Sustainable Use of Groundwater Resources in the Transboundary Aquifers of the Five Central Asian Countries: Challenges and Perspectives

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

An important review paper. Recommend a few additions to the literature review simply to supplement already extensive literature review, including the important additions to the literature translated from Russian.

Kokimova, A. (2019) Developing a transboundary groundwater model in the water scarce region of Central Asia: a case study of the Pretashkent Transboundary Aquifer. MS thesis, IHE Delft. URL: https://www.un-igrac.org/resource/developing-transboundary-groundwater-model-water-scarce-region-central-asia-case-study

Malyar, I. (2016). Transboundary Water Institutions in Developing Countries: A Case Study in Afghanistan: Unpublished MS thesis, Oregon State University. URL: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/h415pf16m?locale=en

Pak, M. (2014). International river basin management in the face of change: Syr Darya Basin case study. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Oregon State University. URL: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/4j03d425d?locale=en

Comments

Line 25 - faire should be *fair*

Line 91 - Figure 1 - Needs a north arrow and bar scale

Line 128 - Figure 2 - Needs a north arrow and bar scale

Line 133 - Table 1 - Formatting in last column has four problems: (1) the column header needs to be enlarged (or text reduced) so the parenthesis closes on (km); (2) some of the numbers have extra spaces; (3) numbers need commas; and (4) AS71 not listed, including name, countries, and area.

Line 155 - Some places in text both the numerical designation is only used, some places just the name, sometimes both. Recommend both throughout text.

Line 243 - Citation footnote superscripted with unit.

Line 255 - "Syr Darya aquifer groundwater in the basin" - why is *aquifer groundwater* placed together. Isn't reference to *aquifer* sufficient?

Line 280 - Table 2 - Same issue with Table 1 regarding text in columns. See *Groundwater Pumping*

Line 292 - Table 3 - Same issue with Table 1 regarding text in columns. See *AS47*

Line 312 - "Groundwater quality in Asian" - Groundwater quality in *Central* Asian

Line 412 - "resources in plain areas" - resources in *the* plain areas

Line 414 - " Central Asian countries should recharge groundwater in a timely manner" - does recharge refer to *managed, or artificial* recharge?

Line 525 - GRETA - *GGRETA*

Line 564 - "central asis" - *Central Asia*?

Author Response

Thank you very much for your time in reviewing our manuscript and for the invaluable comments and suggestions. The mentioned literature was added to the manuscript. Please see the attahced responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript addresses a topic of greatest interest such as that of transboundary aquifers in a context of climate change and extremely complex environment. I must also highlight the effort made to take in account the different points of view and not merely the hydrogeological one.

 

 

Author Response

We greatly appreciate this comment and suggestion.

Reviewer 3 Report

Summary

This manuscript reports summary and perspective of transboundary aquifers in an area. This would be helpful to set up a policy of water resources management. The main problem is that this manuscript would not be able to answer a scientific question related to hydrological sciences. I could not find any hypothesis to answer a scientific question. I fear that in its present state this manuscript would draw little attention from the Water readership. I leave it to the editor to either pursue in this direction or advise the authors to submit this manuscript to a journal specialized in other hydrological area.

Author Response

Thank you for your time in reviewing our manuscript. We greatly appreciate your comments. We have supplemented and revised the manuscript and have added the research methods for hydrogeological unit classification.

Reviewer 4 Report

Although authors picked a significant topic to investigate in this manuscript. It is a half cooked review paper, with significant drawbacks.

1. Even being a review paper, there is no methodology.
2. Organization of current manuscript looks like a report rather than a scientific manuscript.
3. There is a complete lack of concrete findings and conclusion. 
4. A thorough rewriting is required to shape it before submitting again for the peer review publication.   

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you very much for your time in reviewing our manuscript and for the invaluable comments and suggestions. We have supplemented and revised the manuscript and have added the research methods for hydrogeological unit classification. Please see the attahced responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

No comments.

Author Response

Thank you for your time spent reviewing our manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

I appreciate that the authors have taken time to carefully edit the manuscript, which has improved clarity. However, ultimately the authors have not been able to fully address the original reviewer comments to any hydrological scientific issue. Without this improvement, I do not believe that the manuscript would draw little attention from the Water readership.I leave it to the editor to either pursue in this direction, or advise the authors to submit this manuscript to a journal more specialized in local issues

Author Response

Thank you for your time spent reviewing our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Although authors have responded to most of the queries, few minor things still needs to be looked at (please have a look a attached reviewed manuscript) before it can be accepted for the publication.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you again for your comments that led to the improvement of our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx