Geochemical Implication of Chemical Composition of Mineral Water (Bottled Water) Produced Near Mt. Baekdu (Changbai), Northeast China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

 Here is my review on the manuscript ID: water-1307895, entitled “Geochemical implication of chemical composition of mineral water (bottled water) produced near Mt. Baekdu (Changbai), Northeast China, by Seung-Gu Lee et al. This manuscript is well organized, and interesting hydrogeochemical characteristics, including isotopes (δ¹⁸Ο, δD, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr)  of hot and cold spring water in the surrounding area of Mt. Baekdu are provided. Based on the presented and literature geochemical data these authors suggested that monitoring of bottle water derived from a volcanic  area may be useful to explain the variation in chemical compositions of the groundwater as a result of the water-rock interactions. In my opinion, this manuscript can be published in the Water journal after minor revision.

 

Specific comments:

• Please define abbreviations, such as EC, DO, Eh (Table 1) , BDS, TDS,  …….where they are used for first time.
• Table 1: Units for temperature are missing.
• Symbols for the water type in all Figures are not well readable. They can be improved.
• In general, please keep the same way to express concentrations. For example, Figure 9, 87Sr/86Sr ratios vs 1/Sr concentrations (ppm) …………..while on the diagram axis the unit mg/L is used. Also, I think it is better to use the term concentration only because the term content (lines 61, 66…) is commonly used for solids.
• I think that the section of the discussion and conclusions can be improved with arguments.

Best wishes

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

First of all, we appreciate your positive answer for our manuscript.

We revised our manuscript by referring to two reviewers’ comments as follows; I revised most of the reviewer’s comment.

The reviewer 1 asked us the following comments.  

  Please define abbreviations, such as EC, DO, Eh (Table 1) , BDS, TDS, …….where they are used for first time.

Reply: We defined them in Table 1.

BDS and BSS were defined at lines 93-94 and TDS was defined at line 222 of the revised version.

  Table 1: Units for temperature are missing.

Reply: We input.

  Symbols for the water type in all Figures are not well readable. They can be improved.

Reply: We revised Figures 2~6 and 8~9.

  In general, please keep the same way to express concentrations. For example, Figure 9, 87Sr/86Sr ratios vs 1/Sr concentrations (ppm) …………..while on the diagram axis the unit mg/L is used. Also, I think it is better to use the term concentration only because the term content (lines 61, 66…) is commonly used for solids.

Reply: We revised it at Figure 9 caption.

 I think that the section of the discussion and conclusions can be improved with arguments.

Reply: With redrawing of Figures 2-9 (symbol changes), we revised some parts in the discussion (lines 242~258, blue colored). 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

See attached pdf for recommendations and suggestions

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

First of all, we appreciate your positive answer for our manuscript.

We revised our manuscript by referring to two reviewers’ comments as follows; I revised most of the reviewer’s comment.

The reviewer 2 asked us the following comments. 

General recommendations:

1. Throughout the paper place the anion/cation charges on the species when you mention them in the text, be consistent.

Reply: We revised them all (placed the anion/cation charges on the species).

2. Another consistency issue in figures 3 and 4. Both figures are showing mostly the same ions between the two different samples (BDS – figure 3 and BSS figure 4). I don’t like that the same ions in the two different figures are different colors. For example, in figure 3 the K+ ion is an orange color whereas in figure 4 K+ is a yellow color. Keep the ions in both figures the same color. This will help facilitate visual comparisons between the two figures.

Reply: This comments are very good. We revised them. Particularly, we changed the color of the explanation of each species name with the color of the lines.

3. In figures 3 and 4 the x-axes of dates looks congested and tough to read, I would see if there is a clearer way to express it (less dates printed on x-axis?...). Also during the time period when the variation in BDS sample was noticed should be indicated better than 150830 – 160318. Perhaps something like 8/30/2015 3/18/2016 to be comsistent with the notation used in the x-axes.

Reply: We revised them. In addition, we also give a change in the notation in the x-axes.

.

Minor corrects:

Line 40: Insert the word “many” between of and potentially

Line 46: Besides is not the correct word. You might try replacing Besides with “In addition…”

Line 55: hot is misspelled

Line 75: removed “tried” and change compare to compared

Line 78: around is misspelled

Line 91: make water plural to be waters

Line 113: Change visit to visited

Line 129: Change carried to conducted

Line 129: change weeks to week

Line 207: This sentence seems awkward. Change the entire sentence to “ Figures 3 and 4 show the variation of the chemical components of the two bottled waters during the two year monitoring period.

Line 275: Change trend to trends

Line 275: change from to “of the…”

Line 335-336: Move the sentence fragment “from April, 2015 to September 2016” after the word collected.

Reply: We revised minor comments mentioned by reviewer 2. Particularly, the comment for line 207 was revised at lines 217~219. The changed parts were shown by blue colors in the revised version.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx