Investigation of Meteorological Effects on Çivril Lake, Turkey, with Sentinel-2 Data on Google Earth Engine Platform

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article presents the results of analyzing the harmonized Sentinel 2 images using the Google Earth Engine cloud platform to examine the short-term changes in Civril Lake of Turkey from March 2018 to March 2023. The article is worth publishing if it is revised as requested. I have the following comments to help the author to revise the article.

1- Replace GEE in the title with Google Earth Engine.

2- Add the name of the case study as a keyword or at least the country.

3- At the end of the introduction, please identify clearly why your study is needed for this specific case study then clearly state the objectives of the study. You mentioned the objective(s) in different places of the article. Please collect all the objectives in this location (at the end of the introduction section). Objectives should be connected to the research gap and to introduce a solution to an existing challenge in the case study. 

Please do it as it is not clear enough at least for the juniors.

4-Lines 141-143 should be moved to the recommendations section (create it).

5- It is advisable to make a separate section of the discussions. 3. Results, 4 Discussions. Your findings and the obtained results should be justified and compared to others with sufficient explanation under this section. Partially you did but you need to explain why each particular result is obtained. For example, instead of saying ....human induced causes.. you should expand to mention or list the human induced cases or factors and how they affect the lake and lead to the obtained result.

5-Figure 2 is a part of the methodology and should be cited in section 2 not section 3.

6- You mentioned the reasons for the change in the water body of the lake. Please elaborate on this and provide a list of the possible human-induced factors/causes and the existing protection measure (that are insufficient) in the discussion section and in the recommendation section add the needed additional protection measure.

7- In the conclusion section, it is not advisable to write any conclusions except in the conclusion section. Do not mix the text of different sections in one section. Do not repeat. Therefore, read the text of the article carefully and remove any repetition from the article. 

8- Please reduce section 4. Remove any text related to the objectives (move them to the end of the introduction), information related to the case study and methodology. Focus only on the conclusions..

Simply, write as follows:

From the above-discussed results, we can state the following conclusions:

1- 

2-

Then add a new section (5. Recommendations).

Recommendations could be for future studies, for policy planners, decision-makers and/or stakeholders.

 

After acceptance, it needs normal editing and English proofreading before publication. 

Author Response

Thank you for your vulnerable comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presents an important Research of Meteorological Effects on Çivril Lake, Turkey, 2 with Sentinel 2 Data on GEE Platform. The topic of this paper is certainly within the journal scope. It is an interesting manuscript, but I consider that improvements must be made. The manuscript can be accepted after attending the suggestions.

Keywords

I suggest using more common and simple keywords. You can use the WOS or Scopus databases to see which keywords have the largest number of documents, which is understood as the most widely used in the scientific world (It's just a suggestion, It's not mandatory. I leave it at the judgment of the authors).

Introduction:

The manuscript must be written impersonally. Check the terms “We” and “our”, please.

The first paragraph contains a mixture of themes without specifying the What? Or How?. For example, it mentions that wetlands are the richest and most productive ecosystems, it is necessary to explain what specific characteristics make it so. The same occurs with the statement that climate change and human activities can affect surface waters... How?

The second paragraph attempts to describe the study lake, but the author uses terms that exaggerate the condition of the lake. He commented on this, because without describing in detail the problems in the lake region. Additionally, he must cite other papers that reveal this.

Paragraphs three and four describe the previous studies carried out in the lake, this can be synthesized in a single paragraph. I suggest that all paragraphs of the text have a standard of 10 lines (+ - 2 lines).

The structure of the current introduction is very poor. I do not see why the authors conducted the research. It is hard for me to follow the structure, to understand what research problems you intended to address and how you would do so. The author explains the methodology and it is not so.

I suggest improving the introduction, a good approach is to place a paragraph at the beginning the general context of the worldwide lakes and/or meteorological, the following paragraph to place the local context. The following paragraph can address the most common impacts around the lakes, this if it partially meets, but it must improve the references used. Then I should go paragraph that, from an idea of the methodologies used in this study, compared to other similar studies in other regions and can finally close with the paragraph that includes the target of the Paper.

What is the contribution to the international community? The authors require to improve a general context of the use of Google Earth Engine for the study of the lake. Possibly the following recent review paper can help you find several of the items you require: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15143675

The goal of the paper is not clear. I suggest leaving only the general objective and close the paragraph with a justification of what the study will be the study

Material and Methods:

The Figure 1 need to be improved. I suggest that the countries around the study area. This thinking more of your non-European/Asian readers, who may not be very familiar with the territory of European/Asian. I suggest showing Türkiye's neighboring countries. Türkiye's name is in the water… The polygon of Turkey shows several divisions, it should show as a solid and just the polygon of the study province. Preferably not using ArcGIS base maps, it is better to use geographic information available in your country.

The methodology is well detailed, this is good.

Results and Discussion:

Figure 2 (The workflow of the methodology) should be in the methodology section

Conclusion:

This section should be synthesized. Comment exclusively as relevant. This section must respond to the objective of the paper, since the objective is not clear, I do not see the conclusions very clearly. I invite the authors to close the discussion or conclusion, revealing the limitations of this study.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Thank you for your vulnerable comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you very much for your contribution in this paper. Please find the comments below;
1. Please consider using the consistent name for this lake. At times, it's referred to as Isiki Lake, while other times it's called Civril Lake. It is also called as Lake Civril .
2. Please maintain consistency in using either "water surface area" or "surface water area" throughout the article.
3. Avoid using the citation number as the subject of a sentence or incorporating it directly into the sentence as a word. For example, line 203, [54] have established...
4. In line 129, the abbreviation "(RFs)" is used without providing its full name. Please ensure that the complete name is provided when using abbreviations to maintain clarity.
5. The article employs a numbering style for citations, but there are instances where different citation styles are present. Please review the article for consistency in citation styles and ensure uniformity throughout. For example (Pratico et al., 2021) can be found in line 192.
6. In lines 281-282, it's mentioned that the range of NDWI is from -1 to 1. However, the explanation only covers the meaning of positive NDWI and NDWI of 0. Please consider expanding the explanation to include the interpretation of negative NDWI values as well.
7. In lines 323 and 324, it would enhance the discussion if the author could include data about the "too much precipitation in the winter months of 2019." Providing this data would contribute to the credibility and reasonability of the discussion.
8. In line 357, the letter "R" is used without its full name. Please make sure to provide the complete name when using abbreviations to maintain clarity in the text.
9. In line 355, it appears that the value 0.74 represents the relationship between SWI and NDWI, rather than NDVI. Please review and clarify this statement for accuracy.
10. In line 356, it would be helpful to explain the significance of a negative relationship in NDVI. Why is this negative correlation noteworthy or relevant to the study's findings? Providing additional context will enhance the reader's understanding.
11. I understand that Tables 4-6 are actually figures and not tables. Please update the labels from "Tables" to "Figures" to accurately reflect their content.
12. In line 377, there is a reference to "(Figure 6)" without providing any context or explanation. Please add a brief description or context to help readers understand what is being referred to in Figure 6.
13. Certainly, make sure to maintain a consistent numbering style for decimal numbers throughout the article. For instance, use "0.86" instead of "0,86" to ensure uniformity.
14. In Table 9, the high numbers representing the relationships between parameters are interesting. It would be valuable for the author to validate these findings based on existing evidence. Additionally, providing an explanation or presenting the reasoning behind the low numbers would enhance the comprehensibility of the study.
15. Given that the paper is authored by a single individual, it's recommended to avoid using "we" or "our" throughout the article. Instead, use a more neutral tone to maintain consistency.
16. This article demonstrates the potential influence of meteorological data on changes in Civril Lake's water resources. Additionally, human-induced factors are mentioned without accompanying evidence. To enhance clarity, please consider focusing solely on parameters that were studied and explaining only the findings supported by this article's research.
17. In lines 484-486, it would be beneficial if the author could provide a discussion or clarification regarding the type of lake being studied. This would help guide readers about the applicability of using the same method to study this specific type of lake.

Author Response

Thank you for your vulnerable comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The problem raised in the manuscript is interesting and can be an element of surface water monitoring using the Sentinel 2 tool.

However, in its current form, the manuscript is illegible. The author devotes a lot of attention to detailing the principles of the tool's functioning, which means that methodological information is repeated many times in the text; e.g. Fig. 2, which is the method of analysis, can be found in the results and discussion chapter.

On the other hand, there is practically no discussion with literature. The conclusions are not conclusions about the results of the work, but again a summary.

Please specify the research area. Once the author writes about the lake and in Fig. 1 he indicates a much larger research area.

The obtained results are nothing new - line 324.

There is no clearly defined purpose of this research, hence the difficulty in drawing conclusions.

Sometimes in the manuscript the author uses the term 'our research', are there more than one author? - line 445

I suggest limiting the methodological description, indicating the exact purpose of the research, focusing on the obtained analyses, explaining all the abbreviations used. In the introduction, limit the description - lines 77-85.

In addition, the work contains double numbering of publications, repetition of parentheses; line - 436

It should be remembered that the currently studied lake is a dam reservoir with different conditions to natural lakes and water level fluctuations are the norm. The studied meteorological factors certainly affect the seasonal and annual variability of the reservoir's surface. However, the man-made ones seem to be more important. Please specify and underline them in your applications.

Author Response

Thank you for your vulnerable comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors improved the document. However, I still have the last observation in Figure 1 (study area). The map should be better used. They use a base map of Ersi, and it would be better to use official Turkey Shape Files (but they can put the base map). I suggest improving the scale because we see much of Turkey without being able to identify the lake. They must maximize the lake. In the Location Map (minor map), Turkey appears with several divisions (districts or provinces); these lines must disappear and only leave the red polygon. For this, they can dissolve the polygons or place the same grey colour on the edge. Turkey's name has to be within this polygon and not in the light blue color polygon because this is a body of water and non-Turkey.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Thank you for your vulnerable comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The author has mostly complied with the comments from the previous review. The current form of the manuscript is acceptable.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments.