Using Stable Isotopes to Assess Groundwater Recharge and Solute Transport in a Density-Driven Flow-Dominated Lake–Aquifer System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I support your interesting work with plenty of used measured data and improvement by modeling approach.

Only small mistakes:

1. row 87 - unit for lake volume
2. hydrogeological map - faults: red; boundary of lake basin: black
3. row 104 - on figure 1 is visible some characteristic relief but you use mbgs instead of m a. s. l. If is possible try to recalculate in absolute values.
4. acronyms should be explained in text instead only on figures.

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. Figure 1 has been modified accordingly. In the Material and Methods section, the lake surface has been included during maximum volume accumulation (line 87) and acronyms like “mbgs” have been explained (line 105).

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read the paper titled 'Using stable isotopes to assess groundwater recharge and solute transport in a density-driven flow dominated lake-aquifer system' with great interest and I would appreciate the authors for such a comprehensive analysis. The presentation, strucutre and flow are quite lucid and well-guided, however, there is only few lapses of flow, for example, in the last paragraph of introdcution where goals of the paper are given that appear abruptly without creating link to the preceding text. Moreover, the introduction or the methods section do not provide any insight as to what novelty this paper brings to the scholarship as well as what research gap it would brigde. This needs to be considered in the revision. The methods part contains undue details specially on study area description and field survey while less-comprehensive details are given on technical aspects of the analysis. There is no detail on CE and ICP-AES at least for general reader and what they stand for. In case of Results, please check if it should be 'Evaluation' instead of 'Evolution' in 3.1 both in text and in figure.

 

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Flow throughout the manuscript has been improved, for instance, by moving some parts of the text (“Evaporation modeling”) to the Material and Methods. In addition, study area description has been extended by including the coordinates of the sampling points in the Table S1. Some sentences have been also rephrased in order to emphasize the novelty of the paper. Finally, some information has been added about isotopic analyses (standards used during the analytical procedure).

Reviewer 3 Report

The present work concerns the evaluation of phenomena occurring at the boundaries of the salt lake water reservoir and aquifers in its direct contact with the participation of evaporation phenomena and, to some extent, also feeding the lake with meteoric waters.
The models proposed by the authors are correct in my opinion. 
The results are presented clearly and legibly.
The discussion is extended and contains a broad view of the phenomena
The conclusions are written appropriately.
In my opinion this paper is very interesting because its subject matter goes beyond the research area of this region and it is suitable for printing in its present form.

Author Response

Thank you very much, we really appreciate your comments.