Using Adaptive Capacity to Shift Absorptive Capacity: A Framework of Water Reallocation in Highly Modified Rivers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Analyzing the implications of governance shift on natural resource management and system resilience is crucial for policy formulation and modification. In this study, a framework was constructed based on the perspective of water reallocation and socio-hydrological resilience. The impact of Sweden governance changes regarding water rights on trade-offs between subsystems, as well as how adaptive capacity shapes absorptive capacity were announced. Although the methodology is instructive, there is still much space for improving the quality of this manuscript and needs to be major revised.

General observations:

1. The highlight of this manuscript is the proposed framework. I think it is necessary to state the differences between the current work and previous resilience frameworks.
2. While this study decomposed the adaptive capacity and applied the built framework in Sweden, the overall case study appears to briefly discuss the change effects of Swedish laws and regulations on the number of dams and hydropower production. As a result, it fails to reflect the innovative nature.
3. To illustrate practical impact of hydropower production, the requisite context of monitoring and enforcement details must be provided to case study. In addition, it is necessary to delete the subjective or overstated interpretation of governance shift, such as in lines 317 to 325.
4. The core purpose of this case study should examine conflict and trade-off mechanism between hydropower production and river connectivity under governance shift, which is currently very simple.
5. Conclusions need to be refined.

Detailed suggestions:

1. The theoretical framework in Figure.1 does not reflect the progressive relationship regarding resilience expressed in the context.
2. There is no ordinate unit in Figure.2 and the number 120 should be deleted. Figure.1 must be corrected to Figure.2 in line 236.
3. Please double-check the English language editing for grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and smoothness. For example, a period was missing before “The flexibility” in line 369.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

I thoroughly reviewed this paper and found it to be suitable for the journal. However, the authors need to overcome some of the minor deficiencies
indicated below;

• The abstract is bit complicated for my likings. I recommend authors to make it easy to read, concise, and comprehensive.

•Although I’m not a native English speaker but I noticed that English language used in the paper is efficient and up to the standards generally required for publication.
• The hypothesis of the manuscript is unclear. The authors are advised to clearly write the hypothesis of their work in the context of shortfalls of the previous research works.

• While the authors rewrite the hypothesis of their work, they must explicitly include the novelty of their work/ methodology.

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Two supplementary instructions are recommended.

1. As the effective transformation consideration of “modern environmental provision” in Sweden has been taking place from 2019, it’s better to give more data to explain the improvement of riverine ecosystem connectivity, also the progress of water reallocation.
2. Did water reallocation in the small rivers by permit review which would change the small hydropower stations get their monetary compensation? Otherwise, permit review would destroy the smaller stakeholders who had historic rights.

Author Response

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Reviewer 4 Report

The paper proposes a framework combining insights from social-hydrological resilience and water reallocation research, and identifying the adaptive capacity in highly modified rivers as the capacity for water reallocation, with Sweden taken as the case study. In my opinion the paper is interesting and valuable for at least two reasons: first, it provides an overview of important changes in the approach to river systems highly modified by human activity, especially for hydropower production, in one of the most developed European countries, and second, it can constitute a starting point for similar studies in other countries with highly transformed rivers.

I would suggest small corrections in Figure 2: first, please add the unit (%) to the vertical axis, and second, please move the title from the figure header to the figure caption, followed by “Source [76]”.

Author Response

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