Energy Budget, Water Quality Parameters and Primary Production Modeling in Lake Volvi in Northern Greece

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear author, 

I have gone through the manuscript and found to be interesting to understand lake hydrology and its impact on future climate change. Before acceptable for publication, manuscript needs minor cum major corrections as suggested below: 

Line no 28-29; 35-37 need to be cited (Kindly see suggested one; Ecohydrology, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.2483; Water 2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/w14060970)

Line no 82-83, 321-326: too many references in one sentence revels authors not read the papers just cited the text, kindly use the appropriate one or latest one

Dissolve oxygen need to be defined like "DO" first before using

inorganic and organic phosphorus need to be defined in brackets (e.g., PO4-3, HPO4-2, P2O5)

Line no 117: m a.s.l  should be "Meters mean sea level"

Figure 1 need to be prepared using Arc-GIS will be great to locate the site in scientific way 

Line no 197: some of the words sticked together and change the meaning ...(m2day-1 ), please do the needful 

Line no 269: climate of the area...should be "climate of the study area"

Table 4: kindly defined the notation of Energy budget components (- or +) value below the table to make it clear

Kindly used the similar notation (e.g., mg/m3 or mg m-3) thoroughly 

Sub-section "3.5. Discussion" title need to be change 

Conclusions need to be written in concise and fruitful ways as this is the important part of paper 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

See in attachment file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Good work, but it needs to clarify a few points given below

1. Conventionally, water temperature is a water quality parameter. This work treats water temperature as energy. It is true that water temperature is obtained for the thermal energy budget. However, what is the merit of separating water temperature from the water quality system? In lakes, there are other sources of energy, such as wind. Why is wind not directly handled in this study if energy is a focal point?  

2. The target lake is not small. So, how the use of a one-dimensional model can be justified？ Nowadays, 3-D models are available.

3. The extinction coefficient for solar radiation in water was given a constant value. Why algae's effect on light penetration is negligible in this lake should be explained.

 4. Was the heat exchange at the lake bed considered?

5. How Richardson number was calculated without flow velocity information?

6. Could you comment on how useful the 1-D model is for lake environment management?

 

 

Author Response

See in attachment file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate the quality of the modeling analysis, which is very good but only for didactic purposes.

The purpose of this article is uncertain. The stated purpose is “to study the temporal and spatial changes of energy (temperature, heat balance and evaporation), water quality (dissolved oxygen, nutrients – mainly inorganic and organic phosphorus) and biological productivity (phytoplankton as chlorophyll-α) in Lake Volvi in Central Macedonia in Greece.”

But we don't understand who uses an analysis made in 2022 for data from 2012-2015, so 10 years apart. As we know, lakes’ dynamics are variable over time, especially from a biochemical point of view. Therefore, I consider that this article is of no use to anyone, its purpose is rather didactic and has no scientific research component. The QUALAKE model has already proven its usefulness, so an article that would prove the same thing to us is pointless.

We suggest the authors update the data and perhaps with these updated data a forecast analysis can be made for the studied lake.

The fact that a simulation was not done for Lake Volvi with this software - QUALAKE, does not justify the article's usefulness and the scientific world's interest, even if this reason is invoked.

Author Response

See in attachment file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

We appreciate the authors' detailed response and willingness to improve this paper. According to the details provided by the authors, we keep our opinion that this article can be of interest to the scientific world as a tool for validating the QUALAKE software. Therefore, the present work’s declared purpose must in concordance with this aspect. As the authors specify: "The verification of a model requires applications in different lake ecosystems. So, the calibration and verification of the QUALAKE model in another lake add and increase the value and credibility of the model".

In this article, the calibration and verification of the QUALAKE model are done, and not the temporal and spatial study changes in energy, water quality, and biological productivity.

I specify once again that the quality analysis is of very good quality, but the study of the current quality of a lake cannot be based on calibration and validation with data that is 10 years old.

I suggest the authors revise the stated purpose of the article, and the modification of the paragraph contained between lines 105-148.

Author Response

See in the attachment file

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf