Extracting Optimal Operation Rule Curves of Multi-Reservoir System Using Atom Search Optimization, Genetic Programming and Wind Driven Optimization

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is titled 'Extracting Optimal Operation Rule Curves of Multi-reservoir System using Atom Search Optimization, Genetic Programming and Wind Driven Optimization'. The aim of this article is to investigate optimal water management strategies within multi-reservoir systems using a system model using Atomic Search Optimization (ASO), Genetic Programming (GP) and Wind Powered Optimization (WDO). The article is interesting, but in my opinion it is not suitable for the Sustainability journal due to the too technical and very narrow audience. The prepared article does not refer to sustainable development in any way. There is no information on how much the simulation will improve water management for irrigated areas near the reservoirs, how will the issue of water supply to various users during the period of its scarcity be resolved. The specific meteorological situation in which water may overflow from the reservoirs has not been analyzed. The authors write that they prepared a model based on the water balance, but there is no information on the water balance in the paper. The authors do not specify the significance of the proposed solution for the society. I suggest publishing in a different, more technical journal.

 

When publishing this article in another journal, it should be discussed to what extent the methods used and the results obtained are consistent with the research used so far. For this purpose, I propose to transfer some of the information from the introduction. The article only relates to the case study. Please indicate a model / procedure that can be used in other objects

 

Author Response

We really appreciate the reviewers' comments, which are very detailed and very helpful in improving our manuscript. We have made a major revision to our manuscript. We have improved our manuscript in the following aspect: (1) we have rewritten the introduction to better introduce the objective of this study; (2) We have rewritten the conclusion to address the objectives of this study; (3) We have rechecked the whole manuscript and have corrected some mistakes. All of the changes have been modified in the revised manuscript. We have addressed all of the comments which are shown below for each one, in which the reviewer’s comments are in black text and authors’ responses are in red text.

Please find the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper deals with the optimization of the operation of a reservoir system located in Thailand using three different optimization methods. The scope of the work is very interesting considering the climate change.

However, the authors failed to address this interesting topic appropriately.

In particular, the most important reasons that led me to this proposal are:

1. The use of the English language is very poor. There are too many places throughout the text that either do not make sense or it is difficult to understand what the authors are trying to say.

2. The description of the optimization methods used is not adequate. No details are given about the objective function and the constraints as they are defined for each method. The advantages and disadvantages of each method are not mentioned.

3. The conclusions do not add up to something useful for the readers. They do not, for example, suggest any of the methods used as more appropriate.

 

Another minor comment has to do with the map in Figure 1. The map is very small and elements such as the boundaries of the reservoir catchments are not clearly visible.

Author Response

We really appreciate the reviewers' comments, which are very detailed and very helpful in improving our manuscript. We have made a major revision to our manuscript. We have improved our manuscript in the following aspect: (1) we have rewritten the introduction to better introduce the objective of this study; (2) We have rewritten the conclusion to address the objectives of this study; (3) We have rechecked the whole manuscript and have corrected some mistakes. All of the changes have been modified in the revised manuscript. We have addressed all of the comments which are shown below for each one, in which the reviewer’s comments are in black text and authors’ responses are in red text.

Please find the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I reviewed the paper titled “Extracting Optimal Operation Rule Curves of Multi-reservoir System using Atom Search Optimization, Genetic Programming and Wind Driven Optimization”. The paper subject is of interest and it seems the authors have done a lot of work in this paper. However, Comments on the manuscript entitled are listed below.

1.      The methodology mentioned in the abstract is very short. I suggest to extend it.

2.      Are not there any similar study(s) similar to this subject in general, or any similar approach used in the study area? Please clarify.

3.      The novelty of the paper is absent. It looks like they author only applied existing approach in the study area.

4.      Why the author applied these approaches in this study area, is there an existing issue that they tend to solve?

5.      The objective function of the optimization is to minimize the water release to meet the demands. This considers as a drought management of the system. In the meanwhile, this effect on the flood protection, where a flood probability will change can occur when you replace the exciting rule curves. Therefore, this needs to be considered in the objective function.

6.      Similarly for hydropower generation. Please clarify.  

Author Response

We really appreciate the reviewers' comments, which are very detailed and very helpful in improving our manuscript. We have made a major revision to our manuscript. We have improved our manuscript in the following aspect: (1) we have rewritten the introduction to better introduce the objective of this study; (2) We have rewritten the conclusion to address the objectives of this study; (3) We have rechecked the whole manuscript and have corrected some mistakes. All of the changes have been modified in the revised manuscript. We have addressed all of the comments which are shown below for each one, in which the reviewer’s comments are in black text and authors’ responses are in red text.

Please find the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I believe that the authors did not improve the article enough to publish it. The authors use too general data. They claim that they have made a water balance for the area, but the study lacks calculation results. There is also no information on where the hydrological and meteorological data come from. The literature on the subject is poor. The authors added only 4 new items. Fig 3 is illegible due to the adopted scale. Please specify for which period the inflow values are given

 

Author Response

Dear Editor,

We really appreciate the reviewers' comments (reviewer1: Round 2), which are very detailed and very helpful in improving our manuscript. We have made a minor revision to our manuscript. We have improved our manuscript in the following aspect: (1) we have rewritten the introduction to better introduce the objective of this study; (2) We have rewritten the conclusion to address the objectives of this study; (3) We have rewritten the materials and methods to address the objectives of this study ;(4) We have rechecked the whole manuscript and have corrected some mistakes. All of the changes have been modified in the revised manuscript. We have addressed all of the comments which are shown below for each one, in which the reviewer’s comments are in black text and authors’ responses are in red text.

Sincerely,

Anongrit Kangrang

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf