A New Multi-Objective Optimization Model of Water Resources Considering Fairness and Water Shortage Risk

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript presents: A New Multi-Objective Optimization Model of Water Resources Considering Fairness and Water Shortage Risk , which is interesting. This subject addressed is within the scope of the journal. However, the manuscript in the present version contains several problems. Appropriate revisions should be undertaken in order to justify recommendation for publication.

 

1. It is mentioned that  improved NSGA-III is used as main model. What are the advantages of adopting this particular method over others in this case? How will this affect the results? More details should be furnished.
2.     For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges, and your original achievements to overcome them, in a clearer way in abstract and introduction.
3.     It is mentioned that Wusu City is adopted as the case study. What are other feasible alternatives? What are the advantages of adopting this case study over others in this case? How will this affect the results? The authors should provide more details on this.
4. There is a serious concern regarding the novelty of this work. What new has been proposed?
5. Abstract needs to modify and to be revised to be quantitative. You can absorb readers' consideration by having some numerical results in this section.
6. There are some occasional grammatical problems within the text. It may need the attention of someone fluent in English language to enhance the readability.
7.  Since all the figures have low-resolution printing, the reviewer cannot recognize them clearly. Please revise them with high resolution.
8. The discussion section in the present form is relatively weak and should be strengthened with more details and justifications.
9. In conclusion section, limitations and recommendations of this research should be highlighted.
10. The authors have to add the state-of-the art references in the manuscripts.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kindly comments on our manuscript. There is no doubt that these comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript. In what follows, we would like to answer the questions you mentioned and give detailed account of the changes made to the original manuscript, and we have made revision which marked in yellow in the paper.

  Q1: It is mentioned that improved NSGA-III is used as main model. What are the advantages of adopting this particular method over others in this case? How will this affect the results? More details should be furnished.

  Reply1: The improved NSGA-III has the advantage over other methods that it solves the problems of difficulty in determining the reference point division and poor Pareto frontier adaptability to actual problems.  We marked the specific details in 2.2.1 NSGA-III and 2.2.2 ARNSGA-III.

Q2: For readers to quickly catch your contribution, it would be better to highlight major difficulties and challenges, and your original achievements to overcome them, in a clearer way in abstract and introduction.

Reply2: In order to highlight our contribution, we have made detailed explanations in the abstract and introduction.

Q3: It is mentioned that Wusu City is adopted as the case study. What are other feasible alternatives? What are the advantages of adopting this case study over others in this case? How will this affect the results? The authors should provide more details on this.

Reply3: Wusu City is a water-scarce city. Previously, there was no optimal allocation of water resources in this area. The water resource allocation plan is supplied based on demand, and there were water conflicts in various industries and regions. The advantage of this case study is adopting the fairness and water shortage risks can effectively solve the local water supply conflicts. The water resources allocation plan of other research areas may be supplied based on demand, and the research method of this case is not applicable.

Q4: There is a serious concern regarding the novelty of this work. What new has been proposed?

Reply4: The innovations of this research are as follows: 1. We proposed an improved NSGA-III, which is used to solve the practical problem of Pareto's poor frontier adaptability. 2. In order to solve water conflicts in water-scarce areas, we proposed to take water equity and water shortage risk as objective functions at the same time, effectively solving the problem of unfair water distribution.

Q5: Abstract needs to modify and to be revised to be quantitative. You can absorb readers' consideration by having some numerical results in this section.

Reply5: We have used quantitative data to highlight our key points in the abstract.

Q6: There are some occasional grammatical problems within the text. It may need the attention of someone fluent in English language to enhance the readability.

Reply 6: We have asked someone who is fluent in English to correct the grammatical errors in the manuscript.

Q7: Since all the figures have low-resolution printing, the reviewer cannot recognize them clearly. Please revise them with high resolution.

Reply 7: We have modified the graphics in the manuscript to high resolution.

Q8: The discussion section in the present form is relatively weak and should be strengthened with more details and justifications.

Reply 8: We have added corresponding details in the discussion section.

Q9: In conclusion section, limitations and recommendations of this research should be highlighted.

Reply 9: In the conclusion section, we have emphasized the limitations of this study and made corresponding recommendations.

Q10: The authors have to add the state-of-the art references in the manuscripts. 

Reply 10: We have added the latest research literature to the manuscript.

Special thanks to you for your good comments.

Yours sincerely,

Reviewer 2 Report

Tang et al. propose an improved NSGA-III based on the reference point selection strategy (ARNSGA-III) to solve the optimization model. The work is interesting falling into the scope of Water. The manuscript can be further considered after taking into account the following comments/suggestion aiming to improve the quality of the manuscript.

• Improve the introduction section by briefly describing some of the previous research.
• The introduction is short, and does not provide sufficient background to the problem. Why this study is of significance for the literature? What can be learned from it? What has been published? What are the improvements? How this research would be useful for the community?
• The manuscript lacks proper citation. Lots of statements have been brought without citating the reference.
• Provide a background about other optimization algorithms. Why the authors choose this algorithm, and what is the advantages?
• The authors need to present employed algorithm in more details, and describe every step in the implementation process to make the work reproducible by interested readers.
• You need to use some statistical analysis to evaluate the obtained results.
• You need to analyze the errors on the results. Please add an error analysis to comprehensively investigate the error to show the validity of your results.
• You need to improve the conclusion section. how this research will benefit the community?

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kindly comments on our manuscript. There is no doubt that these comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript. In what follows, we would like to answer the questions you mentioned and give detailed account of the changes made to the original manuscript, and we have made revision which marked in yellow in the paper.

Q1: Improve the introduction section by briefly describing some of the previous research. The introduction is short, and does not provide sufficient background to the problem. Why this study is of significance for the literature? What can be learned from it? What has been published? What are the improvements? How this research would be useful for the community?

Reply1: We have improved the introduction section. Because when we were reading the literature, we found that the two objective functions of structural water shortage risk index and fairness can effectively deal with the problem of uneven distribution of water resources. Our study area is a dry and water-deficient area, where there are serious water conflicts. Using this research can effectively solve the problem of local water inequity.

Q2: The manuscript lacks proper citation. Lots of statements have been brought without citating the reference.

Reply2: We have added the corresponding references in the corresponding statement.

Q3: Provide a background about other optimization algorithms. Why the authors choose this algorithm, and what is the advantages?

Reply3: We have cited the corresponding literature in other comparison algorithms. Because these algorithms perform well in the field of multi-objective optimization, they are widely used in other industries. We have improved NSGA-III, solved its poor adaptability in the actual problem Pareto frontier, and verified its performance through the algorithm evaluation index HV.

Q4: The authors need to present employed algorithm in more details, and describe every step in the implementation process to make the work reproducible by interested readers.

Reply4: In order to make it easier to make the work reproducible by interested readers, we have added the algorithm address to the article.

Q5: You need to use some statistical analysis to evaluate the obtained results.

Reply5: In the article, based on the opinions of local decision makers, we used the ideal point method to determine the selection problem of the program, and compared the selected program with the one before optimization, and discussed the changes in the value of each objective function.

Q6: You need to analyze the errors on the results. Please add an error analysis to comprehensively investigate the error to show the validity of your results.

Reply6: We have analyzed and discussed the wrong results in the article.

Q7: You need to improve the conclusion section. How this research will benefit the community?

Reply7:We have improved the conclusion to explain how the research is beneficial to   the community.

Special thanks to you for your good comments.

Yours sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article concerns the optimization of water resources. It may be interesting for readers of Water. In general, this manuscript is well organized and written, with detailing the framework approach of the study, clearly stated methodology and nicely presented findings. 

The following requests/suggestions should be taken into account to improve the quality of the manuscript.

• The risk is usually understood as a combination of the probability level of a threat activation and the level of its effects. Please refer to this definition.
• How can the degree of allocation of water resources be assessed? When is the allocation small, medium, sufficient?
• Authors should include limitations of their methodology.
• In order for this work not to remain in the sphere of theoretical considerations, it is necessary to propose a solution to the identified problems regarding the water shortage risk. Does the experience so far show that the comprehensive management of water resources in the analyzed area is feasible without any structural changes?

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you very much for your kindly comments on our manuscript. There is no doubt that these comments are valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our manuscript. In what follows, we would like to answer the questions you mentioned and give detailed account of the changes made to the original manuscript, and we have made revision which marked in yellow in the paper.

Q1: The risk is usually understood as a combination of the probability level of a threat activation and the level of its effects. Please refer to this definition.

Reply1: Thank you for your kindly comments, We have added the definition of risk in the article.

Q2: How can the degree of allocation of water resources be assessed? When is the allocation small, medium, sufficient?

Reply2: Because our study area is an arid area, Wusu City is a city with a shortage of water resources. We mainly use inflow of water in normal years, dry years and extremely dry years as the available water. The water allocation mode is demanded based on supply in the study area, and we use optimization models to optimize the inflow of water in different hydrological years. Local adopted water resources allocation schemes in different hydrological years by predicting the water inflow in the future.

Q3: Authors should include limitations of their methodology.

Reply3: We have added the limitations of this method in the conclusion.

Q4: In order for this work not to remain in the sphere of theoretical considerations, it is necessary to propose a solution to the identified problems regarding the water shortage risk. Does the experience so far show that the comprehensive management of water resources in the analyzed area is feasible without any structural changes?

Reply4: We have added a comparison of structural changes and fairness before and after optimization in the discussion.  Without any structural changes, integrated water resources management in the Wusu area is not feasible.

Special thanks to you for your good comments.

Yours sincerely,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Should accept in present form.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors has addressed all my comments .