Investigating On-Site Energy Consumption Patterns Using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and Geographic Information System (GIS) Techniques

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript " Investigating On-site Energy Consumption Pattern Using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and GIS Techniques" studied the major energy efficiency issues in Pakistan due to the mismatch between horsepower requirements and borehole depth. A selection of 194 tube Wells in the Multan region of Pakistan for an energy audit revealed that tube well groups are installed arbitrarily at high power without regard to the flow and pressure heads provided, and there is an urgent need to conduct proper investigations prior to the head and power requirements before installing systems in the study area. The manuscript can be published in "sustainability" after a major revision. The concerns which should be considered by the authors are as follows:

1. Most of the introduction describes the impact of agriculture on the state of Pakistan. There is too little content on topics such as pipe well audit. The authors should add more content to this section. The novelty of this manuscript should be clearly stated.

2. The novelty, contribution and innovation of this manuscript are not yet clear. Please describe it in detail in each part of the manuscript!

3. Every figure and table in the manuscript should be introduced in detail, not just a simple statement. The entire paper is lengthy and lacks focus, and the figures are very similar. It is recommended to delete descriptions and figures that are irrelevant to the key innovations, and add more figures to enrich the content of the manuscript.

4. There is no relevant explanation for the reason why Multan District was chosen for the experimental study. Are the results obtained for only one region too one-sided? Please add more convincing data.

5. What is the purpose of this study? Judging from the title and abstract, the purpose of this manuscript is to solve the problem of high energy consumption in tube wells during groundwater extraction. If so, please detail the main energy consumption causes of tube wells and solution strategies in the results and discussion sections to clearly indicate the practical significance of this study.

6. Please summarize the values of optimal operating parameters, factors affecting energy consumption, evaluation indicators and results at the end of the article. Future prospects and challenges should be given in the conclusion.

7.The title of section 3.7 is not a good summary of relevant content. Please modify it to accurately summarize the content of this section.

8. There is no relevant explanation when the SAS abbreviation appears for the first time in the abstract of the article. I hope the authors will make corrections and add an abbreviation list at the end of the manuscript.

9. Please modify the fonts of figures and other places in the text to ensure that the font format is consistent with the manuscript content. Please check and ensure that the formulas in the manuscript are centered and aligned and the font size within the formulas is correct to make the manuscript neat and beautiful. Please modify the format of references according to the requirements of the journal to achieve uniformity.

10. The discussion layout of the Results and Discussions of the manuscript is not accurate, and the authors should set up a separate section to describe it according to the specific content.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

 Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

 

Response to Comments of Reviewer 1

We are grateful for the opportunity given to us for improving our manuscript Reference No: Submission ID Sustainability_2659324 “Investigating On-site Energy Consumption Pattern Using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and GIS Techniques” for possible publication in journal “Sustainability”. We have tried our best to incorporate all their suggestions in the revised version (highlighted with Red Color) of our manuscript and the detailed response to each of their comments are given below in the form of Comment and Response:

The manuscript " Investigating On-site Energy Consumption Pattern Using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and GIS Techniques" studied the major energy efficiency issues in Pakistan due to the mismatch between horsepower requirements and borehole depth. A selection of 194 tube Wells in the Multan region of Pakistan for an energy audit revealed that tube well groups are installed arbitrarily at high power without regard to the flow and pressure heads provided, and there is an urgent need to conduct proper investigations prior to the head and power requirements before installing systems in the study area. The manuscript can be published in "sustainability" after a major revision. The concerns which should be considered by the authors are as follows:

1. Most of the introduction describes the impact of agriculture on the state of Pakistan. There is too little content on topics such as pipe well audit. The authors should add more content to this section. The novelty of this manuscript should be clearly stated.

Ans: The novelty of the manuscript has been addressed (See Lines 80-88)

2. The novelty, contribution and innovation of this manuscript are not yet clear. Please describe it in detail in each part of the manuscript!

Ans: The gap in the requirement of this work is stated in the manuscript (See Lines 66-74)

3. Every figure and table in the manuscript should be introduced in detail, not just a simple statement. The entire paper is lengthy and lacks focus, and the figures are very similar. It is recommended to delete descriptions and figures that are irrelevant to the key innovations, and add more figures to enrich the content of the manuscript.

Ans: The figures of the manuscript has been modified with detailed discussions. (See Figure 2-5)

4. There is no relevant explanation for the reason why Multan District was chosen for the experimental study. Are the results obtained for only one region too one-sided? Please add more convincing data.

Ans: The reason of selecting District Multan as study area was non availability of river water towards the southern side of the district and tubewells are installed to irrigate crops. (See Lines 106-108)

5. 5. What is the purpose of this study? Judging from the title and abstract, the purpose of this manuscript is to solve the problem of high energy consumption in tube wells during groundwater extraction. If so, please detail the main energy consumption causes of tube wells and solution strategies in the results and discussion sections to clearly indicate the practical significance of this study.

Ans: As per your kind suggestions, details regarding energy consumption and solution strategies in results and discussion section have been added in Lines 174-183.

6. Please summarize the values of optimal operating parameters, factors affecting energy consumption, evaluation indicators and results at the end of the article. Future prospects and challenges should be given in the conclusion.

Ans: The authors have summarized the values of optimal operating parameters, factor effecting energy consumption, evaluation indicators (See lines 313-322). In addition, future prospects and challenges have been included in conclusion section (see lines 463-473).

7.The title of section 3.7 is not a good summary of relevant content. Please modify it to accurately summarize the content of this section.

Ans: The title of the section 3.7 is modified as recommended (See Line 344)

8. There is no relevant explanation when the SAS abbreviation appears for the first time in the abstract of the article. I hope the authors will make corrections and add an abbreviation list at the end of the manuscript.

Ans: The abbreviation of SAS has been added in the manuscript. (See Line 128)

9. Please modify the fonts of figures and other places in the text to ensure that the font format is consistent with the manuscript content. Please check and ensure that the formulas in the manuscript are centered and aligned and the font size within the formulas is correct to make the manuscript neat and beautiful. Please modify the format of references according to the requirements of the journal to achieve uniformity.

Ans: The fonts of figures and format are corrected as per requirement of manuscript. The references are arranged according to journal requirements.

10. The discussion layout of the Results and Discussions of the manuscript is not accurate, and the authors should set up a separate section to describe it according to the specific content.

Ans: The discussion of the results has been summarized. However, adding another section will make the manuscript lengthier.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

My comments as follow

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

English needs to be check by native editor, for example, 

line 113" Head"

kw needs to replace with kW

Author Response

Response to Comments of Reviewers

We are grateful for the opportunity given to us for improving our manuscript Reference No: Submission ID Sustainability_2659324 “Investigating On-site Energy Consumption Pattern Using Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and GIS Techniques” for possible publication in journal “Sustainability”. We have tried our best to incorporate all their suggestions in the revised version (highlighted with Red Color) of our manuscript and the detailed response to each of their comments are given below in the form of Comment and Response:

 

This study aims to investigate the energy consumption patterns on-site, employing Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) and GIS techniques in the area in Pakistan, the paper didn’t show any novelty just repeating similar research done by many researchers not only in Pakistan but also around work. My comments are as follows:

1. Is there any reference for "Moreover, the pumping systems being installed and working in the fields without prior investigation resulting in energy losses, which affect the economic conditions of farmers"?

Ans: The reference has been added (See Line 82).

2. Recently, many papers have been published on a similar topic. What is the novelty of your work? What is your contribution, other than changing the location?

Ans: The novelty of work prior to researchers have been addressed in the manuscript (See Lines 80-88)

3. Your literature review does not cover your aim and scope need to add recent studies and compare it.

Ans: The literature review has been revised by adding and comparing recent studies.

4. The gap in your work is not clear at all. You need to address a particular gap that seems unusual.

Ans: The practical gap of the work is addressed in the manuscript (See Lines 66-74 and 84-88)

5. Why use "The spatial distributional analysis"? Is there any difference compared to other analytical methods? And version,?

Ans: The authors used spatial distribution analysis because it is easy and more accurate method then the other analytical methods (see lines 320-322)

6. Where did you obtain Figure 1?

Ans: The Figure 1 of the study area was made by using ArcGIS version 10.7 (See Lines 110-111).

7. You need to add how you determined the sizing of the pump and which mathematical model you used for sizing.

Ans: The sizing of the pump systems was identified by using the standard pump characteristics curve by as used Zhang 2020, Yang 2022 rather than using a mathematical model. (See Lines 141-142).

8. Why is there no explanation for Figure 2a-2e and Figures 3, 4, and 5? Please clearly explain each of them.

Ans: The explanation has been added for Figure 2a-2e and Figures 3, 4, and 5.

9. 9. There are too many grammar mistake

Ans: The grammatical mistakes have been resolved.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed all of my comments, I would recommend it for publication.

The authors have addressed all of my comments, I would recommend it for publication.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors answered my comments