Groundwater Resources from Eastern Romania under Human and Climatic Pressure

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic raised at work is important and worth taking care of. The authors presented the results of their own studies. However, work needs improvement. There are minor editorial errors in the work - they are marked in yellow in the manuscript. The following points need clarification and improvement: Line 23: Keywords are repeated in the title of the work. Line 26: Introduction needs to be rewritten. Line 57: In my opinion the conclusions presented by the authors are not a response to the objective set for the work. Line: 172: Figures 3-5 in my opinion; 7 are not legible. Please change the data presentation. Line 247: This is not a discussion but only a very brief summary. Please correct the discussion. Line 265: Please correct.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The topic raised at work is important and worth taking care of. The authors presented the results of their own studies. However, work needs improvement. There are minor editorial errors in the work - they are marked in yellow in the manuscript.

First of all, thank you for your appreciation of this work. We have tried to take into account the observations made so that the paper sent acquires a greater scientific value.

We revised the whole paper in terms of spelling and grammatical errors.

The following points need clarification and improvement:

Line 23: Keywords are repeated in the title of the work.

Thank you for your observation, we made the changes in the article. The keywords now are the following: groundwater level, Groundwater exploitation index, standardized groundwater index, Eastern Romania

Line 26: Introduction needs to be rewritten.

We take into consideration your opinion and update the introduction as it can be seen in the article between lines 27 and 66.

Line 57: In my opinion the conclusions presented by the authors are not a response to the objective set for the work.

Thank you for your opinion, we made changes in the structure of introduction and we reinterred the objective and we filled the conclusions with other findings from the article.

Line: 172: Figures 3-5 in my opinion; 7 are not legible. Please change the data presentation.

We made the modification for each figure to be more legible.

Line 247: This is not a discussion but only a very brief summary. Please correct the discussion.

We modified the structure of the article, we put a chapter named Results and discussion. We considered that the results are often accompanied by explanations, and the division into two distinct chapters was not feasible.

Line 265: Please correct.

It was a mistake we delete this part of the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: Groundwater Resources from Eastern Romania under Human and Climatic Pressure

 

This paper presents the evaluation of groundwater resources in Eastern Romania under human and climate induce pressure using the groundwater exploitation index and standardized groundwater index. This work can be valuable input for groundwater resource management in the area.

The standardized groundwater index is applied extensively all over the world and the calculations and the implications are presented in brief in this paper. However, while understanding of the groundwater exploitation and the groundwater recharge is vital for groundwater exploitation index calculation, the groundwater exploitation data and the formula given are vague. As the results show these two indexes, do not show any relation. The authors did not include any possible reasons for this.

The paper has several spelling and a limited number of grammatical errors. Most of the figures miss legends. More detailed comments are given below.

Comments

1. Figure 4 and 7 miss legend and heading
2. Line 64 to 74 highlights the seven-groundwater bodies but figure 1 legend shows more than 7. Why? Also, what is the reason to use both the pie chart and the box to show the groundwater portion of each water body?
3. Line 74-76 discusses the matrix of evaluation, which shows the qualitative and quantitative risks of the groundwater bodies. It is not clear. When and who did this evaluation?
4. In the GWEI formula is the denominator long term average volume of groundwater available for abstraction or cumulative? Is it for the average of the area or total? How do you calculate the long-term annual exploitable groundwater volume (The data is not discussed in the paper)? How many groundwater pumping wells are considered for this index calculation. The distribution of the groundwater pumping wells considered for this study is not shown. It is not clearly stated.
5. Line 196-199 explains the dry period abstraction exacerbating the effect on the increase of GWEI. Did you perform a seasonal based calculation of GWEI? If you have performed the seasonal calculation, please describe how and present the result.
6. Line 131-140. This explanation is vague.
7. Line 206 to 209 states the recorded of GWEI 10 to 40 %. However, figure 5 shows that all groundwater bodies have less than 20% GWEI. Please check this data.
8. Line 2011 to 213 presents the analysis of GWEI during the drought year (2000, 2007, 2012) and the result showed higher pressure on the groundwater. If you show this result, it will help to compare with the entire period results and understand the effect of the dry periods on GWEI.
9. If you present the groundwater level and the precipitation trend in the region, it can help to get a clear image of the calculated indexes and the implication.
10. In the conclusion section Line 282 -289, is it translated to another language?

 

 

Author Response

First of all, thank you for your appreciation of this work. We tried to take into account the observations made so that the work sent has a greater scientific value.

There is a correlation between the two parametrically analyzed that is highlighted in the periods of manifestation of hydrogeological droughts when the human pressure on groundwater reserves especially in the case of water bodies ROPR04, ROPR06 and ROPR07 highlighted by the results of this work.

I revised the whole paper in terms of spelling and grammatical errors.

Comments

1. Figure 4 and 7 miss legends and heading

We made the modifications on the figure 4 and 7.

1. Line 64 to 74 highlights the seven-groundwater bodies but figure 1 legend shows more than 7. Why? Also, what is the reason to use both the pie chart and the box to show the groundwater portion of each water body?

In the eastern part of Romania, according to the Water Framework 2000/60 EU, 7 groundwater bodies were identified (six of them are considered to be one of the surface and one depth). In figure 1 we have revealed the existence of the 7 water bodies. But this distribution is not uniform in the territory, because the study area being quite extensive, adjacent extensions overlap on neighbor groundwater bodies such as: the water body of the Siret River and tributaries (north-west of the region) and the Eastern Valahia Depression, which has a very large spatial extension and which is considered to be a body of water located at depth. And also we stated in the text the following paragraph: The Eastern region of Romania, mainly overlaps the Moldavian region, with a great spatial representation of the hydrological resources’ extent. These coincide with two main hydrographic basins: Prut and Siret rivers. The current study is focused on the analysis and assessment of the Eastern side of the area that overlaps with the Prut river basin.

This way of representing the groundwater bodies was chosen in order to be able to identify the water bodies that have a small spatial extension as ROPRO1.

1. Line 74-76 discusses the matrix of evaluation, which shows the qualitative and quantitative risks of the groundwater bodies. It is not clear. When and who did this evaluation?

Thank you for the observation. The evaluation matrix of water bodies was made by Minea I. in Bahlui drainage basins - hydrological study, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University Press, Iași, 2012 (in Romanian). We did put in text the reference to it, [34].

1. In the GWEI formula is the denominator long term average volume of groundwater available for abstraction or cumulative? Is it for the average of the area or total? How do you calculate the long-term annual exploitable groundwater volume (The data is not discussed in the paper)? How many groundwater pumping wells are considered for this index calculation. The distribution of the groundwater pumping wells considered for this study is not shown. It is not clearly stated.

In the GWEI formula is the denominator long term average volume of groundwater available for abstraction or cumulative?

The GWEI index is an expression of the average values of the volumes of water available for extraction from existing hydrogeological pumping wells at the level of each body of water (the annual groundwater abstraction as a percentage from long-term annual average groundwater available for abstraction). In the first phase through the values - Vi represents an annual average of the volume of water extracted for each body of groundwater. And the sum of Vi, j represents the annual volume available to be extracted at the level of each body of water and is a cumulative value; n - represents the number of years on which the analysis is performed.

Is it for the average of the area or total?

The calculation was performed as an average for each body of water.

How do you calculate the long-term annual exploitable groundwater volume (The data is not discussed in the paper)?

The values about long term annual exploitable groundwater volume can be found in the management plans developed at regional level by the National Water Administration (see reference 23)

How many groundwater pumping wells are considered for this index calculation.

The total number of groundwater pumping wells taken into account can be found in the article, in row 160, they are 42. Their distribution in the territory and on water bodies can be observed in figure 2.

The distribution of the suma

No graphic material was created to indicate this distribution. But following the analysis of the data, the highest available values are in ROPR02 and ROPR07. But we take that into account to future studies.

1. Line 196-199 explains the dry period abstraction exacerbating the effect on the increase of GWEI. Did you perform a seasonal based calculation of GWEI? If you have performed the seasonal calculation, please describe how and present the result.

No seasonal values of the GWEI index were calculated. It was evaluated annually only. And at the multiannual level, periods of prolonged drought have been registered, which can have a multiannual character. Therefore, this dry period does not appear only seasonally, because annually values of humidity fall below the normal average. At the level of this region, but even better at the macroregional level, the area faced a series of droughts in 1986, 1990, 1992, 2000, 2007, 2012, 2020. However, the water deficit is strong in the last 5 years in the Eastern Romania.

1. Line 131-140. This explanation is vague.

To analyze the Standardized Groundwater Index (SGI) we used the methodology proposed by Bloomfield, J.P.; Marchant, B.P. Analysis of groundwater drought building on the standardized precipitation index approach, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 2013, 17, 4769–4787 and resumed by Bloomfield, J.P.; Marchant, B.P; McKenzie, A.A. Changes in groundwater drought associated with anthropogenic warming, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 2019, 23, 1393–1408.

In this article we used the methodology described in the references above trying to apply each step proposed for the identification of SGI, without describing in detail the calculation steps of this index, because this is already done in the literature.

1. Line 206 to 209 states the recorded of GWEI 10 to 40 %. However, figure 5 shows that all groundwater bodies have less than 20% GWEI. Please check this data.

Thank you for the observation. We checked the data and correct de the errors from text.

1. Line 2011 to 213 presents the analysis of GWEI during the drought year (2000, 2007, 2012) and the result showed higher pressure on the groundwater. If you show this result, it will help to compare with the entire period results and understand the effect of the dry periods on GWEI.

The GWEI values during the drought years were displayed graphically in figure 4

1. If you present the groundwater level and the precipitation trend in the region, it can help to get a clear image of the calculated indexes and the implication.

The analysis of groundwater level trends in this region was the subject of another paper (see Minea I., Boicu D., Chelariu O.E. Detection of groundwater levels trends using Innovative Trend Analysis method in temperate climatic conditions, Water, 2020, 12, 2129; doi: 10.3390 / w12082129). Also, the analysis of precipitation trends and the relationship with groundwater level was the subject of another paper (see Minea, I; Croitoru, AE Groundwater response to changes in precipitation in north-eastern Romania, Environ Engineer Manag J, 2017, 16, 3, 643-651.). References to the two papers were made in the last part of Results and discussion section line 308-324.

1. In the conclusion section Line 282 -289, is it translated to another language?

Thank you for the observation. It was a mistake we delete this part of the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

All my comments were taken into account and corrected.

Only minor editorial errors remained in the literature list - they are marked in yellow in the manuscript.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have revised properly according to the reviewers' suggestion.