Hydrological Modeling of the Kobo-Golina River in the Data-Scarce Upper Danakil Basin, Ethiopia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
The authors seem to have done good work in revising this manuscript. My comments on this manuscript are consistent with my previous words. The work, per se, has merit for the community, especially for those focusing on that specific area, Kobo-Golina in the Danakil basin, Ethiopia.
Unfortunately, I cannot see how the revisions have been conducted, there should be "Responses to Referees" point by point in an independent file.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
This manuscript is about hydrological modeling in the Danakil basin of Ethiopia. Authors have good and interesting results that can be impactful for scientific community. But I found several major flaws in their way of writing and overall structure of presenting their results. So. i recommend it for publication after moderate revision. Here are main points that authors should consider.
In the title, you are describing meteorological characteristics of area and it is data scarce. It is unnecessary to write these things in title. It is better to write a concise title.
The introduction section is completely about modeling background. I think authors misunderstood the need of introduction. Authors must write about the water situation background in the study area and worldwide. What was the actual problem ? and doing hydrological modeling was the best method or way to solve that particular water problem. Is applying hydrological model is the only innovation? This is not good and desirable novelty. Authors must be more focused on problem and background of water studies in the country. After all that, come up with good objectives. The paragraph about modeling should be concise and only one or two paragraphs about modeling are enough in the introduction section.
Methodology is good. I like how authors describe every detail about methodology and presented it in good way.
Results and discussion: in this section, results are presented very well but i can't find a sound discussion. There are insufficient references cited in the discussion. Authors must compare their results to some relevant studies. Or they can come up with the potential benefits of results at local to global scale. Please elaborate the discussion part of this manuscript.
Lastly, I will comment on English language. It will be good for the quality of your manuscript, if you can make it better especially, in the case of sentence structure. Some sentences have a lot of information which can be divided into two sentences.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
I have no further comments on this manuscript, the manuscript probably can be accepted for publication now.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 (Second Round)
February 2, 2023
Re: Manuscript No: Sustainability- 2149184
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate you for your precious time in reviewing our paper and providing valuable comments. It was your valuable and insightful comments that led to possible improvements in the current version. We thank you for accepting our paper for publication.
Below we provide the point-by-point responses to reviewers’ comments. We presented our response in such a way that the points raised by the reviewer were indicated as ‘Point’ followed by our response indicated as ‘Response’. The changed text in the manuscript is displayed here for reference. The added texts are shown in blue here, but it is in red in the manuscript with track changes.
Point 1. I have no further comments on this manuscript, the manuscript probably can be accepted for publication now.
Response 1. Thank you very much for accepting the article and recommending it for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
Authors have revised the manuscript extensively. All comments have been addressed and manuscript is improved. I believe, it must be accepted for publication.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 (Second Round)
February 2, 2023
Re: Manuscript No: Sustainability- 2149184
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate you for your precious time in reviewing our paper and providing valuable comments. It was your valuable and insightful comments that led to possible improvements in the current version. We thank you for accepting our paper for publication.
Below we provide the point-by-point responses to reviewers’ comments. We presented our response in such a way that the points raised by the reviewer were indicated as ‘Point’ followed by our response indicated as ‘Response’. The changed text in the manuscript is displayed here for reference. The added texts are shown in blue here, but it is in red in the manuscript with track changes.
Point 1. The authors have revised the manuscript extensively. All comments have been addressed and the manuscript is improved. I believe, it must be accepted for publication.
Response 1. Thank you very much for accepting the article and recommending it for publication.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Due to the limitation of ground-based observation data, this study used CHIRPSv2, GloFAS, and MODIS products in the model. There is no innovation application for this model, and the most important is that the uncertainty for this study is too significant. All the inputs and outputs are from estimated data. Therefore, it is also questionable for the validation. The validation results of the model are also no better than some traditional hydrological models. This study claimed that SWAT+ could be applied in the ungauged catchment for spatio-temporal simulation of surface water and recharge. However, the spatial distribution and patterns are not well presented. Groundwater recharge also has no real data to prove the performance.
Overall, I think the study has to re-design the framework and study area, as well as collect enough real data to validate the result.
Author Response
Dear reviewer thank you for your comments and devotion.
Please see the attachment.
Thanks
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments:
In the work “Hydrological modeling in humid and semi-arid region of Kobo-Golina catchment in the Danakil basin, Ethiopia” (sustainability-1865658), the authors tried to model water balance components in an area that lacks hydraulic datasets, which is challenging because the important work is the calibration. The MODIS may be crucial for their calibration, in association with water balance datasets, they seem to have achieved a good result. The manuscript is generally well written and does fall into the scope of the journal.
My concerns may need to address in their revised manuscript:
1. This study seems to model the surface water flow, but the claimed a good result of groundwater recharge, which is decoupled from the function of the model, why?
2. The abstract is too long and should be re-written without too many numbers and your results.
In the abstract: “the floodplain aquifers is high compared with aquifers”, are higher?
3. We are in the year of 2022, but most of their data are from 2004-2011 or 2012-2014, which may be outdated, and why?
Other writing issues should be proofread carefully, e.g., the citations in the text, the last two decades. [13].; rainfall measurement, [19]; requisite [27].Conventionally; model [33].Since; [34] found, who is 34; system [37] .Model; [38–40].As a result it; ET data [42, 43]but they are limited; and time [44]In addition; model [47, 48, 53] Since; validation of the model.[17] recommended; Modis-based remote, MODIS….
The authors must check their writing carefully!
Table 1: datasets used in the study.
Penman-Monteith equation should be shown in the text.
In the Sensitivity analysis, how do you compare the parameters subjected to non-linear modeling?
The Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) is rarely used in literature, can you give more words on this parameter? E.g., the higher value, a better model? –∞ to 1 is not enough, –∞?
All the figures must be uploaded in a vector type to enhance the readability.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your comments and devotions
Please see the attachments
Thanks
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I reviewed the article with ID=sustainability-1865658. The article topic is intriguing and promising in the area. I am pleased to send you minor-level comments, there are some flaws which need to be corrected before publication. Please consider these suggestions as listed below.
1. The title seems good, but there are a few punctuation mistakes in the abstract.
2. Research gap should be delivered in a clearer way with the directed necessity for future research work.
3. Introduction section must be written in a more quality way. Please target the specific gap.
4. The novelty of the work must be clearly addressed and discussed, compare previous research with existing research findings and highlight novelty.
5. What is the main challenge? Please highlight this in the introduction part.
6. Please check the abbreviations of words throughout the article. All should be consistent.
7. Please provide space between numbers and units. Please revise your paper accordingly since some issue occurs in several spots in the paper.
8. The main objective of the work must be written in a clearer and more concise way at the end of the introduction section.
9. Please improve figure quality (especially Figures 3, 4, and 5(also correct the caption of the figure)
10. To avoid grammar and linguistic mistakes, Major level English language should be thoroughly checked. Please revise your paper accordingly since several language issue occurs on several spots in the paper.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your comments and devotions.
Please see the attachments
Thanks
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
It seems the authors have done an excellent job in revising their manuscript, I have no further comments. Only one problem, all the figures should be uploaded in vector type which can be seen more clearly (e.g., APPENDIX 1 figures are hard to see clearly).
