Drought Stress and Livelihood Response Based on Evidence from the Koshi River Basin in Nepal: Modeling and Applications

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for sending the amendments made to original version.  While the amendments made have improved the paper, it still remains English language problems which I have not mentioned. Needs careful editing. The following minor corrections needed in the text:

Page 6

Lines 132-135: Needs to insert total number of districts in Nepal. Limitation of the study needs to put upfront. Insert the total area of Nepal in Km. Insert total population of Nepal

Page 8

Line 165: Needs to discuss further the impact of this limitation on the study taking both sources

Page 10

Lines 215-226: This para needs rewriting - to mould the general framework - what does this mean?

5. Conclusion

Start of the para: Please amend the the first line: Due to frequency of drought occurrence...... 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

i thank the authors for taking time to respond to all my comments. 

The development of the LVI is widely attributed to Hahn et al. (2009). The authors should check their reference. reference to Hahn et al. below;

Hahn, M. B., Riederer, A. M. and Foster, S. O. 2009. The Livelihood Vulnerability Index: A pragmatic approach to assessing risks from climate variability and change—A case study in Mozambique. Global Environmental Change. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.11.002

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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

1. The introduction is weak. There is no compelling argument as to why the present study worth researching. What is the problem statement? What has been done already? What is the study objective? What is this study doing different? One relevant study for insight could be the paper below;

Baffoe, G. and Matsuda, H. (2017). An Empirical Assessment of Households’ Livelihood Vulnerability: The Case of Rural Ghana. Social Indicators Research. 140(3): 1225-1257. doi: 10.1007/s11205-017-1796-9

2.  “As one of the top 10 hottest topics of scientific research in geography, vulnerability research has become an important research perspective and analytical tool”

This is not clear. Are the authors suggesting that vulnerability is an analytical too? How? The authors should note that there is a difference between conceptual framework and analytical tool. If vulnerability is an analytical tool, how will they call the sustainable livelihood framework?

3. “The Household Vulnerability Index (HVI) developed in 2004”….by who? The authors should search and cite the developers - Hahn et al. (2004).

“Empirical research on the human-Earth system mainly focuses on the macroscopic research”…this is not clear. The authors should clarify what they mean by this.

“Rain-fed agriculture relies on rainfall for irrigation. It is the main type of farming in the Koshi River Basin which is a drought-prone region, so the families are sensitive to climate change. The spring drought from 1985 to 2014 was reported to be frequent in Nepal. It occurred 4 or 5 times at least in most regions of the Koshi River Basin[38]. Frequent droughts have threatened food production, water security and livestock losses. As a result, the household income decreased and some people had to suffer from hunger, thirst, and poverty. Therefore, analyzing drought vulnerability of rural households can help us to identify potential threats and propose adaptive strategies”.

This paragraph is misplaced; it should part of the “study area”.

4. It is unclear how this study was designed. A robust write up on methodology/study design is needed. For instance, it is claimed that 130 questionnaires were administered. The question is, how were the participants selected and what informed the sample size?

5. There should be a separate section for empirical estimation technique and why that technique (strong justification needed).

6. The normalization equations need to be referenced. It is well known equation, hence not authors own creation. As such, due recognition should be given to the cited sources.

7. The study results are overly weak. How were the results arrived at? For instance, how was adaptive capacity computed? A clear computation procedure and explanation is needed for the various components.

8. The results are barely discussed, which make it confusing as to the contribution of this study. For instance, it is claimed that “ households in the three districts are involved in some other income earning activities such as fishing, collecting forest products, working in a different district, doing small business and so on, while households in all three districts depend highly on agriculture as their main source of income”. This is something which should be discussed by placing it in the broader literature on livelihood diversification. Why is this diversification important for the households?

9. Study conclusion is also misplaced. Conclusion has to bring to the fore, the summary of key findings. The current form is weak with no message.

10. The paper needs thorough editing (poorly punctuated) and proofreading.

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see attached a detailed report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf