Development and Verification of the Available Number of Water Intake Days in Ungauged Local Water Source Using the SWAT Model and Flow Recession Curves

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, 

I have gone through the paper and found that authors did a very good attempts to write this paper but paper could be considered for publication after major revision;

1) Kindly revised the introduction in line with state-of the art of the study, discussed about the models used in the past and then SWAT model used for this study. This will make the researcher clear bout the importance of SWAT for this area (see this as a reference an cite ; https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10807039.2016.1209077; https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/3/657)

2) Author calibarated the model for 1-2 year, why only 2 year data were used, is there any logic behind ? why not 2006-2018 devided into 5 year caliberation (min) and 7 year validation 

3) Figures generated in this paper is too much, kindly shift some of the unnecessary figures in the supplementary part and then revised the result and discussion  

4) Conclusion need to be re-written fruitfully 

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review. I revised it to reflect your opinion as much as possible and attached it as a file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Paper is very quality structured, all chapters are in logical and style order, the literature review section is elaborated and explained very well. Methodology is defined with the respect of the postulate of main idea, which is establishment of the water balance, i.e. number and amount of the water intake. After several readings and provided analysis, I am proposing major revision. Despite the field work, which is very respectable, and also an added value of the paper, there is a lack of the connection between the precipitation and the river flow. Such is essential in order to completely describe hydrogram peaks at first, and lately recession curve. Authors should provide such analysis. Figure 10. is too ambitiously defined. There is a too many observed values in such long period. What about the peaks of the hydrogram? I am proposing very detailed explanation for this or removing. Authors should avoid such small font/size on the figures, i.e. 8 and 9.

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review. I revised it to reflect your opinion as much as possible and attached it as a file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is focusing on providing information for drought response and water resource planning in the region. The problem is important and complicated to solve. The solution proposed by the authors is pragmatic. However, the approach is based here more on intuition than on scientific evidence. The modeling is based on a rather short calibration dataset (just a length of 1 year) and relatively lower quality input data (flows). Can that be considered as sufficient? I am afraid that not. The study is in principle a local case study using standard methods in the world. In order to publish this study (one catchment) in this journal, it would need to offer proven methodological advances, which based on higher-quality observed input data. This approach still needs refinements, and I cannot recommend to publish it in this form. A relatively major revision may improve the chances of acceptance.

Small comments:
Line 283 -  Digital elevation model is in Fig. c (not a)
Line 297 - Land use map is in Fig. a (not c)
... results of calibration and validation of SWAT model: the values of observed and simulated flow ​​seem to be different in Fig. 8a hydrograph and 8b scatterplot (c-d; e-f etc.; Fig. 9 too), different scale on Y-axis. Is it correct? They not equal with the values of flows in Fig. 7. Can the authors explain this?

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review. I revised it to reflect your opinion as much as possible and attached it as a file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The article bearing the title "Development and Verification of the Available Number of Water Intake Days in Ungauged Local Water Source Using the SWAT Model and Flow Recession Curves" is very interesting for the readers of water. the article can be accepted after major revision. 1- abstract need to revised because it consist of more introduction instead of methodology and results. 2- introduction focus on Korea, there is also require some international scenarios. 3- what is novelty of the study as well as objectives of the study 4- why you use SWAT model, also compare with other models in introduction section. 5- also compare the recent findings with previous studies in discussion section which is miss in this manuscript 6-some latest studies also require to cite in this manuscript 7- how you decide the threshold levels in this study

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your careful review. I revised it to reflect your opinion as much as possible and attached it as a file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for fruitful revision

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors still didn't enclose/explain or provide connection/relationship between flow and precipitation. Their answer on my comment 1 doesn't satisfy my request because nothing is not done by that. All other comments are satisfied. 

Reviewer 3 Report

In principle, I am satisfied with all answers. This paper is a correctly elaborated case study (However, the question remains whether it corresponds to the scope of the journal).