Groundwater Quality Affected by the Pyrite Ash Waste and Fertilizers in Valea Calugareasca, Romania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 Accept in present form

Author Response

Dear anonymous reviewer, we appreciate your time spent improving the article and the suggestions provided.

We have made the changes suggested by the other reviewers. All the corrections are in blue color.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

The manuscript entitled Groundwater quality affected by the pyrite ash waste and fertilizers in Valea Calugareasca, Romania is a valuable contribution to the scientific part. Data of this type represents an attractive topic because it derives from a real-world application. However, the work could benefit from the clarity, especially on the design part. The overall paper sounds good, but a few aspects need improvements. Below are a few suggestions for the authors' consideration:

R 27 Please add a synonym or replace the second "with"/reformulate the phrase

R 76 Please write the correct form of the verb.

R 166 Please add the legend and scale for the map from Figure 1. Also, it is necessary to indicate the source of the picture

R 421-422 Please redraw for clarity the Figure 3 and add the legend of this.

R 456 Please add a website link or other source for Figure 6

Please highlight the novelty elements of your study by adding 2-3 sentences in the Conclusions section.

Regards,

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

 

In the article submitted for review investigated groundwater quality in a rural region from Valea Calugareasca, Prahova County, Romania, adjacent to the area of pyrite ash waste dumps, in order to better understanding of the groundwater chemistry mechanisms. 

In terms of content, the work has already been corrected, but still requires an editorial correction:

·       Please check the NO₃^- ion throughout the text for correctness;

·        Figure 1 can be corrected;

·       Please correct the font in chapter 2.3, same in chapter 2.5;

·       Please note the font type and size in the titles throughout the text. Sometimes they are written in italics, other times not;

·       There is a period in the title of line 130. Remove it;

·     Correct the font in chapters 3.1, 3.2 etc. They must be compatible with the previous numbering.

 

I like that the conclusions of the research are presented in a concise way.

Moreover, the publication is a valuable source of information, especially for the implementation of water purification systems, and forms the basis for further research. 

Thank you for considering my opinion. I encourage the authors to continue working on improving the manuscript.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

 

The article presents very important topics about groundwater quality affected by the pyrite ash waste and fertilizers. The article is very interesting, the methodology planned correctly. Unfortunately the authors did not avoid mistakes. Below is a list of things to fix:

In the introduction, there was no information about ash leachates. I propose to use the following literature:

http://dx.doi.org/10.5004/dwt.2020.25743

The methodology for ICP-OES lacks information about the calibration, about the curve, about the level of determination of individual elements. In addition, it would be useful to determine the recovery from the matrix of individual elements.

The Discussion of results section should be added, where the results will be compared with the other region.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

I have no more comments. I recommend the article for publication.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors assessed the groundwater quality using factor analysis and other statistical approaches. The overall research is interesting, but in the introduction section,  additional background and past literature are required. The objective/scope of the study is not clearly defined which will help the reader to get an overall idea current study. In general, this article needs major revision.

Include a concluding remark in the abstract.

L30 What is hidrochemical? It's not used in the entire article?

L35-37 Long sentence. Break into two sentences

Needs more background literature, the importance of this study, the novelty of this study in the introduction section. What is the objective of this research? What research questions were formulated? These with help the reader to understand what you are trying to analyze and investigate.

L54 What is hidrogeochemical method? Is it hydrogeochemical?

Replace Figure 1 with a higher resolution

Rephrase L 100-102

Mention advantages, assumptions, and limitations of Piper and Gibbs methods.

L 196 Why was IDW used out of other techniques. Mention its advantage and limitation of it.

L131 R² instead of R2

The sample distribution is not uniform within the study area. This will influence the interpolation method. What is the interpretation of this limitation?

Formatting correction L370 to 381

Formatting L409

Any interpretation related to climatic change or condition done by authors from the findings of research?

 

Please mention the limitations of the research in the discussion section. If any.

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript, water-1737188-peer-review-v1 - entitled “Groundwater quality assessment using factor analysis, hidrogeochemical and geostatistical methods” has potential, but it should be more organized. I recommend accepting this manuscript after revision. The main concerns are as follows:

• The title section should be edited and rewritten since it is too general.
• Quantitative results should be provided in the abstract to make it more comprehensive. The aim of the study should be clearly mentioned in the abstract.
• The introduction paper could be significantly improved. This recently published paper could help authors improve all sections of the paper.

Eskandari, E., Mohammadzadeh, H., Nassery, H., Vadiati, M., Zadeh, A. M., & Kisi, O. (2022). Delineation of Isotopic and Hydrochemical Evolution of Karstic Aquifers with Different Cluster-Based (HCA, KM, FCM and GKM) Methods. Journal of Hydrology, 127706.

• More literature review about the other methods is needed. The manuscript could be substantially improved by relying and citing more on recent literature about contemporary real-life case studies of sustainability and/or uncertainty, such as the followings.

Rezaei, K., & Vadiati, M. (2020). A comparative study of artificial intelligence models for predicting monthly river suspended sediment load. Journal of Water and Land Development.

• I do suggest referring to pioneer or outstanding research related to the research methodology
• 1 could be improved by adding more detail since it is not now clear the study area on the map.
• The sampling process and the overall hydrogeology of the study area could be better clarified.
• 5 is the important table in the manuscript, and, unfortunately, the authors did not try to discuss it in a specific way. A comprehensive discussion emphasizing would significantly improve the paper on the table.
• The limitations of the present study should be added to the paper, specifically for further research.

Reviewer 3 Report

article has serious flaw!