Integrated Hydraulic Modelling, Water Quality Modelling and Habitat Assessment for Sustainable Water Management: A Case Study of the Anyang-Cheon Stream, Korea

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the work is interesting and deserves publication in its current state, my only recommendation is regarding the title that I find confusing

Author Response

Reply to Reviewer #1

 

Authors are grateful for Reviewer #1 for his thorough review. The comments are believed to be very helpful in improving the quality of the manuscript. We tried to reflect issues raised by the reviewer in the revised manuscript. We highlighted the part we modified in the revision. The followings are our replies to issue:

 

General comments:

I think the work is interesting and deserves publication in its current state, my only recommendation is regarding the title that I find confusing.

 

Thank you for the positive opinion on our work. Following the reviewer’s comments, we modified and changed the ‘Title’ in the revised manuscript as followed:

 

Integrated Hydraulic Modelling, Water Quality Modelling and Habitat Assessment for Sustainable Water Management: A Case Study of the Anyang-cheon Stream, Korea

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciated changes done by the authors. The paper has been significantly improved and now the review of it is much easier. I very much like the answer to my previous comments and I think that after some additional changes the paper has the chance to be published in WATER MDPI journal. My comments are mostly related to the text and figure qualities.

1. Text

Lines 62-64 and 75-78 These two statemens need references. Moreover, I think that information is not really true. I encourage authors to spend some time and review recently published paper. In addition, I would encourage them to see some finding in the use of Wavelet analysis which again is going to be popular in this field, for example see:

• Scanlon, T.M., and J.D. Albertson, Turbulent transport of carbon dioxide and water vapor within a vegetation canopy during unstable conditions: Identification of episodes using wavelet analysis, J.   Res. 2001, 106,  D7,  7251-7262
• Rajwa-Kuligiewicz, A.; Bialik, R.J.; Rowiński, P.M. Wavelet Characteristics of Hydrological and Dissolved Oxygen Time Series in a Lowland River. Acta Geophys. 2016, 64, 649–669.

Lines 72 and 75. Authors used words “most” and “many”. I would avoid them. In such situation you should write “for example” [23-26] as there are many more than 4 papers in this subject.

Line 322-331. Use bullets for this text.

2. Figures

Figure 1. Please make this fig bigger and improve the font size.

Figure 4. I do not still see units. Is “m” for depth and “m/s” for velocity? This should be corrected.

Figure 6. Improve the legend fonts.

I know that I don not have many comments, because the work has been significantly improved, but I would like the authors to have enough time for corrections, because they are important, in particular they need some time to improve the introduction and review the literature

Author Response

Reply to Reviewer #2

 

Authors thank Reviewer #2 for the thorough and insightful review. Comments made by the reviewer were really helpful in improving the manuscript. We tried to reflect all comments in the revision. The modified parts were highlighted in the revised manuscript. The followings are our replies to each issue:

 

General comments

I appreciated changes done by the authors. The paper has been significantly improved and now the review of it is much easier. I very much like the answer to my previous comments and I think that after some additional changes the paper has the chance to be published in WATER MDPI journal. My comments are mostly related to the text and figure qualities.

We appreciate for the thorough and insightful review. We tried to reflect all issues in the revised manuscript.

 

Specific comments:

1. Lines 62-64 and 75-78. These two statements need references. Moreover, I think that information is not really true. I encourage authors to spend some time and review recently published paper. In addition, I would encourage them to see some finding in the use of Wavelet analysis which again is going to be popular in this field, for example see:

Scanlon, T.M., and J.D. Albertson, Turbulent transport of carbon dioxide and water vapor within a vegetation canopy during unstable conditions: Identification of episodes using wavelet analysis, J.   Res. 2001, 106, D7, 7251-7262.

Rajwa-Kuligiewicz, A.; Bialik, R.J.; Rowiński, P.M. Wavelet Characteristics of Hydrological and Dissolved Oxygen Time Series in a Lowland River. Acta Geophys. 2016, 64, 649–669.

We totally agree with your opinion. Authors are grateful for Reviewer #2 for his thorough review. The comments are believed to be very helpful in improving the quality of the manuscript. Now, readers can better understand what we have done for hydraulic, hydrologic, and habitat simulations. Following the reviewer’s comments, we added following statements:

 

Predicting aspects of environmental changes due to internal and external changes is a very difficult problem due to uncertainty [19,20]. In addition, the previous study simulated only changes in aquatic ecosystem habitats due to physical and chemical changes in rivers without simulating changes in watershed unit water volume and water quality. Generally, in order to simulate the physical and chemical changes in the river with high accuracy, changes in the basin should be analyzed first and applied as boundary conditions that flow into the river. For this reason, rainfall-runoff model should be applied. The previous studies have been conducted to predict changes in the basin through rainfall-runoff model. The most common study of changes in the watershed is the study of changes in runoff according to rainfall patterns [21-24]. Regression equations through empirical and monitoring data are applied to predict the change of runoff, but recently, it is used to predict time and economic usefulness using AI-based method. In addition, there are previous studies on the changes in water quality due to the change in the amount of runoff [25-28]. The calculated return value can be applied through the watershed modeling in the basin to the boundary condition predicting inside of river the water quality change. Fourier analysis is generally used to predict various time series changes in the environment, but it is known that there is a problem in predicting time series analysis and trends. Therefore, recently, various environmental signals are analyzed through wavelet analysis, and it is applied to various fields [29,30]. However, most previous physical habitat simulations have not taken integrating hydraulic, water quality, and habitat simulations into account when assessing the effect that the ecological river restoration project has on the aquatic habitat.

 

References:

- Kang, S.; Lin, H. Wavelet analysis of hydrological and water quality signals in an agricultural watershed. Journal of Hydrology, 2007, 338(1-2), 1-14.

- Parmar, K.S.; Bhardwaj, R. Wavelet and statistical analysis of river water quality parameters. Applied Mathematics and Computation, 2013, 219(20), 10172-10182.

- Scanlon, T.M.; Albertson, J.D. Turbulent transport of carbon dioxide and water vapor within a vegetation canopy during unstable conditions: Identification of episodes using wavelet analysis. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2001, 106(D7), 7251-7262.

- Rajwa-Kuligiewicz, A.;Bialik, R.J.; Rowiński, P. M. Wavelet characteristics of hydrological and dissolved oxygen time series in a lowland river. Acta Geophysica, 2016, 64(3), 649-669.

 

2. Lines 72 and 75. Authors used words “most” and “many”. I would avoid them. In such situation you should write “for example” [23-26] as there are many more than 4 papers in this subject.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we changed the words. Thank you very much.

 

3. Line 322-331. Use bullets for this text.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we changed the text use billets in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much.

 

4. Figure 1. Please make this fig bigger and improve the font size.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we changed the figure. Now it is correct. Thank you very much.

 

5. Figure 4. I do not still see units. Is “m” for depth and “m/s” for velocity? This should be corrected.

We are sorry for your inconvenience. We added each unit in the figure. Now it is correct. Thank you very much.

 

6. Figure 6. Improve the legend fonts.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we improved the legend fonts. Now it is correct. Thank you very much.

 

7. I know that I do not have many comments, because the work has been significantly improved, but I would like the authors to have enough time for corrections, because they are important, in particular they need some time to improve the introduction and review the literature, so I decide for major revision.

We totally agree with your opinion. Authors are grateful for Reviewer #2 for his thorough review. The comments are believed to be very helpful in improving the quality of the manuscript. In addition, we now received MDPI English Editing Service by a native speaker. Now, readers can better understand what we have done for hydraulic, hydrologic, and habitat simulations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, the paper is interesting, well-written and I am convinced it is rigorous scientific work. Therefore, I congratulate the authors and support the publication of this article. However, there are some small issues that make it a little difficult to understand at some point. In short, some clarifications are required. I appreciate it if the authors quickly update this before publication.  

1. Line 36: “However, since the 1960s, the basic river management project has been active, consisting of rapid urbanization and industrialization, and the channel-straightening and river maintenance of artificial levees has occurred.”

I am not sure if this sentence is correct. What do you mean by consisting of rapid urbanization/ is urbanization is involved in the river management plan?  Please clarify.

2. Line 44 “Previous studies performed that ecological river restoration project adversely affects the aquatic ecosystem health and habitat conditions”.

Can you please provide some concrete examples of adverse effects?

3. Line 52: Could you also provide some information on the “various restoration techniques” you mentioned throughout the manuscript. The statement is general and should be substantiated. Are you mentioning any specific restoration technique?
4. Line 86: Field monitoring revealed that five fish species are dominant and sub-dominant in 86 the study reach and account for 76% of the total fish community. Please cite appropriate references, if you have. 
5. Figure 1 (Maps): Please add lat-long /detailed spatial information. Also, it is better to provide a detailed land use map for the study area, including the river. This will help readers to better understand the study area.
6. Line 202: For the Composite Suitability Index (CSI), did you follow any existing guidelines? If yes, I think you should refer to the publication here.
7. Line 231 onwards: It is a bit difficult to understand. Can you please simplify?
8. Line 298: Could you please explain how the data was averaged over the study area. My main concern is that your avg. BOD value (before) is greater than COD values, which is very unlikely.  Could you please explain more about the nature of the waste that is responsible for these values? 
9. Line 302: Pls. provide a reference.
10. I think table 1 is the main takeaway of your research. You may provide some key statistics in the abstract.
11. The conclusion part is generally well-written, though it can be more policy prescriptive.

 

 

 

Author Response

Reply to Reviewer #3

 

Authors thank Reviewer #3 for the thorough and insightful review. Comments made by the reviewer were really helpful in improving the manuscript. We tried to reflect all comments in the revision. The modified parts were highlighted in the revised manuscript. The followings are our replies to each issue:

 

General comments

Overall, the paper is interesting, well-written and I am convinced it is rigorous scientific work. Therefore, I congratulate the authors and support the publication of this article. However, there are some small issues that make it a little difficult to understand at some point. In short, some clarifications are required. I appreciate it if the authors quickly update this before publication.

We appreciate for the thorough and insightful review. We tried to reflect all issues in the revised manuscript.

 

Specific comments:

1. Line 36: “However, since the 1960s, the basic river management project has been active, consisting of rapid urbanization and industrialization, and the channel-straightening and river maintenance of artificial levees has occurred.” I am not sure if this sentence is correct. What do you mean by consisting of rapid urbanization/ is urbanization is involved in the river management plan?  Please clarify.

We are sorry for your inconvenience. Following the reviewer’s comment, we clarified the relevant sentences in the revised manuscript. Now readers can better understand. Thank you very much.

 

However, in Korea, since the 1960s, the basic river management project has been performed for industrialization, and the channel-straightening and river maintenance of artificial levees has occurred.

 

2. Line 44 “Previous studies performed that ecological river restoration project adversely affects the aquatic ecosystem health and habitat conditions”. Can you please provide some concrete examples of adverse effects?

Following the reviewer’s comments, we added sentences for the ecological river restoration project effects in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much. We added following statements:

 

Through the ecological stream restoration project, the habitat space and spawning space of aquatic species were secured due to changes in water depth and velocity, which provided an environment in which Korean native species and legal protected species could live.

 

3. Line 52: Could you also provide some information on the “various restoration techniques” you mentioned throughout the manuscript. The statement is general and should be substantiated. Are you mentioning any specific restoration technique?

We are sorry for your inconvenience. Following the reviewer’s comments, we provided information on the various restoration techniques in the revised manuscript. Now readers can better understand. Thank you very much.

 

4. Line 86: Field monitoring revealed that five fish species are dominant and sub-dominant in 86 the study reach and account for 76% of the total fish community. Please cite appropriate references, if you have. 

Following the reviewer’s comment, we added relevant references in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much.

 

5. Figure 1 (Maps): Please add lat-long /detailed spatial information. Also, it is better to provide a detailed land use map for the study area, including the river. This will help readers to better understand the study area.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we added some sentences for spatial information and detailed land use in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much.

 

6. Line 202: For the Composite Suitability Index (CSI), did you follow any existing guidelines? If yes, I think you should refer to the publication here.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we added relevant references for the composite suitability index. Thank you very much.

 

7. Line 231 onwards: It is a bit difficult to understand. Can you please simplify?

We are sorry for your inconvenience. Following the reviewer’s comment, we clarified and added sentences in the revised manuscript. Now readers can better understand what we have done for physical habitat simulations. Thank you very much.

 

8. Line 298: Could you please explain how the data was averaged over the study area. My main concern is that your avg. BOD value (before) is greater than COD values, which is very unlikely.  Could you please explain more about the nature of the waste that is responsible for these values?

The chemical factor results were obtained by averaging the calculated values at all nodes temporally and spatially. As explained in ’Study Area and Monitoring Data’, most of the areas of the present study are residential, so, pollutants with many organic matter decomposed in water such as domestic sewage are occupied. It is judged that more data should be obtained and analyzed in the future. Thank you very much.

 

9. Line 302: Pls. provide a reference.

Following the reviewer’s comment, we added reference in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much.

 

- Khan, A.A.; Paterson, R.; Khan, H. Modification and application of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI) for the communication of drinking water quality data in Newfoundland and Labrador. Water Quality Research Journal, 2004, 39(3), 285-293.

- Yan, F.; Qiao, D.; Qian, B.; Ma, L.; Xing, X.; Zhang, Y.; Wang, X. Improvement of CCME WQI using grey relational method. Journal of Hydrology, 2016, 543, 316-323.

- Bilgin, A. Evaluation of surface water quality by using Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI) method and discriminant analysis method: a case study Coruh River Basin. Environmental monitoring and assessment, 2018, 190(9), 1-11.

 

10. I think table 1 is the main takeaway of your research. You may provide some key statistics in the abstract. The conclusion part is generally well-written, though it can be more policy prescriptive.

We totally agree with your opinion. Following the reviewer’s comments, we added some sentences in the ‘Abstract’ in the revised manuscript. Thank you very much.

 

It was found that the ecological stream restoration project significantly increased for the eco-friendly area. In addition, the changes in water quality and habitat suitability grades before the ecological river restoration project were improved to two stages and one stage, respectively.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has been significantly improved since the first time was reviewed. Authors followed and answered to all my comments. Now I can recommend paper for the publication.

Author Response

Reply to Reviewer #2

 

General comments:

 

The paper has been significantly improved since the first time was reviewed. Authors followed and answered to all my comments. Now I can recommend paper for the publication.

 

Thank you for the positive opinion on our work. Authors are grateful for Reviewer #2 for his thorough review. The comments are believed to be very helpful in improving the quality of the manuscript. Thank you very much.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion the work addresses a topic of great interest for water management and river restoration based on a case study. The study is of interest and well done, so we recommend its publication, pointing out some suggestions below:

-In the title or abstract some geographical reference would be nice for example to Anyang-Cheon Stream. This would help to identify and situate the case study. In the same way, a map in the second section would help to locate the area of study.

The Steffler and Blackburn article, as well as the Environmental Water Quality Index have been widely cited and used in similar works. In some of the paper sections, it would be good to cite examples, critiques, comparisons, recent references... This would be useful to better put this work in a research context and it would be very interesting, especially for discussion, if the results of this simulation could be compared with other simulations or similar cases in other parts of the world.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper was poorly prepared. It contains many understatements and many statements are not confirmed in the literature. My comments are as follows:

The abstract is not informative enough. It is a general description that does not give any information about the results obtained in the work.

In the introduction section, lines 28-36 require citations. In line 63 the authors wrote 76% of the total fish community, while in line 301 they wrote that it was 75%.

76 is not 75. This is a mistake.

The second chapter requires inserting a map of the research area. In addition, it is unclear on what basis the fish monitoring was performed. The methodology has not been sufficiently described. If these are literature data, they should be supported by the source they come from.

Again in line 105 there is 76% not 75%.

In section 3, authors wrote in lines 190-191 “consists of sand and gravel”. I do not see any granulometric analysis in this paper. How it was find?

Line 192-207 needs deep restrusturization. There is lack of any info about the methodology. I do not know where this data come from. If they are literature that should be supported by the citations. If not there should be info about the methods used for measurements.

In figure 3 there is lack of units in legends.

In figures 4,5,6 there is lack of legends at all. They are totally incomprehensible by this.

After reading the whole paper and specifically the conclusions section, I do not know what I learnt from this paper and not enough new information was added to the paper to be published.

Reviewer 3 Report

REVIEW of the PAPER by  Byungwoong Choi1 and Seung Se Choi, Submitted to sustainability

GENERAL COMMENTS:

This paper analyses the utility of an integrated Hydraulic and Environmental Modelling to assess an ecological Stream Restoration Project. The subject is of potential interest for the Sustainability readership.

 

INTRODUCTION:

The introduction has to be improved. The authors should make an effort to clarify the novelty of the paper, from a methodological point of view in a broader context. They should include a more clear definition of the knowledge gaps, indicating the main novelties of the proposed objectives and their relevance.

 

In order to perform an appropriate restoration of ecological stream, we will need to perform a hydrological assessment of the natural flows, and many cases the data are incomplete and we need to employ hydrological models (Madsen, 2000; Senent-Aparicio et al., 2018) and other numerical techniques (Noori and Kalin, 2016,  Jimeno-Saez et al., 2017). Although it is not the target of the proposed approach, it should be commented within the introduction in order to define properly the framework

 

DISCUSSION: In the discussion there are is only one reference to previous works. I also miss a paragraph to emphasize the novelty and the utility of the proposed approach. I suggest to include in the discussion a limitation section where the hypothesis assumed and the limitation are summarized.

 

 

REFERENCES:

Jimeno-Sáez, P., Senent-Aparicio, J., Pérez-Sánchez, J., Pulido-Velazquez, D. and José María Cecilia, 2017. Estimation of Instantaneous Peak Flow Using Machine-Learning Models and Empirical Formula in Peninsular Spain. Water 9, 347; doi:10.3390/w9050347

Madsen, H. Automatic calibration of a conceptual rainfall–runoff model using multiple objectives. J. Hydrol.

2000, 235, 276–288

Noori, N.; Kalin, L. Coupling SWAT and ANN models for enhanced daily stream flow Prediction. J. Hydrol.

2016, 533, 141–151.

Senent-Aparicio, Javier & Jimeno-Sáez, Patricia & Bueno-Crespo, Andrés & Pérez-Sánchez, Julio & Pulido-velazquez, David. (2018). Coupling machine-learning techniques with SWAT model for instantaneous peak flow prediction. Biosystems Engineering. 10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2018.04.022.