The Impact of Human Interventions and Changes in Climate on the Hydro-Chemical Composition of Techirghiol Lake (Romania)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this paper, the authors presented the variations of hydro-chemical characteristics of Techirghiol Lake. The object of this study is to establish the effect of climate change and anthropic interventions on this lake, but there are no any detailed discussions about this. It only described the superficial phenomenon of their data obtained from different sources. It lacks the interpretation and extrapolation of their findings and comparing with other literatures and data. This ms reads like a simple data reporting. Thus, I cannot recommend that the ms is published. The specific comments are as follows: In introduction: There are some descriptions of effects of climate and human on lake hydro-chemical dynamics in the Introduction, but it should analyze the limitations of the previous research and clarify the innovation points of your own research. Introduction should also include some problems you should try to solve and the description of novelty for the study. I can’t see any research objectives related to your study. The basic methods and assumptions are never laid out. Line 34, delete “ was” Line 142-145, you mentioned that the annual precipitation has been below the multiannual precipitation from 1995, then you concluded that 1994 is the break point year. Please explain how you can conclude this and make a logical explanation. In Figure 3, 4 and 5, I suggest to plot the three figures together in order to compare them better. Line 190-192, if there is a relationship between water level and total water inputs, please provide their correlation coefficients in the ms. In Results and Discussion, I just saw the presentation of the data and the description of the data. There is no in-depth discussion of the data and comparisons with other data. We can't see the essential problems behind the existing research results, which can't support the innovation of the research and reflect the importance of the research.Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for reading our work and providing your feedback. We appreciate your time and effort, your encouragement and advice, and we will use this in future revisions.
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript submitted for review concerns the impact of human interventions and climate changes on hydro-chemical composition of Techirghiol Lake . Nowadays, when so much attention is paid to human impact and climat changes on the environment, this is a topical topic.
The manuscript contains descriptions of studies that have been well planned, carried out and interpreted.
Below are some small notes to the manuscript:
1. in the title you should add the location of the lake (country, region)
2. a more general map with the location of the research area should be added, especially for readers outside Europe
3. the manuscript lacks the exact and unambiguous specification of what time period the study relates to (years)
4. Fig. 6 is poorly readable. Consider placing the charts vertically (a above b) instead of side by side
5. are there any newer measurements (BOD, DO, pH etc.) outside of 2015? The charts show that in previous years measurements were made every year. If so, then place them in the text and refer to them.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Overview of article
The authors present an historical evaluation of changes in climate, hydrology, and water chemistry within the context of changing human uses and management of an economically important lake. The article offers an important view of how these changes can combine to impact saline lakes, in particular. The authors have combined historical knowledge of human activities and management of the lake and the surrounding areas with a compilation of data detailing precipitation, river discharge and more. The research in this paper is interesting and will provide an overview of how multiple factors in the ever-changing world interact to produce important shifts in ecosystems.
Unfortunately the story is hard to follow due to the very loose writing style, imprecise and (at times) inaccurate language, failure to explain methods, and most importantly failure to provide adequate context and discussion surrounding the results. The authors do not appear to have used any statistical tests to support their claims, relying solely on visual interpretations of graphs.
General comments
- Confusing use of phrase “climate change” when the authors are studying changes in climate. The subtle difference between the two phrases describes important differences in interpretation and intent.
- Language editing throughout would make this paper easier to read.
- Introduction is exceedingly short and would benefit from additional contextualization.
- Novelty or purpose of the study is not stated clearly
- Use of terms inconsistent with expectations (most problematically “overland flow” is not the same as river dicharge)
- Lack of statistical methods to describe the trends that appear to be reported using visual interpretation in isolation
- Seems like an oversight not to cite this paper that I found while completing the review: Zaharia, L., Perju, R. and Ioana-Toroimac, G., 2018. Climate changes and effects on river flow in the Romanian Carpathians. Aerul si Apa. Componente ale Mediului, pp.211-218.
- Authors present a subset of available precipitation data without explanation. Would the results of the study change if the complete dataset were included?
- Concerns of self-plagiarism from a conference paper (citation #25). A combination of the language and text from the cited work with the modifications commented on in this review could make for a much better paper.
- Incomplete description of methods and data
- The results and discussion sections are labelled as being combined but are not actually combined in the text. In fact, there is little discussion among the sentences describing the min, max, etc of the graphs that provides context for the focus of the paper. The main analysis and comparison of changes in historical climate, human uses, and water chemistry occur within 10 lines (lines 211-221) and do not adequately expand upon the individual statements to tell a story.
- Abbreviations (e.g. “PEM/PEB”) are introduced in the results/discussion section that appear to have significance. I can only guess that these are categories assigned to ecosystems to aid in comparisons among multiple ecosystems. I could not find information in the Water Framework Directive or the Water Romanian Methodologies that describe what these might allude to.
- The BOD section seems out of place and is not integrated into the larger story of changing salinity in the current text. Again, the pieces of the story are presented but then the work to see how those pieces fit together to tell a story is left to the reader.
Specific comments
- Line 14-15 : language here makes sentence difficult to understand “ Located on Black Sea littoral,”
- Line 20: language here makes sentence difficult to understand “when the extensive culture irrigation practice”
- Line 30: expand these semi-colon statements into full sentences that support the development of the research being introduced.
- Figure one:
- Units on graticules should be lat/long
- No need to label lakes not included in the study. It makes the legend hard to read.
- There appear to be 3 dams on the study lake. Is each basin completely isolated from each other? If the dams are not important to the study, leave the polygon all the same color do de-emphasize the basins.
- The features in the inset map need to be labelled. I am not sure what is shown here. Also, there seems to be an additional polygon that might be another catchment?
- Add information about the importance of the Dobrogea Plateau.
- Drop Figure 1 and integrate lat long into Figure 2. I do not see what Figure 1 offers that is not covered more fully in Figure 2.
- Line 69: reference the figure where these data are presented
- Line 82-83: clarify language-->valleys cannot be intermittent.
- Lines 83-85: clarify language-->valleys are also not tributaries
- Line 88: re-organize this for flow and clarity. Those lines on the map are dams and they are important for the purpose of the paper.
- Line 91: Overland flow and river discharge are not interchangeable words. I believe you are referring to river discharge throughout the paper.
- Methods section can be condensed into 2 sections for clarity and flow: Study Area Characteristics (describing the climate, geology, hydrogeology, and hydrology) and Anthropogenic Setting.
- Add a table as has been done in citation #25 that outlines the human management actions
- Lines 102+: label these hydraulic works on the map
- Lines 105-107: this sentence is a result of the trend analysis and seems inappropriate in the Methods section
- Line 119: neither Belona Lake nor Eforie City are on the provided figure maps.
- Lines 130-133: this sentence provides valuable context that readers should have earlier in the manuscript
- Lines 133-134: is the temperature increase 0.8C per year? Clarify this language.
- Figure 3
- Axis titles need to be capitalized
- X-axis need to be truncated to the extent of the dataset (2015, not 2030)
- Modify Y-axis digits to eliminate unnecessary decimals
- Labels within graph is illegible.
- Add text describing the contents of the Figure to the legend
- Line 141: this sentence is not a topic sentence for a paragraph. Rather it continues the information in the previous paragraph. Remove the paragraph formatting here.
- Line 141-142: trends in the data should be represented using a trend fitting statistic, such as linear regression. The text currently sounds as if the trends are determined via visual methods.
- Lines 142-144: this statement seems the opposite of what the graph shows. It appears that the precip is HIGHER than the annual average except for the mentioned years.
- Line 144: the authors state that they have determined a break point year but their methods again appear to be visual inspection alone.
- Precip Data: it appears that the authors present a subset of the available data. Other papers report precip data back to 1901 and report that the region of the reviewed paper has experienced a significant increase in precip over this time period of 0.8mm per year.
- Line 151: why should it be noted that those changes occurred? This is not discussed with relevance to the river discharge data.
- Figure 4: update as previously stated.
- Figure 4: why is this graphic cited?
- Phreatic Input: the author might be referring to groundwater input. This is abstracted with the use of this word at this stage of the paper.
- Lines 160-161: imprecise and inaccurate language. The data are no “constantly” increasing.
- Line 163: explain “did not have the expected effect”
- Line 164: incomplete integration of human management actions and trends in water data. The authors leave too much of the discussion to finish on their own. The evidence is not connected together to form a cohesive story.
- Figure 5: typo in y axis
- Figure 5: update as previously stated
- Line 176: imprecise language. The water level does not swing that much in 1998. However, over the period of record it does indeed range between those values.
- Line 185: create a new paragraph for salinity. This is currently buried within a paragraph describing water levels.
- Line 185: misstated. Salinity does not depend on lake level. It might be linked but the way it is stated lake level drives salinity. Show evidence of a direct correlation.
- Line 186: spelling error for “severe”
- Lines 190-198: again, provide evidence to support your claims of correlations here
- Lines 193-198: these sentences belong in methods, not results/discussion
- Line 202: spelling error for “below”
- Figure 7
- Remove the top labels that duplicate the x-axis labels
- Is the blue highlighted line a moving average? Explain this.
- Line 207-208: edit for complete and correct language
- Line 213: define what PEM/PEB are and explain the relevance to your study
- Lines 211-221: This paragraph seem to be the focus of the analysis and the “take-home message”. It is very complex to explain the multiple factors that are playing a role in the changing salinity of Lake Techirghiol. This series of sentences provides the pieces of the story but these pieces need to be integrated more completely within the story. Perhaps I idea is to use a graphical timeline in accompaniment to the figures presented, as has been done in the cited paper #25.
Author Response
Please see the attachmen
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This ms has been improved and responded to all the comments appropriately. This can be accepted after some minor revisions.
Line 241: change concluded to conclude
Line 376-382: This should be the "discussion". Put the sentence to discussion.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your time and effort.
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Most of the reviewer's comments were included in the text of the revised manuscript. However, I think that since "there are registrations after 2015, but it is very difficult to obtain them from agencies. We need special aprovement." Authors should try to obtain this data and attach it to the manuscript.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your time and effort.
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
