The Impact of Beaver Dams on the Dynamic of Groundwater Levels at Łąki Soleckie

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study presents field research aimed at determining the extent to which constructed and operational beaver dams contribute to changes in groundwater levels in drained peatland areas. The topic is both interesting and significant.

My main concern revolves around the absence of groundwater level data for periods when beaver dams were not present. The study only presents groundwater level data during periods when beaver dams were present, utilizing regression methods to estimate groundwater level values. Thus, it raises questions about how the authors evaluated the effect of beaver dams on groundwater levels.

Additionally, it is recommended to employ indices such as NSE (Nash coefficient) to evaluate the performance of Equation 10.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English is acceptable.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an interesting work associated with The impact of beaver dams on the dynamic of groundwater levels at Łąki Soleckie. The manuscript was well organized and I suggested a major revision:

1. The introduction should be slightly condensed to highlight the point.

2. In lines 171-173, the authors mentioned that after the destruction of dam D1, the ditches supplying the plot remained under the influence of the water level in the upper part of dam D2. What are the reasons for this phenomenon? Please give specific explanations.

3. In lines 210-212, why did the authors mention that depending on the monthly precipitation values, beavers had a direct impact on water conditions in the river, as well as indirectly in the ditches and within the analyzed plot? Please give specific explanations.

4. In lines 229-232, the authors mentioned that short-term changes in water levels in the river were not noticeable in the centre of the plot, whereas longer periods of stabilization of the water level in the river also caused changes in groundwater levels within the plot. What factors lead to this phenomenon? Please give specific explanations.

5. In lines 274-276, why water levels remained under the influence of beaver-dammed water levels in the Mała River during rainless periods? Please give further explanations.

6. In lines 294-295, Please explain the meaning of phrases “the maintained water levels” and “water availability” when they appear for the first time in this paragraph.

7. Please carefully check the manuscript for grammatical and spelling errors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Research methodology is very good divided in stages according to defined criteria. The results are presented clearly and in great detail as well as the conclusions. It was a real pleasure to read a work presented like this.

 

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Major comments:

 

There should be included some explanation (even a sentence on two) in the introduction as to why the selected lake is a good area to perform this study. Is this an agriculturally important area, or maybe there is a high beaver population in this area? I see this in the beginning of the methods but it should appear here.

 

Section 2.2 Should be a more specific title (e.g. surface water measurements)

 

There needs to be some definition included as to what the authors’ mean by ‘series’. Is this constrained by time or number of data observations?

 

There are too many variables introduced in this methods/table 1. I am not clear why the series need their own variable when the number of series is defined in col. 7 of the table, and there is already a variable descriptor in each case (e.g. C-P). I also am not clear why phases E3 and E4 are significant to the study. I suggest authors remove the Phase variables, and just define the phases  in text, and either define series with a letter variable  (e.g. M,N), or define the series with a variable  explaining the conditions (e.g. C-P), but not both. I see the letter variables come up again in Fig. 4 so maybe those could be kept.

 

All abbreviations should be defined where they first appear in the text, and in the captions of all figures where they appear.

 

Figure 3 Would be much more effective if R27 and R29 were separated and mapped onto 2-dimensional plots. Also, there is a lack of data reported below this Fig., and  all text really  just  asks the reader to look at the Fig. This text in the results section should report  specific data in Fig. 3., not just refer back to the figure.

 

There is a lot of methods explanation in sections of the results (e.g. predictive model in Figure 3.4). If the authors’ can reduce the amount of variables defined here, this all could be presented in one cohesive methods section, instead of some definitions appearing in the methods, and then some later appearing throughout the results. This can also be helped with including the same sub-sections in the methods and results.

 

Figure 5 is unnecessary, and quite confusing given the information trying to be conveyed here. I would suggest the authors’ present the data in Fig. 5 in table form. And only including the significant relationships between variables and  groundwater levels. You could push all else to supplement to make this easier for the reader to take away. It is also important to define which variables are included in the multiple regression analyses presented here.

 

There should be discussion of regression residuals in methods and results, and normality (or applications transformations to achieve normality of residuals).

 

I do not understand Fig. 7 and why it needs to be included. Fig. 8 conveys the most important takeaways of the predictive model.

 

Minor Comments:

 

For Fig. 1, the green cross section line is difficult to see on the map. Authors’ might want to consider a more contrasting color.

 

Line 124: Should X_K3 be X4_K3?

 

Lines 135-137: Should have brand names for the gauge and whistle in parentheses (e.g. model type, company).

 

Line 227: This looks like maybe a note of reminder the authors’ left for themselves. Please remove, but do make sure Figures and Tables are cited within text everywhere  their explanation appears.

 

Line 310: Where is table five? Table four could be moved to supplementary information to reduce the amount of tables in the main text.

 

Does Table 3 ‘rs’ mean R²? If so, please change to R² or define rs in table title.

 

Lines 328-329:Check equation numbers throughout main text.

 

Figure 7: What is ‘DS’? Please define in caption.

 

The title of this article will likely draw some more biology-focused readers. It would be nice to include a few sentences on species diversity (or if its mainly one beaver species here, state the scientific name).

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are minor errors throughout, please see minor comments included above. Also, the authors must check the number order of figures and tables, and that they match in-text citations.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have answered my questions and responded to my comments, and the manuscript has been improved. I recommend the publication of the manuscript in its present form.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Below I include the few major concerns I still have for the structure and organization of this paper in bold, shown underneath my original review comments.

 

Reviewer’s note #4:

There are too many variables introduced in this methods/table 1. I am not clear why the series need

their own variable when the number of series is defined in col. 7 of the table, and there is already a

variable descriptor in each case (e.g. C-P). I also am not clear why phases E3 and E4 are significant to

the study. I suggest authors remove the Phase variables, and just define the phases in text, and either

define series with a letter variable (e.g. M,N), or define the series with a variable explaining the

conditions (e.g. C-P), but not both. I see the letter variables come up again in Fig. 4 so maybe those

could be kept.

 

I appreciate how the authors nicely described the methodology of the paper in their response, particularly with regard to the E stages. In fact I suggest the authors include a version of their response statement “In the article, the dataset was the measurements of all the studied variables on the set M (720 items). This was the basic dataset used only at the E-1 stage. Applying various increasingly difficult criteria (C) applied at subsequent stages of analysis E-2, E-3 and E-4, an increasingly smaller

dataset was obtained each time” in this section, as this was a clear explanation. However, I still do not believe series need both a descriptor letter (e.g. M,N) and also condition variable (e.g. C-P). Given the many variables and stages addressed in this study, it is important this methodology be as clear as possible.

 

There is a lot of methods explanation in sections of the results (e.g. predictive model in Figure 3.4). If

the authors’ can reduce the amount of variables defined here, this all could be presented in one cohesive

methods section, instead of some definitions appearing in the methods, and then some later appearing

throughout the results. This can also be helped with including the same sub-sections in the methods

and results.

 

This was not addressed by the authors, there is still a big separation of methodology and results. Similar subsections would still help in this case.

 

Figure 5 is unnecessary, and quite confusing given the information trying to be conveyed here. I would

suggest the authors’ present the data in Fig. 5 in table form. And only including the significant

relationships between variables and groundwater levels. You could push all else to supplement to make

this easier for the reader to take away. It is also important to define which variables are included in the

multiple regression analyses presented here

 

Again, this is a concern with the way information is portrayed here. A highly suggest converting this information to a table for clarity.  I have not seen such a figure as presented for statistical analysis, and it seems unnecessarily complicated given the statistical tests run.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The changes made by the authors are appreciated, particularly including explanation of data phases to the methods section and including table form for statistics in Fig. 5. I will leave it up to the discretion of the editor moving forward for other structural changes not addressed by authors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf