Accounting for Seasonal Land Use Dynamics to Improve Estimation of Agricultural Irrigation Water Withdrawals

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, the paper describes a very sound piece of research. The paper is well-written. I have the following suggestions/queries for further improvement of the paper:

Consider rewording the second research question (Line 76). Maybe use "estimated water withdrawals" because this is what the paper is about - estimates the amount of irrigation water using the 2 scenarios.   The direct calculation of water withdrawn for irrigation in the catchment needs to be discussed. In other parts of the world, there are mechanisms to capture the amount of water used using water meters and other tools of measurement. If this option is not possible in the location, then at least it needs to be acknowledged.  Figure 1 needs to be improved. What is the relationship between the inset map and the larger coloured map? Include reference/source for the data in Figure 2 caption. You will need to do some editing. Some statements are unclear, e.g. line 114. In line 154, write Table 2 instead of table 2. Check spacing in the first row of Table 5. Some repetion - check lines 154-157 and lines 171-175. Line 181 should be percentage area Line 245 - should it be ET Incremental?

Author Response

Thank you for your positive comment to improve this manuscript. Attached is detail responses to each comment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

The manuscript entitled:  provides an interesting assessment of water withdrawals in a Tanzania catchment area and it is of interest to different stakeholders. However, the manuscript requires extensive work addressing multiple issues before it is suitable for publication in Water. Please find some of my comments below:

Line 22: Authors refer to three growing seasons, but they only mention two. If dry season is one independent season, then an oxford comma and timeframe of the dry season should be included

Why is March included in parenthesis in line 27?

The sentence is line 41-43 is too long and confusing. Please rephrase.

Lines 53-54: needs rephrasing

Line 83, start the sentence with Fifteen

Please include the scientific nomenclature for crops at their mention in the text.

Add an X axis title to Figure 2

Line 100: why isn’t trothing capitalized?

Line 103: delete m after 2000

Line 108-110: rewrite

Line 112: were used is repeated

Line 121: from previous studies

Line 133: NDVI was previously spelled out in the manuscript, thereby the reader already knows what it means.

Line 145: Capitalized K in Knight

Line 147: delete expert knowledge

Line 154 and line 171 are exactly the same sentences.

Line 154: what do authors mean by point 1? Is it column 1? Row 1? Please clarify.

Line 157: what do authors mean by “correct”?

Line 162: Which maximum likelihood algorithm was used?

Line 259: Figure

Line 270: ArcMap

Line 287-290: These are not your results. This sentence should be included in the Discussion section.

Line 306: Leave only the last % sign.

Line 310: Use page break option.

Table 4 needs improvement, it is very hard to determine columns, what is the blue horizontal bar? Why does it cover some numbers? What is the meaning of those captions?

Line 325: Sentences do not start with numbers in English.

Line 332 and throughout the text: Authors already stated which months encompass the dry season and which ones encompass the wet season, thereby there is no need to repeat this information multiple times in the text.

Line 360: Clear changes? Be more specific? What is the % change? Is it a decline or an increase? Line 361 states the increase in land, these two sentences can be combined (line 359, 360, and 361)

Line 365: how is sugarcane managed? Coffee and banana are perennial plantations and the plant remains after harvest, but sugarcane is entirely removed from the field during harvest (at least in the sugarcane regions where I have been).

Line 393-394: delete

General comments:

Be consistent with capitalizing or not certain words and sections, e.g. sub-heading in lines 303, 324, etc. Why is Banana capitalized?

Review the Results and Discussion sections and reorganize them. There are some sentences in the results section that belong to the Discussion section.

Did authors address the fact their data is only from one year? Please elaborate on the limitation of the dataset.

Finally, please go above and beyond my edits to improve your manuscript. It is an interesting study/story that deserves publication. 

Author Response

Thank you for your positive comment to improve this manuscript. Attached is detail responses to each comment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx