Improving Indicators of Hydrological Alteration in Regulated and Complex Water Resources Systems: A Case Study in the Duero River Basin
, Javier Paredes-Arquiola and JoaquÃn AndreuRound 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript proposes a set of monthly indicators of hydrological alteration to assess the degree of hydrological alteration at basin scale in regulated water resources systems. A case study in the Duero River basin is illustrated. The results show that the proposed methodology can help improve water management decision-making.However, there are some important details in the article that are not clearly stated, so major revisions are needed.
The specific comments are as follows.
1. The 12 indicators in Appendix A are obtained on a monthly scale.However, there is no clear explanation of how the indicators are calculated.For example, IHA2 involves the monthly mean of inflow, how is the monthly mean of inflow calculated? Because there are 12 months in a year. Another example, how to get the mean gap between the altered and natural regime maximum monthly series.
2. The Duero River basin has 75 large reservoirs and numerous agricultural, industrial and urban water users.How does the water allocation model consider the regulation of reservoirs and the influence of water distribution rules?
3. There are 48 river segments in the Duero water allocation model. How is the minimum environmental flow determined in the current situation? What is the proportion of the minimum environmental flow of each segment to the average annual flow?Because the conclusion of this article is related to the current minimum environmental flow.
4. IAH7, IHA8, and IHA9 are indicators for floods.Can the monthly mean of flow properly represent the characteristics of the flood in Duero River basin?
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
- Interesting topic
- Figure 1 on page 3 needs to be improved to make it clearer to the reader
- Conclusions section needs to be expanded
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This work presents the improved indicators of hydrological alteration, on the basis of the hydrological model and the water allocation model, to assess the hydrological status at the basin scale. This work is helpful for decision-makers and has potential applications. Nevertheless, some more explanations about the methodology are required from my perspective. My specific comments are as follows.
Line 92-93: It is good that the authors point out the uniqueness of this work from the previous research. Nevertheless, it is not clear to me that: 1) the merits of the use of monthly data; 2) in which way the scenarios are differently established from other works.
Line 143-144: ‘Monthly flows, in each time step, are obtained by integrating the total runoff in the catchments to the simulation points’
Here is the streamflow routing process considered? Please explain how is the monthly flow calculated from the river sections to the catchment scale.
Line 289: please explain what the “e-flow” is.
Figure 1. what is the “Observed data” referring to? Please explain.
Figure 3. please enhance the figure quality to make it clearer.
Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9: please improve the resolution of the figure.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
In accordance with the comments of the review, this article has made minor revisions.However, how is the QMA calculated in the IHA2 indicator? If it is calculated monthly, there should be 12 QMA values in a year.
