Investigating the Potential Impact on Shallow Groundwater Quality of Oily Wastewater Injection in Deep Petroleum Reservoirs: A Multidisciplinary Evaluation at the Val d’Agri Oilfield (Southern Italy)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors showed there was no influence of reinjection of oily wastewater to abandoned wells on the shallow aquifer system with isotopic analyses, chemical analyses, and biomolecular methods. The topic is important, and results are good. 

Recommendation: accept it after the minor revision.

Grammar errors:

In page 2, line 71-72, “Some explorations and wells were carried out…” has a grammar error.

line 74, “..fluids [14-16] but the mainfluids..” Comma is missed before but.

Line 83, “Well data” should be wells’ 

 

In page 3, line 90, “..and includes..” should be “. It includes…”.

 

In page 4, line 99, “at the study area” should be “in the study area”

Line 104, “a perched groundwater” should delete “a”

Line 107, “that is ..”should be “which is..”

 

Page 13: line 378, “that are features” should be deleted.

Line 379, half bracket for the references is missed.

 

Page 14: Line 399, “flows out” should be “flow out”

Page 15: Line 422, “independent investigation” should be “the independent investigation” or “an independent investigation”; “coming” should be deleted.

need to revise the grammar errors.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for his/her positive comments on the manuscript and the suggestions provided. All grammar errors have been corrected.

Reviewer 2 Report

This artilce entitled "Investigating the potential impact on shallow groundwater 2 quality of oily wastewater injection in deep petroleum reser-3 voirs: a multidisciplinary evaluation at the Val d’Agri oilfield 4 (Southern Italy)" tries to evaluate the impact of oily wastewater reenjection on groundwater.

The article is very detailed however there are some points that need to be addressed:

1. Multiple statements are plagiarized from previous studies and need to be rephrased.

2. Authors started their "Discussion and conclusion" section with a strong conclusion "The synergic analysis of chemical, isotopic and biomolecular data has made it possi-389 ble to demonstrate the total absence of interaction between the reinjection water in CM2 390 and the shallow groundwater system, including the former PCLRs." This should be moved to a later section and then supported by evidence.

3. Authors may need to review the article listed below before considering this argument "total absence of interaction between the reinjection water in CM2 390 and the shallow groundwater system, including the former PCLRs."

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.0c02220

Author Response

Responses to comments and suggestions are in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

 

Dear Author,

The article's abstract is comprehensive and summarizes the work's general content well. Below you can find some minor suggestions.

1. Abstract section should refer to the study findings, methodologies, discussion, and conclusion. It is suggested to present the abstract in one 200-250 words paragraph. 

2. The introduction section is detailed but needs significant reorganization. It could be strengthened by adding more references. 

3. Please add a sentence or two to recap how your study differs from what has already been done in the literature to ascertain the contributions more strongly. 

4. The necessity and innovation of the article should be presented in the introduction. 

5. The principal defect of this study is the debate or Argument is not clearly stated in the introduction session. Hence, the contribution is weak in this manuscript. Therefore, I suggest the Author enhance your theoretical discussion and arrive at your debate or Argument. 

6. It is suggested to present the article's structure at the end of the introduction. 

7. Please ensure your conclusions section underscores the scientific value added to your paper and the applicability of your findings/results, as indicated previously. Please revise your conclusion part into more detail. You should enhance your contributions and limitations, underscore the scientific value added to your paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results and future study in this session.

8. It is suggested to compare the results of the present research with similar studies done before.

Author Response

Responses to comments and suggestions are in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I do not agree with the authors justification on the plaigrism note

"With reference to the high similarity noticed with previous studies of these authors, we would like to highlight that this similarity refers mainly to the “Study area” and “Material and methods” sections. This research has been conducted on a site where we have already carried out previous investigations and whose geological features could hardly be reported in another way. In addition, the paragraph on methods accurately describes the different steps of the sample analyses, and, in our opinion, it is essential for the readers to comprehend the procedures adopted fully. Also, in this case, it is tough to find a way to describe these “almost standard methods” differently. Therefore, our main concern is providing all the readers with correct information on these complicated procedures using proper scientific terminology."

Plaigrism is a plaigarism even if the previous work was done by the same author/s. If you can not rephrase a section or more about study area or methodology, you can redirect the reader to the source for further details rather than using the same exact phrases.

Author Response

We thank the Reviewer for his/her comments even though we disagree with him/her. However, we have modified the manuscript, rephrased some sentences, and included the sources of the protocols used, trying to change at the best of our possibilities the Materials and Methods section.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

I have no additional comments.