Spatial Water Consumption Test and Analysis of Various Typical Vegetation in the Sanjiangyuan Region
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments
This article measured the actual ET via the Lysimeter method, and studied the spatial and temporal changes of annual water consumption, runoff yield of various vegetation. Such work is interesting and may help practical water management. However, I think the manuscript must be improved before it can be published. Additionally, there are several grammar errors in the manuscript, please check the English throughout the manuscript. To help the authors improve the quality of the work, I provide a summary of some areas for possible improvement. Some specific comments are shown below.
INTRODUCTION
1. I can't agree with the author that ‘few scholars have studied water consumption of ecosystem and natural vegetation’. In fact, such work has been conducted in many study areas, including Sanjiangyuan Region. More literatures should be reviewed to highlight innovations.
2. Many scientists and their works have been listed in the first paragraph, but the relationship between these works and this manuscript is not clear.
3. In second paragraph, I can’t understand why the evapotranspiration studies should observe the runoff. Please added more explanations.
4. The descriptions about Sanjiangyuan should be moved to next section.
5. I suggest that the Introduction section should be rewritten to highlight the innovations and contributions of this manuscript.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
1. Please mark the location of test area in the Figure 1.
2. Is ET affected by groundwater level? How the author considers in the experiment?
3. In line 166, authors indicated that ‘many studies have shown…’. Please supplement relevant references.
4. What are the innovations in the methods or the experimental design?
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
1. Vegetation water consumption is not only related to vegetation type, but also closely related to other factors such as elevation, slope and aspect of the site. How does the author consider the impact of these factors?
2. Authors mainly focused on the analysis of data, but the explanations of the phenomenon behind the data is insufficient.
3. What are the specific suggestions according to your results?
DISCUSSION
1. The limitations and future directions should be discussed.
2. The comparison between the methods of this study and others should be discussed.
RESULTS
1. This section should be called conclusion.
2. More analysis is needed, not just data presentation.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your thoughtful review of our manuscript entitled " Spatial Water Consumption Test and Analysis of Various Typical Vegetation in the Sanjiangyuan Region ". We appreciate the time and effort you invested in reviewing our work and providing us with insightful comments and suggestions.
We have carefully considered all of your comments and have made appropriate revisions to the manuscript.
Point 1: I can't agree with the author that ‘few scholars have studied water consumption of ecosystem and natural vegetation’. In fact, such work has been conducted in many study areas, including Sanjiangyuan Region. More literatures should be reviewed to highlight innovations.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comments. We agree with that “In fact, such work has been conducted in many study areas”. And we rewrote the introduction. More literatures has been reviewed to highlight innovations. Please see revised paper at page 1 lines 44-49 and page 2 lines 64-77 for details.
Point 2: Many scientists and their works have been listed in the first paragraph, but the relationship between these works and this manuscript is not clear.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your comments. The relationship between these works and this manuscript has been rewrote. Please see revised paper at page 2 lines 49-62 and page 2 lines 77-90 for details.
Point 3: In second paragraph, I can’t understand why the evapotranspiration studies should observe the runoff. Please added more explanations.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your comments.
Most studies on actual evapotranspiration in the Sanjiangyuan region have failed to observe runoff, an essential component of the water balance formula that significantly impacts the final calculation of evapotranspiration. Thus, runoff observation is critical for accurately determining the actual evapotranspiration in the region. ( page 2 lines 87-91 for details)
Point 4: The descriptions about Sanjiangyuan should be moved to next section.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your comments. The descriptions about Sanjiangyuan has been moved to next section.
The Sanjiangyuan Region, situated in the heart of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is the source of three major rivers: the Yangtze, Yellow and the Lancang. The region's eco-system boasts significant water conservation capacity [14,15]. and its distinct alpine vegetation system plays a crucial role in global climate change and climate response research [16]. ( page 3 lines 109-101 for details)
Point 5: I suggest that the Introduction section should be rewritten to highlight the innovations and contributions of this manuscript.
Response 5: Thank you very much for your suggestion. The Introduction section has been rewrote. Please see revised paper at page 1-3 lines 35-106 for details.
Point 6: Please mark the location of test area in the Figure 1.
Response 6: Thank you very much for your comments. The Figure 1 has been changed. Please see revised paper at page 3 lines 132 for details.
Point 7: Is ET affected by groundwater level? How the author considers in the experiment?
Response 7: Thank you very much for your comments. The lysimeter bucket does not come into contact with the surrounding soil, and there is no groundwater supply to the lysimeter bucket. The influence of groundwater on evapotranspiration is not considered in this test. Please see revised paper at page 4 lines 158-160 for details.
Point 8: In line 166, authors indicated that ‘many studies have shown…’. Please supplement relevant references.
Response 8: Thank you very much for your comments.
- Jacobs A F, Berkowicz S M, Heusinkveld B G. Dew deposition and drying in a desert system: a simple simulation model[J]. Journal of arid environments, 1999(3):42.
- STONE E C. The Ecological Importance of Dew[J]. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 1963, 38(4):14.
Point 9: What are the innovations in the methods or the experimental design? How does the author consider the impact of these factors?
Response 9: Thank you very much for your comments. In designing the experiment, we took into account the impact of condensate and flow generation on the final outcome of the water balance formula. To observe the condensate, we weighed the lysimeter at night, and to facilitate the collection and weighing of flow generation, we installed a catheter at the bottom of the lysimeter. We also set up 6 evaporative fields to observe the evapotranspiration of the 22 planting cover types present in the headwaters of the Sanjiangyuan Region, categorized according to 4 different planting cover types.
Point 10: Vegetation water consumption is not only related to vegetation type, but also closely related to other factors such as elevation, slope and aspect of the site. How does the author consider the impact of these factors?
Response 10: Thank you very much for your comments. In this study, the percolation field was laid on a flat underlying surface chosen based on the various vegetation types in the source area of the Three Rivers, without taking into account factors such as elevation, slope, or slope direction.
Point 11: Authors mainly focused on the analysis of data, but the explanations of the phenomenon behind the data is insufficient.
Response 11: Thank you very much for your comments. The explanations of the phenomenon behind the data has been supplement. Please see revised paper at page 14 lines 437-491 for details.
Point 12: What are the specific suggestions according to your results?
Response 12: Thank you very much for your comments. While the non-growing season vegetation runoff yield can be ignored in the water balance equation, the growing season runoff yield has a significant impact on vegetation water consumption, and therefore, the runoff yield calculation cannot be ignored.
Point 13: The limitations and future directions should be discussed.
Response 13: Thank you very much for your comments. One year of data is not sufficient to represent the characteristics of spatial evapotranspiration over many years in the Sanjiangyuan Region. It is necessary to observe the spatial evapotranspiration for a long time series to gain a better understanding of its characteristics. (page 16 lines 510-513 for details)
Point 14: The comparison between the methods of this study and others should be discussed.
Response 14: Thank you very much for your comments. Please see the 1 Introduction section on lines 44-63 of page 1-2 in the revised paper.
Point 15: This section should be called conclusion.
Response 15: Thank you very much for your comments. The word “Result” has been revised to “Conclusion”.
Point 16: More analysis is needed, not just data presentation.
Response 16: Thank you very much for your comments. More analysis has been supplemented. Please see revised paper at page 14 lines 437-491 for details.
All authors have contributed to the creation of this revised manuscript for important intellectual content and read and approved the final manuscript. All authors approved the submission to the journal. We declare there is no conflict of interest.
We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
All authors have approved the revised manuscript and agree with its submission to Sustainability（ISSN：2071-1050）
Hope this paper is suitable for the Journal, thanks for your consideration of this manuscript, and looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards.
Liuyan Qu (Ph.D, Corresponding author)
Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Processes, School of Geographical Sciences, Qinghai Normal University
Xining 810008
Tel: +86 18597016728 Email: [email protected]
Regards.
Liuyan Qu (Ph.D, Corresponding author)
Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Processes, School of Geographical Sciences, Qinghai Normal University
Xining 810008
Tel: +86 18597016728 Email: [email protected]
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
See attached file
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your thoughtful review of our manuscript entitled " Spatial Water Consumption Test and Analysis of Various Typical Vegetation in the Sanjiangyuan Region ". We appreciate the time and effort you invested in reviewing our work and providing us with insightful comments and suggestions.
We have carefully considered all of your comments and have made appropriate revisions to the manuscript.
Point 1: The Title appears incorrect: what is meant by Regularity Analysis? The term 'places' appears (and also in many other points of the text, e.g. lines 15, 96, 139, 220, ...): do we perhaps mean the areas?
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comments. The title has been changed to “Spatial Water Consumption Test and Analysis of Various Typical Vegetation in the Sanjiangyuan Region”. The term 'places' you said should be “spaces”, and we has been changed to “spatial”.
Point 2: If in line 16 it is said that the measurement activities lasted for 1 year, how can a study of the annual variability of some hydrological quantities be carried out, as indicated in lines.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your comments. In this paper, we focus solely on the spatial analysis of annual hydrological quantities during the observation period and do not analyze their annual variability. We rewrote the sentences in lines 17-18.
Based on the measured data, this paper analyzed the spatial distribution of annual water consumption and annual runoff yield of various vegetation. Please see revised paper at page 2 lines 49-62 and page 2 lines 77-90 for details.
Point 3: Some numerical results are reported, generally with a precision to the tenth of a mm. In general, in an abstract, when it is not strictly necessary, such precision is not required, but in the case in question, also in the rest of the writing, two digits after the comma almost never really make sense and can be considered truly significant digits;
Response 3: Thank you very much for your comments. The precision of vegetation water consumption has been adjusted, however, the value of condensate water is relatively low, hence it is imperative to maintain two decimal places to guarantee data accuracy.
Point 4: the expression 'from large to small' is redundant, because the ordering is already indicated with the symbols in the numerical part, and in fact this sentence is not used in the previous line. In any case, adopt the same style for lines 27 and 28.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your comments. The sentence in lines 27-28 has been changed to “The annual water consumption in the Sanjiangyuan Region was higher in the south than in the north. Shrubs water consumption was found to be 58.1-73.3 mm higher than that of grasses. Water consumption primarily occurred during the growing season, spanning from May to October.“( page 1 lines 24-27 for details ). And the similar errors in the paper have been corrected, please see revised paper at page 9 line 292, page 10 lines 316-317 and page 1 lines 340-341 for details.
Point 5: Indicate clearly which are the innovative parts of the article: in particular, given the way the article is written, it does not appear clear whether the methodology proposed in lines 269-270 for estimating condensation is original or borrowed from other writings, as it may appear by reading lines 444-445, where, however, it is not been able to find the citations.
Response 5: Thank you very much for your suggestion. Lysimeter is a routine method for measuring condensed water. At present, most studies do not carry out condensate observation when using lysimeter for evapotranspiration observation, and no evapotranspiration is observed when condensate is observed with a lysimeter. In our study, we observed evapotranspiration, condensate water respectively. And the references have been added: [20] Xiaonan Guo,Tianshan Zha, Xin Jia, Qiang Yang, Jiawei Mu, Peng Liu. Estimation of dewfall amount in a typical desert shrub ecosystem[J]. Journal of Beijing Forestry University (2016) 38(10) 80-87.(please see revised paper at page 8 line 265 for details)
Point 6: if MRE = Mean Relative Error it seems to me that 130% is quite high.
Response 6: Thank you very much for your comments. The verification method has been modified. The research results of other scholars can also verify the estimation results of condensate water. The variation trend of condensation water, the range of daily condensation water and the annual amount of condensation water are consistent with the research results of Fenghuoshan Basin [21], Heihe Basin [22] and Shazhuyu alpine sandy areas [23]. (please see revised paper at page 9 lines 293-295 for details)
Point 7: Since we are dealing with observations from only one year, in the sentences in which an absolute value is attributed to the empirical investigations it would be useful to add a brief reasoning of a phenomenological type, as done in lines 444-445. Be careful, in these comments, to highlight on the one hand the conclusions that represent a novelty from the conclusions that are only a confirmation of already known processes or values.
Response 7: Thank you very much for your comments. A brief reasoning of a phenomenological type has been added, please see revised paper at pages 14-15 lines 437-491 for details
Point 8: The bibliography needs to be revised: in some cases the reference to the journal of publication is completely missing (e.g. 5, 18,19,24), in others there is no correspondence and it was not possible to verify the authors' statements (e.g. 13,23).
Response 8: Thank you very much for your comments. The bibliography has been revised.
All authors have contributed to the creation of this revised manuscript for important intellectual content and read and approved the final manuscript. All authors approved the submission to the journal. We declare there is no conflict of interest.
We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
All authors have approved the revised manuscript and agree with its submission to Sustainability（ISSN：2071-1050）.
Hope this paper is suitable for the Journal, thanks for your consideration of this manuscript, and looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards.
Liuyan Qu (Ph.D, Corresponding author)
Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Processes, School of Geographical Sciences, Qinghai Normal University
Xining 810008
Tel: +86 18597016728 Email: [email protected]
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
In this study the authors used weighing lysimeter to quantify vegetation water consumption in the Sanjiangyuan Region, China. The authors report their measurements of the various components of water balance. While the study provides interesting information and data, it is written poorly. I missed several parts of the manuscript due to the difficulty understanding the authors language. Thus, the authors first need to improve the work’s language substantially. Additionally, I have some questions and suggestions that are listed below.
The authors used three lysimeter to quantify the water balance over a vast area. Despite the valuable data provided by these measurements, how well the water usage of the area could be represented using only three lysimeters?
The title does not read well, please modify (as well the entire manuscript).
The references in the introduction section are missing. Please modify.
Line 204. What the author meant by “number of duplicates of Lysimeters for observing vegetation in
different evapotranspiration fields”? I couldn’t figure out what was the measurement intervals. In line 210, the authors mention 5-day to 15-day measurements, but in Table 2 there are different number of measurement intervals from three to twelve. I am not sure how to interpret these measurements.
Section 2.3 explains the reference ET calculations. How the authors used that information to calculate condensation?
Table 4. what the authors mean by non-growing season?
Why is the discussion section numbered?
Why using different figure styles while showing the same thing? Figure 6 and 7.
Section 5 heading must be conclusion and not the results.
Section 5, conclusion should provide an insight about the conclusive remarks of the study not just summarizing the results.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you very much for your thoughtful review of our manuscript entitled " Spatial Water Consumption Test and Analysis of Various Typical Vegetation in the Sanjiangyuan Region ". We appreciate the time and effort you invested in reviewing our work and providing us with insightful comments and suggestions.
We have carefully considered all of your comments and have made appropriate revisions to the manuscript.
Point 1: The authors used three lysimeter to quantify the water balance over a vast area. Despite the valuable data provided by these measurements, how well the water usage of the area could be represented using only three lysimeters?
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comments. The water balance equation is only applicable to the lysimeter itself in this paper. Meteorological stations are installed within the evapotranspiration fields to observe precipitation (page 6 line 200 for details), and other variables involved in the water balance equation such as runoff and soil water change can be observed by the lysimeter (page 4 lines 153-157 for details). Each evapotranspiration field has at least 9 lysimeters, such as in Gonghe and Xinghai, and up to 57 lysimeters, such as in Maqin (see table2). The lysimeter fields are located in areas with relatively flat underlying surfaces, which can represent water use in a certain range (page 5 line 174 for details).
Point 2: The title does not read well, please modify (as well the entire manuscript).
Response 2: Thank you very much for your comments. The entire manuscript has been modified, please see the new revised paper.
Point 3: The references in the introduction section are missing. Please modify.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your comments. The references have been modified.
Point 4: Line 204. What the author meant by “number of duplicates of Lysimeters for observing vegetation indifferent evapotranspiration fields”? I couldn’t figure out what was the measurement intervals. In line 210, the authors mention 5-day to 15-day measurements, but in Table 2 there are different number of measurement intervals from three to twelve. I am not sure how to interpret these measurements.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your comments.See table 2, for example, we have carried out three observing vegetation in Gonghe，such as bare ground, Achnatherum splendens community ,and Agropyron cristatum (Linn.) Gaertn. var. cris-tatum community. For the observation of monthly water consumption variation test, three same lysimeters are installed in the bare land, three same lysimeters installed in Achnatherum splendens community and three same lysimeters installed in Agropyron cristatum (Linn.) Gaertn. var. cris-tatum community. So there are altogether 9 lysimeters in Gonghe. And the measurement intervals during the growing season (May- October) is every 5 days, during the non-growing season (November-April of the following year) is every 15 days (page 6 lines 206-207 for details).
Point 5: explains the reference ET calculations. How the authors used that information to calculate condensation?
Response 5: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We selected 6 evapotranspiration fields near the weather stations that represent (page 5 line 172 for details) .This study obtained the Lysimeter’s data and meteorological data of the evapotranspiration fields and analyzed the hourly data of the weather stations near the evapotranspiration fields provided by the Qinghai Meteorological Bureau, including precipitation, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, average temperature, dew point temperature, air humidity, atmospheric pressure and wind speed at 2 m height (page 5 lines 242-247 for details). The hourly condensation water was estimated according to the Penman-Monteith formula [19], and the daily and monthly condensation water was obtained by summing the hourly condensate (page 8 lines 260-262 for details). if reference ET less than zero, the absolute value of reference ET is condensation water amount [20] (page 8 line 265 for details).
Point 6: what the authors mean by non-growing season?
Response 6: Thank you very much for your comments. Non-growing season means from November to April of the following year.
Point 7: Why is the discussion section numbered?
Response 7: Thank you very much for your comments. We have been deleted the number of the discussion.
Point 8: Why using different figure styles while showing the same thing? Figure 6 and 7.
Response 8: Thank you very much for your comments. We have unified the figure format.
Point 9: Heading must be conclusion and not the results. Conclusion should provide an insight about the conclusive remarks of the study not just summarizing the results.
Response 9: Thank you very much for your comments. The word “Result” has been revised to “Conclusion”. And we rewrote the conclusion, Please see revised paper at page 15 lines 493-510 for details.
All authors have contributed to the creation of this revised manuscript for important intellectual content and read and approved the final manuscript. All authors approved the submission to the journal. We declare there is no conflict of interest.
We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
All authors have approved the revised manuscript and agree with its submission to Sustainability（ISSN：2071-1050）.
Hope this paper is suitable for the Journal, thanks for your consideration of this manuscript, and looking forward to hearing from you.
Regards.
Liuyan Qu (Ph.D, Corresponding author)
Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Processes, School of Geographical Sciences, Qinghai Normal University
Xining 810008
Tel: +86 18597016728 Email: [email protected]
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Article: Spatial Water Consumption Test and Analysis of Various Typi- 2 cal Vegetation in the Sanjiangyuan Region
Comments to Authors
The manuscript needs to be appropriately revised. You will see a lot of issues with the formatting and referencing. Thus please revise your manuscript calmly. The work done in the article is good and can be accepted, subject to improvement.
The manuscript introduction section is all right, but I found some errors in the reference pattern of the article [Error! Reference 65 sources not found.]. These errors usually occur when the author copies the text (own) and tries to arrange the text in the journal format. This should take extreme care. You cannot just submit an article in this reputed journal so causally.
The legends in Figure 1 need to be improved. The font size needs to be enhanced.
Use the same pattern throughout the manuscript considering numbering the Equations, “The water balance equation is as follows”. This should be written as expressed by Equation (1).
The x-labels and Y-labels of Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 should be improved.
Where is reference no 29?
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
The manuscript needs to be appropriately revised. You will see a lot of issues with the formatting and referencing. Thus please revise your manuscript calmly. The work done in the article is good and can be accepted, subject to improvement.
Point 1: The manuscript introduction section is all right, but I found some errors in the reference pattern of the article [Error! Reference 65 sources not found.]. These errors usually occur when the author copies the text (own) and tries to arrange the text in the journal format. This should take extreme care. You cannot just submit an article in this reputed journal so causally.
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comments. The reference in line 65 has been modified, please see revised paper at page 2 line 66 for details.
Point 2: The legends in Figure 1 need to be improved. The font size needs to be enhanced.
Response 2: Thank you very much for your comments. The legends in Figure 1 have been improved, please see revised paper at page 4 line 132 for details.
Point 3: Use the same pattern throughout the manuscript considering numbering the Equations, “The water balance equation is as follows”. This should be written as expressed by Equation (1).
Response 3: Thank you very much for your comments. The word “Equations” has been added before the numbers, please see revised paper at page 4 line 152, page 5 line 167 and page 8 line 263 for details.
Point 4: The x-labels and Y-labels of Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 should be improved.
Response 4: Thank you very much for your comments. The x-labels and Y-labels of Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 have been improved, please see revised paper at pages 9-10 lines 300-304, pages 11-12 lines 330-333, page 12-13 line 351-354 and page 14 line 382-386 for details.
Point 5: Where is reference no 29?
Response 5: Thank you very much for your comments. The last number for reference has been delete.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
The subject of the paper is important and it aimed to evaluate Water consumption and regularity analysis of various typical vegetation.The abstract section is well written and summarizes the principals’ results. The introduction fit with the subject and it well referenced and updated. The methodology and the results are well described and presented.
I recommend that this paper accepted as is it is.
Author Response
Point 1: The subject of the paper is important and it aimed to evaluate Water consumption and regularity analysis of various typical vegetation.
The abstract section is well written and summarizes the principals’ results. The introduction fit with the subject and it well referenced and updated. The methodology and the results are well described and presented.
I recommend that this paper accepted as is it is.
Response 1: Thank you again for your approval of the manuscript. Your approval is of supreme importance.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Most of the comments have been addressed, and I have no further comments
Author Response
Thank you again for your approval of the manuscript. Your approval is of supreme importance.
Reviewer 2 Report
There still remain a number of points treated with confusion: e.g. uncorrected references remain in the bibliography, such as n. 22, where 2019 is indicated as the year and the volume no. 50 in reality, in 2019 the journal had number 145. This quotation is crucial for understanding whether the few things that can be considered innovative are not, in reality, taken from other works
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments. We have corrected the content of reference 22, please refer to the revised reference 36 in page 19 lines 586-587.
36. Wang, Z.J.; Zhang, Z.X.; Suo, Y. A new water balance equation introducing dew amount in arid area[J]. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering. 2019, 50(06): 710-720.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
while the authors have responded to my comments and improved the manuscript significantly, there are still several issues in the quality of the language with some vague sentences, and missing parts. I highlighted these parts and put my comments in the attached annotated pdf (particularly in the abstract, introduction, and discussion sections).
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Point 1: while the authors have responded to my comments and improved the manuscript significantly, there are still several issues in the quality of the language with some vague sentences, and missing parts. I highlighted these parts and put my comments in the attached annotated pdf (particularly in the abstract, introduction, and discussion sections).
Response 1: Thank you very much for your comments. Each of your comments have revised, including the vague sentences and the missing parts, and marked in red font. Please refer to the manuscript for details.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
