A Research on the Ecological Operation of Reservoirs Based on the Indicators of Hydrological Alteration
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors
The aim and methodology of this article is fine. however, some sections need to be edited.
in the attach file, there are comments to edit and improve the article.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Manuscript Number: sustainability-1706992
Manuscript Title: A Research on Ecological Operation of Reservoirs based on the Indicators of Hydrological Alteration
Dear reviewer and editor,
We would like to thank you for insightful comments and helpful suggestions, which have led to significant improvements in this paper. After carefully studying the comments and your advice, we have made corresponding changes. We hope the revised form will be acceptable.
Best regards
Yours sincerely
The authors
15 May. 2022
- In Line 172: A is the output coefficient of what?
Reply：Thank you. It is the output coefficient of the hydropower station and we have revised it.
- In table 3 the weights of the main parameters were calculated by PCA method based on which series of IHA? before building or after that?
Reply：Thank you. The weights are based the series of IHA before building and we added some description to avoid the confusion (Line 278~279)
- In Line 274: the result is 9 or 19?
Reply：Thank you. We have checked with no problems and it is 9.
- Please show in a time series graph, the observed value of the river discharge as compared to the optimum values of it which was achieved from solving optimization model.
Reply：Thank you. We have added the comparison of released flow between the historical and optimal operation strategy as shown in figure 5 and also added some discussions about figure 5 (Line 380~385).
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors
The manuscript needs a lot of improvement. Please follow my comments carefully:
- Please read the instructions for the authors section for this journal carefully.
- Please add quantitive results of Ecological Index (EI) in the abstract and conclusion sections.
- Introduction requires a fundamental overhaul of the structure. This section is also very short. The manuscript could be substantially improved by relying and citing more on recent literature. Please add a paragraph in the introduction by relying on and citing important articles on the importance of reservoir operation and optimization. Important articles such as:
- 1. https://doi.org/10.2166/aqua.2017.109
- 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-019-02393-7
- 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-018-2095-y
- 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-018-1995-4
- The introduction section is not sufficient enough for readers. Please add a paragraph at the end of the introduction section and state your main purpose for this study.
- Please add a workflow graph after the last paragraph of the introduction.
- Please follow the structure that the journal proposed:
-Introduction
-Material and methods
-Results
-Discussion
-Conclusion
- The quality of all the figures is low.
- What is your suggestion for further studies in the future? Please add it in the conclusion section.
- Please check the format of your references carefully.
Author Response
Manuscript Number: sustainability-1706992
Manuscript Title: A Research on Ecological Operation of Reservoirs based on the Indicators of Hydrological Alteration
Dear reviewer and editor,
We would like to thank you for insightful comments and helpful suggestions, which have led to significant improvements in this paper. After carefully studying the comments and your advice, we have made corresponding changes. We hope the revised form will be acceptable.
Best regards
Yours sincerely
The authors
15 May. 2022
- Please add quantitive results of Ecological Index (EI) in the abstract and conclusion sections
Reply：Thank you. We have added the related results including the change of mean EI values after construction and the advantages of optimal reservoir operation strategy compared to the conventional strategy (Line 19~24).
2.Introduction requires a fundamental overhaul of the structure. This section is also very short. The manuscript could be substantially improved by relying and citing more on recent literature. Please add a paragraph in the introduction by relying on and citing important articles on the importance of reservoir operation and optimization.
Reply：Thank you for the important articles listed and we made a careful reading. Some introduction about the importance of reservoir operation and optimization have been added in Line 44~47. In addition, we added a paragraph to introduce the solution algorithms of reservoir operation model and cited the important articles listed (Line 69~79).
3. The introduction section is not sufficient enough for readers. Please add a paragraph at the end of the introduction section and state your main purpose for this study.
Reply：Thank you. We have added some contents to state our two main purposes for this study (Line101~106)
4. Please add a workflow graph after the last paragraph of the introduction.
Reply：Thank you. We have added the workflow graph as figure 1.
5. Please follow the structure that the journal proposed
Reply：Thank you. We have revised the structure and this paper now follows four parts of Introduction, Method, Results and Discussions, Conclusions.
6. The quality of all the figures is low.
Reply：Thank you. We have improved all figures.
7. What is your suggestion for further studies in the future? Please add it in the conclusion section.
Reply：Thank you. We have added our further study in in the conclusion section (Line 427~431).
8. Please check the format of your references carefully.
Reply：Thank you. We have made a careful check.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is suitable for publication.
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.
