Drainage Runoff Separation of New and Old Water Based on Precipitation, Air, Water, and Soil Temperature Compared to Stable Isotopes 18O and 2H
, Václav Bystřický 1, Markéta Kaplická 2, Pavel Tachecí 3 and Tomáš Kvítek 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In the article, the authors describe a simple method of determining the contribution of precipitation to drainage water, which, in their opinion, could replace isotope measurements. The Drainage runoff separation here is based on air, soil and water temperature measurements. I found a few inaccuracies in the article that should be cleared up before publication.
1. I have not found in the article information about the method of measuring the isotopic composition of waters. Also, no values from these measurements are given here.
2. What is the precision and accuracy of isotope and temperature measurements?
3. Is the method applicable if temp. of the soil and air are similar?
4. Most of my comments have been placed directly in the pdf file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Pomijie et al. continuously monitored stable isotopes and temperatures of 39 rainfall runoff events at three small agricultural catchments in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, Czech Republic. They evaluated and compared the drainage runoff separation (new and old water) using both temperatures and water stable isotopes. This study has implications for the agriculture regions with the similar settings in Europe. I recommend the publication of this manuscript after some revision (see my comments below and the detailed in the annotated PDF file).
The authors should pay more attention to the details of the language, as there are multiple grammar errors spotted in the text. In many places, the citations were presented in a weird way and the authors should state in different ways. I would suggest the authors to have a native English speaker to check the manuscript and help to smooth the language.
In the Materials and Methods section, there is no description of stable isotope analysis of water samples, how and where the samples were analysed, and analytical precision and so on. Also, for isotope analysis of natural abundances of stable isotopes, δ values (i.e.,δ18O and δ2H) are reported instead of contents or concentrations of individual isotopes (18O and 2H). I believe that δ values were used in the calculation not the concentration. Therefore, the authors should clarify this in the revised manuscript.
Please see the attached annotated PDF file for my detailed comments, mostly on the language. Hope my comments can help improve the quality of this manuscript.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript " Drainage runoff separation of new and old water based on precipitation, air, water and soil temperature compared to stable isotopes 18O and 2H", by T. Pomije, A. Zajíček, V. Bystřický, M. Kaplická, P.Tachecí and T. Kvítek compares hydrograph separation based on stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopes with that obtained employing temperature, easier to measure and cheaper to get.
While the results presented look promising, the reader gets disappointed when finding out that separation is only more or less reliable for simple, isolated events, which probably is of not much practical use.
In any case, the manuscript is properly reasoned and well organized, and can be published with only some minor corrections; most dealing with language, and some regarding the methodology and presentation:
- Language: Please double-check verb usage, particularly regarding the use of singular / plural and the third person. Lucidus Consultancy UK could have done a better job!.
L 36-37: Conserved behavior --> conservative behavior
L 59: Verb
L 96: ... as well as pesticide ...
L 98: ... parental phosphorous???
L 102 and elsewhere: Authors [37] describe ... Either give the name of the authors (Maher and Chamberlain) or use some kind of modifier, such as several, different, ...
L 325: ... by repeated measures analysis ...??????
L 332: that --> to those
L 336: verb
L 422-423: The last phrase makes no sense.
Methodology: To be honest, I would completely rewrite the stable isotope part. Any basic text on isotope geochemistry will provide a paragraph that is informative enough and that you can use.
To start with, you never measure "concentration" of 18O or 2H (you repeatedly use "concentration" on page 6, and this is just unacceptable!) but the ratio of the heavy to the light isotope (i.e., 18O/16O; D/H), and we never measure absolute ratios, but rather the difference relative to an internationally accepted reference material (i.e., V-SMOW, in this case); therefore the rationale for the use of the d ("delta") parameter, which is dimensionless, and we express as "per mil" (and never as %) difference from the reference. This is basic knowledge, and lack of it, a major error that needs to be properly corrected. Please check J. Hoefs (various editions; for example ISBN 3-540-40227-6) "Stable isotope geochemistry", or Clark & Fritz (1997) "Environmental isotopes in hydrogeology", ISBN1-56670-249-6.
Presentation: As far as possible, I would try to use if not a common, certainly a not very different scale for the x-axis of Figs 2, 3 & 4, in order to make them easily comparable.
Fig. 6 and 7 are extremely difficult to read, given the extremely small size of symbols used, and being little different from each other. It took me quite a while to be able to "see" anything within these two figures. Please help your potential readers!
The above are, in my opinion, minor issues that are very easy to amend, so I would very much appreciate the authors doing so; the overall quality of their work will be much improved.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors have significantly improved the manuscript text.
However, they should check the comments from the previous review in more detail. For example, they did not correct the formula for delta (l.168), which should also be expressed in per mille!
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.docx
