Human Contribution to the Variation of Runoff under Climatic Background over the Laohahe Basin, Northeast China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
I have gone through the whole manuscript and found that manuscript is interesting for regional point of view. Further, written well with all aspect but still need some minor corrections before acceptable for publication. Kindly see my comments below and revised accordingly.
Comments: in the abstract authors used many times "contributions of human activities and climate change" kindly rewrite the abstract fruitfully, please.
Comment 2: English need to be checked thoroughly and revised
Comment 3: Line no 107 and table 1: Elevation should be written in meters mean sea level (masl)
Comment 4: Line no 139-126: Mann–Kendall test. ..."." dot should be replaced by ":"
Comment 5: In figure 2: Figure 2. Time series of annual precipitation, PET(potential evapotranspiration), runoff, and runoff coefficient from 1964 to 2015 in the Laohahe basin.......R2 value was found to be very very low, kindly give a proper explanation
Comment 6: in conclusion section, kindly delete the (1), (2), (3) and re-write the conclusion in technical way followed by recommendation
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Recommendations to authors
- Line 26: Please elaborate why "human activities have a greater impact in dry years than in wet years". What tangible evidence do we have to conclude this?
- Line 275: It is well known that water in the ground derived from precipitation infiltrates downward from the land surface; since rocks and soils affect both the water quantity that will be retained or will be carried away via runoff, the runoff process is inextricably linked to the geology/geomorphology of the region and this information should be taken into consideration. In addition, rocks and soils affect the erosion and therefore the geomorphology of the region (for example clay rocks/soils may have intense erosion due to runoff or intense rainfall leading to severe changes in geomorphology). Therefore, not only the geology of the area but also possible changes in geomorphology should be analyzed thoroughly to examine their impact to variations of runoff. Land use and land cover changes are being examined in the section “The impact of human activities on runoff” but again there is no reference to possible changes in geomorphology (changes in slopes, morphology, erosion etc.). I strongly believe that the geomorphology is a crucial factor that cannot be ignored and therefore both geology and changes in geomorphology should be added. If no changes have been noticed in geomorphology (slopes/erosion) after the land use changes or the changes in human activities or due to any other possible factor, it also should be mentioned in the text.
- The existence of dams or water reservoirs should also be analyzed further in the text; do they follow the same management strategy, or do they preserve the same water quantities throughout the years? Their contribution / impact to the runoff process should also be considered.
- Line 486, 488, 498: The existence of dams or water reservoirs should also be analyzed further in the text; do they follow the same management strategy, or do they preserve the same water quantities throughout the years? Their contribution / impact to the runoff process should also be considered. If authors have no detailed info, then at least they must make sure that these reservoirs/dams/ponds run the same management plans throughout the years otherwise conclusions for the changes in runoff are completely unsafe.
- Although the landscape or the geomorphology of the region obviously does not remain the same throughout the 50 years period (1965-2015), there is no reference to this either in the limitation section nor in the data analysis and the emphasis is given only on land use changes. In addition, severe runoff events or intense weather conditions (not only precipitation) may lead to changes in land slopes/erosion affecting further the results/conclusions of the current analysis and should also be taken into consideration.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for your fruitful revision
Author Response
Thank you for your comments
Reviewer 2 Report
In opinion, conclusions about the variation of runoff without examining the geological background/geomorphology are totally unsafe. You have at least to examine the geology of the area, provide a basic aspect/slope analysis of geomorphology and locate areas susceptible to erosion. Otherwise, I think you must change the title and make changes to the structure of the manuscript as well.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
