A Detailed Assessment of Groundwater Quality in the Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, and Suitability for Future Development
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
OK
Author Response
Thank you very much for your support in peer-reviewing !
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript aimed to assess the general situation of groundwater quality in Kabul Basin and provide an interpretation of the suitability of quality for drinking and for irrigation. Authors identified 15 observation points for sampling and characterization of local groundwater quality. The results of the analysis show that groundwater in majority areas of the Kabul basin is not generally suitable for human consumption and this relevant finding should be taken into consideration by politicians to begin remediation actions from a public health perspective. However, probably further studies are needed to depict completely this scenario.
The introduction is exhaustive and the methods section explain in detail the areas under study and the parameters analyzed. The results and discussion section shows clearly the outputs of all analyses given interpretations of them. Finally, the conclusion resumes the main findings of the study.
Although it is usual to provide comments to authors, in this specific case, after reading the manuscript carefully, I believe that the manuscript deserves to be published in the present form.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your support in peer-reviewing !
Yes, definitely, we will continue to work on the water qaulity issues.
We hope to prepare the next level publications and convince our government to invest more on the water remediation programs.
Reviewer 3 Report
compared to the first submission the work has improved a lot so it can be accepted
Author Response
Thank you very much for your support in peer-reviewing !
Reviewer 4 Report
This is a resubmission of the manuscript, which needed to be much improved. The Authors describe quality of groundwater in Kabul Basin and its suitability for further development of that region. The presented results come from their own research and are possessed from different authorities like Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees DACAAR. Composition of the article is correct, it is written in clear, understandable English and is interesting to the reader.
The general remark is that the manuscript in its actual form is much better than before. The Authors introduced to the text most of the suggested remarks.
Detailed suggestions:
In the title of Table 7 "Ilustrates" should be removed.
In the titles of Fig.5, Tab.9 and Tab.10 "Shows" should be removed.
Prior to publication, citation order and reference list should be organized according to Journal requirements.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Andreja,
the updated manuscript is attached
Reviewer 4:
Point 1: In the title of Table 7 “illustrate” should be removed.
Response 1: the word “illustrate” is removed from the title of the Table 7 in line number 326.
Point 2: In the titles of Fig. 5, Tab.9 and Tab.10 “show” should be removed.
Response 2: As it was suggested, the word “show” was removed from the titles of Fig.5, Tab.9 and Tab.10 in line numbers 323, 359 and 430 respectively.
Point 3: Prior to publication, citation order and reference list should be organized according to Journal requirements.
Response 3: The citation order and reference list were organized as the Journal requirement.
Round 2
Reviewer 4 Report
My suggestions for small changes in the text are introduced.
No objection to the content of the manuscript.
In my opinion the reference still should be corrected according to the journal's guidelines: References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. (there are some typing mistakes, eg. lack of authors initials)
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Manuscript water-902935 reports a study about the water quality assessment of Kabul Basin groundwater.
The main problems of the manuscript are the methods/methodology applied by the Authors. One of the aims of this study is determine the suitability of water for drinking purposes. However, to do so is not sufficient to carry out a study of only two months (March - April 2018). Groundwater geochemistry is closely related to weather conditions, human activity, and is influenced by seasonal and interannual climate variations. In addition, a two-month study produces huge problems regarding statistical significance.
I suggest to the authors, to resubmit the manuscript after at least another year of monitoring.
Below are some suggestions for improving the manuscript:
- The manuscript has some grammar and language issues, which need to be addressed. A thorough review of the manuscript is necessary.
- I suggest to the authors, to process the data using appropriate statistic methodology (e.g. PCA, Cluster analysis etc.).
- for a better assessment of the water quality it is important to analyze the metal content in the groundwater (e.g. Cr, Ni, Zn, Cu etc.)
Reviewer 2 Report
The study is very interesting and analyses groundwater quality in Kabul Basin, Afghanistan. The authors show that the groundwater of Kabul basin is in a bad condition, as it is not suitable for drinking because of high contamination.
In my view, article can be published but before I would like to see some changes of the manuscript.
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Minor revisions:
The number of references in the text is wrong. The number of the first reference in the text is [12]. Please, check and modify the references.
At the end of the introduction section, the authors should be clarify better the aim of the study.
Line 41-42. There is two times the word often. Please, do a change.
The section number 2. "Study area" should be included in the section number 3.Materials and Methods. Please, change the number.
Line 127. Why did you write "Table4"? The order of the table is wrong. Please, read instruction for the autors.
Line 160-161. There is something wrong. Please, correct it.
Please, change the number to the chapter results. It becomes number 3 instead number 4.
Reviewer 3 Report
water-902935
Title: A detailed assessment of groundwater quality in Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, and suitability for future development
The manuscript water-902935 concern a geochemical study of groundwater quality in Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, and suitability for future development
The paper concerns an interesting topic and contains numerous data that however require a substantial reorganization and a better presentation.
I recommend it for publication after a major revision.
Below, I report general remarks that may help the authors to rewrite the manuscripts and organize its new version.
In the introduction, many references on the topic of natural pollution are missing, see for example:
Apollaro, C., Fuoco, I., Brozzo, G., & De Rosa, R. (2019). Release and fate of Cr (VI) in the ophiolitic aquifers of Italy: the role of Fe (III) as a potential oxidant of Cr (III) supported by reaction path modelling. Science of the Total Environment, 660, 1459-1471
Critelli, Teresa, Luigi Marini, Jacques Schott, Vasileios Mavromatis, Carmine Apollaro, Thomas Rinder, Rosanna De Rosa, and Eric H. Oelkers. "Dissolution rates of actinolite and chlorite from a whole-rock experimental study of metabasalt dissolution from 2≤ pH≤ 12 at 25 C." Chemical geology 390 (2014): 100-108
The geological map is missing! I think a schematic one should be included
The description of the analytical methodologies used in the laboratory is missing!
Figure 2 does not indicate the pH trend
The diagram in figure 3 are wrong! The waters are not predominantly calcium
Check the correct correspondence between the numbers of the tables and the equations in the text
ADD in the references:
Apollaro, C., Fuoco, I., Brozzo, G., & De Rosa, R. (2019). Release and fate of Cr (VI) in the ophiolitic aquifers of Italy: the role of Fe (III) as a potential oxidant of Cr (III) supported by reaction path modelling. Science of the Total Environment, 660, 1459-1471
Critelli, Teresa, Luigi Marini, Jacques Schott, Vasileios Mavromatis, Carmine Apollaro, Thomas Rinder, Rosanna De Rosa, and Eric H. Oelkers. "Dissolution rates of actinolite and chlorite from a whole-rock experimental study of metabasalt dissolution from 2≤ pH≤ 12 at 25 C." Chemical geology 390 (2014): 100-108
Reviewer 4 Report
The Authors describe quality of groundwater in Kabul Basin and its suitability for further development of that region. The presented results come from their own research and are possessed from different authorities like Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees DACAAR. Composition of the article is correct, it is written in clear, understandable English and is interesting to the reader.
The general remark is that the manuscript needs very careful reading and correction by the Authors. There are many editing and language errors like incorrect Table or Figure numbers, lack of row numbering from page 11 till the end of manuscript. The order of the references is enigmatic.
Detailed remarks:
lines from 147: WQI is defined. 12 parameters are selected. You should justify why these 12 were choosen. Why you did not choose any biological parameter although fecal coliforms were determined. Antropogenic contamination has an important meaning when consider safe use by citizens. No such results presented in the paper.
line 158 eq1 and line 162 Tab2. all parameters were assigned a weight wi, with the range from 1 to 5. You should explain your choice of specific values for different parameters.
line 182 wrong table number. Change title.
line 204 - not necessary to explain definition of pH
line 239 - Tab4 units: mg CaCO3/L ? please specify. Hardness Category columns should be moved to the end of table or removed and described below the table as text. Here makes more difficult to read the table.
line 269 the title of fig3 should be changed eg. The piper diagram of the groundwater type in Kabul basin.
Table5 - units: μS/cm, mg/L - not clear, eg. mgN or mgNO3 /L for nitrate?
Fig4 - change title
Table6 compression or comparison?
page 13 p.4.4 - number of table in the text is missing
Tab8 first row - names should be turned 180 degrees
Tab9 - change title
Tab10 - check units
page 17 Conclusion , last paragraph: purposed or proposed or recommended?
