 mean? What software was used for this analysis. I didn't find it in the chapter on research methodology.

Line 321 What the authors meant used in the phrase "hydration increase" in this phrase? Although the hypothetical situation is discussed, such a procedure is difficult to understand.

Line 328 What criteria are mentioned here?

Line 337 "...mean relative scarcity of 0.602.." What is the unit assigned to this number? 

Line 397 In the presented work, environemntal elements are completely omitted and only focused on benefits for the people. This is a strong reduction of the problem of proper and sustainable development.

It seems important in further simulations to introduce a predictor in the form of land use change, including the introduction of new crops with different water needs. I have not found in the presented model the importance of the structure of land use, e.g. the ratio of agricultural areas to forests. I do not have the meaning of natural small retention on the presented simulation systems.

The text of the work is directed to a small group of readers because the phrases used are highly specialized. I suggest rethinking and correcting the text so that its readers will be a large group of scientists, especially since it can be published in an international journal. The note is particularly relevant to the model creation section.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the authors' effort to improve the scientific value of the article. I welcomed the positive response to my critical remarks. I think we're well on our way to correct any ambiguities.

I still haven't received the answer to the question asked in the review. To what extent do the presented studies fit into the scope of ecosystem services? I am asking you to include this in both the introduction and the discussion. If the circles in Fig. 1 do not correspond to any scale, why do they have different sizes. If size does not matter, it must be unified. This may not be understood by the reader. Please think about this. In the conclusions, please refer only to the research objectives set out in the introduction. In this part you should no longer refer to literature. The aims of the work are clear and I did not have any comments about them, but I miss the hypothesis that is being verified. This causes problems with presenting convincing, concrete conclusions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx