An Interdisciplinary Assessment of the Impact of Emerging Contaminants on Groundwater from Wastewater Containing Disodium EDTA

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors present an interesting and holistic approach aiming at using wastewater effluents instead of groundwater concentration analyses since the current chemical analyses still have high EDTA detection limits in saturated aquifers and use the aquifer hydraulic properties for the final interpretation. However, the hydraulic proprieties were used only as a descriptive characterization without any quantification, e.g. Aquifers' recharge values. It is mandatory in future work to quantify parameters such are recharged values for each aquifer, and wastewater effluent flow variables to analyze the association between the aquifers dynamics and the contamination values. Proper algorithmic approaches are recommended for space-time uncertainty characterization and control.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Reviewer comments:

Wastewater as a potential source of emerging contaminant pollution for groundwater: a case study focused on Disodium EDTA

This study has examined groundwater contamination resulting from wastewater discharged by different industries. The paper is well-structured, and the methodology is adequately discussed. However, I have the following comments regarding this paper:

Abstract: I suggest briefly including the scope and analysis methods in the abstract. Provide a short introduction to the territorial analysis method used in the study. Explain the severity of Disodium EDTA concentration range obtained using relevant guidelines. It would be beneficial to mention any limitations of this study and link them to the recommendations for further research directions.  Highlight the importance of these findings when making decisions from an industrial perspective.   Further comments regarding the paper are included in the attached document.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have some important concerns regarding the work. First, the introduction is poorly structured, deviates from the main topic, and contains numerous very short paragraphs. It needs to be rewritten to properly introduce the subject, and the English should also be corrected. Regarding the Materials and Methods section, there is an extensive explanation of the tectonic origin of the area that really loses focus and adds nothing to the work. As for the analysis of the results, the site's hydrogeology is of little interest if it is not correctly analyzed, just like the production/use of EDTA in the area. I really think it needs to be rewritten to maintain focus. The presentation of the bacterial results is very poor, with a table/graph that is not a usual way of presenting results, and it also seems that there are no replicates of the chemical or bacterial analyses. Finally, the bacterial issue seems to be more important in the analysis for the hydromorphological aspect than for the actual focus of the work, which is EDTA contamination.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The reviewed manuscript (sustainability-3167178) investigated the concentration of Disodium EDTA in effluents from eight diverse wastewater treatment plants in Po Valley, Italy. In Addition, groundwater samples were collected from 11 piezometers to analyze microbial communities naturally occurring in shallow groundwater. A Hydrogeological model was presented to show the interaction relationships between surface water and groundwater. However, the manuscript should be improved, and the results should be presented and discussed in a way that interests readers. Please consider the following points:

1. The Title; The title does not match the content regarding the space filled by Disodium EDTA in the manuscript.

2. Introduction; The introduction should be modified to include information in connected paragraphs with cohesive phrases rather than short sentences.

3. Section 2; Ensure that the geologic setting is as brief as possible, as the study's goal is to focus on contaminants that do not occur naturally in rocks. Please concentrate solely on the study area's hydrogeological setting and industrial activity.

4. Figure 1; Add Coordinates (Long and Lat.) to this figure.

5. Section 3.2; The information presented in this section can be summarized in one sentence in section 3.4. (For example, Water samples were collected from eight wastewater treatment plants in Parma. The selection of these plants is based on the ATECO code [55] for recognizing which business activities could be involved in the use of disodium EDTA.

6. Section 4; The results should be properly presented, and the subsections should be connected rather than isolated.

7. Section 5; The discussion did not cover all of the results and should be supported by a lot of relevant literature.

8. Figure 2; Please improve the quality of this figure.

9. The conclusion; The conclusion is incomplete of terms of the microbial communities.

10.  References style in the references list should be revised following the journal instructions.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses attachment and the corresponding revisions/corrections highlighted in the re-submitted manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for the answers, I would like to see a figure in place of a Table for bacteria analysis. Anyway, I consider that the manuscript is more clear now. 

Author Response

Reviewer 3

Comment 1: Thanks for the answers, I would like to see a figure in place of a Table for bacteria analysis. Anyway, I consider that the manuscript is more clear now. 

Response 1: Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript.
We have tried different graphs to make Table Five visible as a figure; however, we believe none of the solutions we have tried are the most suitable for displaying this data. For this article, we would prefer to keep this table format.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The reviewer appreciates the authors' efforts to improve their manuscript, but one of the main concerns is not fully addressed:

Section 5. Discussion; The authors did not adequately discuss the results, and their arguments were not supported by references.

Author Response

Comment 1: The reviewer appreciates the authors' efforts to improve their manuscript, but one of the main concerns is not fully addressed: Section 5. Discussion; The authors did not adequately discuss the results, and their arguments were not supported by references.  

Response 1: Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. References have been added to support our arguments in Section 5, and the text has been has been revised and expanded to provide a more thorough analysis of the results.