A Novel Method to Identify Radial Drainage Based on Morphological Features

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments:

This paper develops a method/procedure to identify the radial surface flow (drainage) from a junction of rivers with different basins. It uses morphological features and models/algorithms to simplify the waterways into lines radially away from the junction. This method can identify the presence of RD in the studied basins with high accuracy. However, there is no/less explanation for "automatic detection" which is the main keyword of this study. The authors may add a section to explain it. Or, without that explanation, I think, the proper title may be "New/Fast Methods to Identify Radial Drainage. etc.\".

The paper is easy to read with proper English. There are a few misspellings/unclear statements:      

Pages:

83: different thresholds are not clear. Please explain refer to Fig 1 and 2.

125 extracting with a small "e"

127: D-TIN, the abbreviation for?

186: len should be len

 

 

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

This paper develops a method/procedure to identify the radial surface flow (drainage) from a junction of rivers with different basins. It uses morphological features and models/algorithms to simplify the waterways into lines radially away from the junction. This method can identify the presence of RD in the studied basins with high accuracy. However, there is no/less explanation for "automatic detection" which is the main keyword of this study. The authors may add a section to explain it. Or, without that explanation, I think, the proper title may be "New/Fast Methods to Identify Radial Drainage. etc.\".

 

The paper is easy to read with proper English. There are a few misspellings/unclear statements: 

Pages:

83: different thresholds are not clear. Please explain refer to Fig 1 and 2.

125 extracting with a small "e"

127: D-TIN, the abbreviation for?

186: len should be len

 

Response:

The authors are very grateful for the reviewer's rigorous review and valuable suggestions. According to the suggestions and problems pointed out by the reviewer, the author made the following improvements:

1. The article title was replaced with "A Novel Method to Identify Radial Drainage Based on Morphological Features."
2. For the misspellings/unclear statements, the authors have made corrections and additions after careful inspection. The specific revisions are as follows:

• Line 83: the sentence “Based on stream directions and different thresholds of the flow accu 83 mulation， the basins and multiple river layers were extracted from the DEM, respectively [21].” was replaced with “Based on stream directions and the appropriate threshold of the flow accumulation (With the continuous decrease of flow accumulation, the flow accumulation when the river density tends to be stable can be selected as the threshold.) [26-28], the multiple river layers with different river density and basin layer were extracted from the DEM, respectively [29-30].”
• Lines 125 and 186: the author corrected spelling mistakes.
• Line 127: "D-TIN" was replaced with "Delaunay triangulated irregular network (D-TIN)."

The authors are highly grateful for the effort of the reviewer in completing this paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is well written and deals with a very important topic for the rapid classification method of topographical features and geological structures in a particular area.

The paper presents a novel methodology for identification of radial drainage, a typical type of cross-basin drainage pattern. The authors successfully demonstrate their methodology in Mount Lu river network to identify two radial drainage regions.

These results are impressive and encouraging for providing an appropriate solution of automatic identification of radial drainage and centripetal drainage.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

This paper is well written and deals with a very important topic for the rapid classification method of topographical features and geological structures in a particular area.

The paper presents a novel methodology for identification of radial drainage, a typical type of cross-basin drainage pattern. The authors successfully demonstrate their methodology in Mount Lu river network to identify two radial drainage regions.

These results are impressive and encouraging for providing an appropriate solution of automatic identification of radial drainage and centripetal drainage.

 

Response:

The authors are very grateful for the reviewer’s affirmation. With the help of the reviewer, the author further improved the article. Firstly, after careful inspection, the authors have made corrections and additions for the misspellings/vague statements. Secondly, the authors strengthen the conclusion to make it easier for readers to understand and apply. Many thanks to the reviewer for the generosity in helping the authors complete this work.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This article is very well done, well structured and answers the jounal's theme.

However I advise the author to rectify the comments that I presented throughout this article, then to update them.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

This article is very well done, well structured and answers the jounal's theme.

However I advise the author to rectify the comments that I presented throughout this article, then to update them.

1. Rephrase alphabetically the keywords;
2. The conclusions are too weak. How they are now I cannot see how it contributes to the advance of the thematic field. In this regard, other researches and studies should be exposed, confronted/compared to create a discussion in order to enrich the state-of-the-art and consequently further develop the field;
3. I think that adding some bibliographical references would improve the quality of the work. (40 references!)

 

Response:

The authors are very grateful for the reviewer's rigorous review and valuable suggestions. According to the suggestions and problems pointed out by the reviewer, the author made the following improvements:

1. The authors rephrase the keywords alphabetically to make the article read more smoothly.
2. According to the reviewer's suggestion, we rewrote this paper's conclusion. The specific revisions are as follows:

“Based on the unique spatial morphological features of RD (e.g., diverging from the centre to the surrounding, developing in the adjacent parts of the multiple basins, and the number of its source nodes not less than the outlet nodes), this study proposed an automatic identification method of RD based on the features matching algorithm. First, the method of this paper can effectively generate the identification units of the RD by using the basin intersections and the calculated circle buffer. Second, the RD can be accurately recognized using a feature matching algorithm. Third, the drainage scope of an RD can be accurately extracted by connecting the points where the elevation changes steeply in order.

The experiment in Mount Lu demonstrates that the proposed method was efficient in RD identification. In this study area, the two regions of RD are identified, and there are no false judgments and missed judgments, which were verified by experts. The accuracy of this algorithm is 100%, the FAR is 0, and the MAR is 0.

The proposed method not only helps to detect cross-basin drainage patterns (RD and centripetal drainage) but also has some advantages in identifying geographical scenes with complex spatial structures. This research is helpful for water resource ex-ploration and development, major engineering projects, and geological disaster pre-vention.”

3. According to the reviewer's suggestion, the authors added 15 references to improve the quality and readability of the article. The specific revisions are as follows:

[3] Argialas, D.P.; Lyon, J.G.; Mintzer, O.W. Quantitative description and classification of drainage pattern. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. 1988, 54(4), 505-509.

[5] Yang, J.C; Li, Y.L. Principles of geomorphology. Peking University Press. 2001.

[6] Twidale, C.R. River patterns and their meaning. Earth-Science Reviews. 2004, 67(3-4), 159-218

[7] Ai, T.H.; Liu, Y.L.; Huang, Y.F. The Hierarchical Watershed Partitioning and Generalization of River Network. Journal of Surveying and Mapping. 2007, (02), 231-236+243.

[16] Zhang, L.; Guilbert, E. A study of variables characterizing drainage patterns in river networks. Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. 2012, XXXIX-B2, 29-34.

[26] Guang, Y.H.; Zheng, F.L.; Wang, B. DEM Based Extraction of River Networks in Binzhou River Basin of Heilongjiang Province. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation. 2012, 32(01),127-131.

[27] LI, J.; Tang, G.A.; Zhang, T. Conflux Threshold of Extracting Stream Networks from DEMs in North Shanxi Province of Loess Plateau. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation. 2007, (02), 75-78.

[28] Xiong, L.H.; Guo, S.L. Method for extracting digital channel network from digital elevation model of watershed. Journal of Yangtze River Scientific Research Institute. 2003, (04), 14-17.

[30] Turcotte, R.; Fortin, J.P.; Rousseau, A.N.; Massicotte, S.; Villeneuve, J.P. Determination of the drainage structure of a watershed using a digital elevation model and a digital river and lake network. Journal of Hydrology. 2001, 240(3), 225-242.

[32] Strahler, A. N. Dynamic basis of geomorphology. Geological society of america bulletin. 1952, 63(9), 923-938.

[33] Shreve, R. L. Statistical law of stream numbers. The Journal of Geology. 1966, 74(1), 17-37.

[36] Chew, L.P. Constrained Delaunay triangulations. Algorithmica. 1989, 4(1), 97-108.

[37] Anglada, M.V. An improved incremental algorithm for constructing restricted Delaunay triangulations. Computers & Graphics. 1997, 21(2), 215-223.

[40] Bharani, R.; Sivaprakasam, A. Meteorosoft: a excel function for wind data processing and rose diagram. Earth Science Infor-matics. 2020, 13, 965–971.

[41] David, J.S.; David, C.P.P. Making rose diagrams fit-for-purpose. Earth-Science Reviews. 2020, 201.

The authors are highly grateful for the effort of the reviewer in completing this paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf