Digital Tools for Water Resource Management as a Part of a Green Economy in Rural Areas

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper entitled “Digital tools for water resources management as a part of green economy in rural areas” is an interesting work on the assessment of digital tools for water management in rural communes.

The manuscript is well-written and organized. A few specific comments are below:

1) Keywords should be improved. The keywords “water management”, “rural areas”, and “green economy” are already present in the title.

2) What means OECD? Please add it to the text.

3) Next to the web pages accessed, the authors must include the date of access. Check it throughout the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear Madame/Sir

Thank you for your valuable comments, which we have taken into account in improving the text.  The OECD abbreviation has been clarified, the dates of access to the websites can be found in References and the key words have been changed.

Yours Sincerely 

Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear all,

I reviewed the ms. "Digital tools for water resources management as a part of green 3 economy in rural areas". The ms. presents a digital tools and ways of using them for water management in rural communes. In my opinion, the ms. is well-done and bring important result for water management. I have some minor suggestions:

Results:

- Materials and Methods: Figure 2: please insert the local and date, for example => Study area, rural and urban-rural communes around Bydgoszc, Poland, 2023.

- Figure 3. Is it possible to include the name of comunes in the legend?

- Is it possible separate discussion and conclusion?

 

Author Response

Dar Madame/Sir

Thank you for your valuable comments, which we have taken into account in improving the text. We have taken into account the suggestions regarding the caption of Figure 2. The caption has been changed to : location of the study area (rural and urban rural communes of Bydgoszcz district) in kujawsko-pomorskie voivodeship. In the legend to Fig. 2 the names of the communes have been inserted, which will make it easier to read the results in Fig. 3. The authors have also separated the discussion from the conclusions.

Your sincerely

Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

Paper title: Digital tools for water resources management as a part of a green economy in rural areas

 

The paper approaches an actual research demand, the digital network use for water governance. But, the text needs improvement to understand the methodology, the results, and the discussion related:

 

a) The objective is to present digital tools and ways of using them for water management in rural communes (line 18). 

 

The main questions are (lines 54 to 58):

1) Do the methods for managing the rural communes in the Bydgoszcz district fit into the concept of e-government? 

2) What is the level of e-government concept implementation in the analyzed units? 

3) Which type of digital technology is used in water resources management?

 

Concerning the objective and the main questions, the paper represents more than the view described.

 

b) Figure 2 (line 137) is not a map. Sustainability is an international journal,   so the recommendation is to provide a correct study area localization.

 

c) The area of surface waters within the analyzed communes is relatively small (only ca. 3% of the to141 total area of the district), and flowing surface waters account for more than eighty percent (lines 140 to 141): how many watersheds or water´s channels are in the study area? Is it possible to present a map with their configuration in terrain?

 

d) The expectation is a discussion about the relationships described in Figure 4 (line 290). The Discussion and Conclusion started, but it is not clear. 

 

The recommendations are:

1) Separate discussion and conclusion.

2) Present the discussion using the three main questions as guidelines, and figure 4 as a related product.

 

For the conclusions, work with the hypothesis and recommendations.

 

Author Response

Dear Madame/Sir

Thank you very much for your valuable comments. As recommended, we have separated and strengthened the discussion section from the conclusions, as well as, divided it by answering the research questions posed. We have also moved Figure 4 to the discussion section (it is now Figure 5). In the conclusion section, the research hypotheses set were verified.
Figure 2 with the location of the study area was corrected as recommended, and a map depicting the hydrographic network in the commune of Białe Błota was added.

Your sincerely 

Authors

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I agree with the changes.