An Index-Flood Statistical Model for Hydrological Drought Assessment
, Vojtěch Moravec 1,2, Yannis Markonis 1, Petr Máca 1, Jan Masner 3, Michal Stočes 3 and Martin Hanel 1,2,4Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
General comments
The work presented contains interesting topics, its abstract is accurate and informative including the study's purpose, main findings, and main conclusions. The research objectives are significant and concisely stated; the interpretations and conclusions are justified by the results, the subject matter is within the scope of the journal. The figures and tables represent accurately the results. The research questions and the achieved results are correctly focused in the context of the recent literature.
Minor comments
-Page 2, line 47, a comma should be introduced after the word “events”.
-Page 5, line 179, a bracket should be introduced.
-Page 5, line 181, a bracket should be introduced.
-Page 5, the authors should better explain how the l1 values were used as the scaling factor in the application of the index-flood method; for example in the equation 4, the l1 L-Moment represents the mean, which is equal to 1 only for the rescaled l1 L-Moment; moreover regarding the equation 5, looking Hosking and Wallis 1993, the coefficient of L-variation, τ, should be equal to λ2/λ1 and not to λ1/λ2.
-Page 7, the description of the Anderson-Darling test should be improved in order to give to the reader the possibility to reproduce the application.
-Finally in my opinion the authors should introduce more references regarding the flood frequency analysis in the context of flood extremes events investigation (e.g. Blazkova and Beven 1997, Iacobellis et al., 2010).
References
Blazkova S., Beven K., Flood frequency prediction for data limited catchments in the Czech Republic using a stochastic rainfall model and TOPMODEL. Journal of Hydrology 195 (1997) 256-278.
Hosking j. r. m. and Wallis J.R. Some statistics useful in regional frequency analysis, Water Resources Research, Vol. 29, NO.2, Pages 271-281, Febbruary 1993.
Iacobellis V., Fiorentino M., Gioia A. and Manfreda S. “Best Fit and Selection of Theoretical Flood Frequency Distributions Based on Different Runoff Generation Mechanisms”, Water 2010, 2(2), 239-256; doi:10.3390/w2020239, ISSN 2073-4441, www.mdpi.com/journal/water, 2010.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The target of the manuscript is the assessment of the deficit volume by means of an index-flood statistical model. However, it is difficult to understand if it is a case study or a methodological proposal.
Focusing the analysis on the runoff, a low attention is given to the influence of climate, geology, land use and water storage on the deficit volume. However, the restricted perspective of the study is clear from the title itself. Title inside wich I suggest to insert "Hydrological" (see attached file on minor comments).
The sections Results and Discussion are confused. The result descriptions and the talking about them are in both the sections. This is already done in the first lines [247-267], starting from the comments on the basic characteristics of the four 30-year periods. It would be better, a single section from the title "Results and Discussion".
Some references are not in agree with the Instructions for Authors. Please, carefully check is required.
Minor comments are in the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript is well written and clear in its form. The objectives are cleary stated; the methods are extensively explained. The statistical methods used for evaluate the goodness of fit of the model are adequately described also in their mathematical formulation. Although the core of the research (the use of a statistical model for a water deficit volume as an indicator of drought) does not constitute a big novelty, neither its application to the watersheds of Czech Republic, the method for drought frequency analysis, and the related statistical tests represent a valid approach to a consistent climate-change related problem, and can be usefully transferred to other case studies. Authors should pay attention to small text editing errors; moreover, some sentences may be expressed in a clearer form, as outlined in the attached file.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
