Sustainable Development Scenarios in the Danube Delta—A Pilot Methodology for Decision Makers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for authors' contribution to water communities. In general, this paper is well-written and approach is clearer for our readers. It is an important presentation of the Danube Delta, where human society has suffered from environmental challenges over the past decades. The authors worked out better management for decision maker and sustainable development, based on 4 scenarios using pilot methods developed in this study. It is also based on investigation of different socio-economical levels of residences in different sectors of the delta area. In general, method is broadly useful and applicable. However, the most concern from my side is that details of data sources are unclearly listed in Materials and Methods. There lack of details of chronology for each data sources and related data processing introduced, i.e. water pollution (T, N??), land-use, roads, fishery, etc...used in the study. I am deeply concerning the resolution of data sources used in this study, for instance, how you work out the Figure 4-7 with extrapolation of tourist revenue and pressure, N and T, and other components to next decades??? These must be clearly introduced in (MM). Given this, you are certainly requested to list out a table in which all data should be time-connected presented. This will justify your discussion and conclusion to be more scientific to our readers in order to avoid lengthy description like internal report. (annotated PDF is attached for some of queries to be noted/revised)

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you very much for your comments and concern regarding our paper and research. We have carefully considered the comments and tried our best to address them.

Accordingly, we prepared a new draft of the paper with a more detailed Material and methods chapter, and we are attaching also the supplementary material consisting of scenarios data provided for the model in each scenario for the mentioned KPI. 

Sincerely,

Luminita Lazar

 

Reviewer 2 Report

This study built a complex but helpful model for decision-making concerning the sustainable development of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve. This is an interesting study and tries to balance social and economic development together with environmental problems. However, a moderate revision is necessary before publication. My major concerns are:

1. It is unclear how the model balances the conflicts between stakeholders (quite a common problem). 

2. It is unclear why the authors only select nitrogen load. I mean other elements could also cause environmental problems (e.g. phosphate). Furthermore, nitrogen could also induce greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide N2O leading to global warming. 

3. How to justify the values in Table 2. For instance, +300% increase in fish consumption factor in scenario 2. How should the readers know the values are reasonable?

4. The disadvantages/improvements of this method should be discussed.

Author Response

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you very much for your comments and concern regarding our paper and research. We have carefully considered the comments and tried our best to address them.

Accordingly, we prepared a new draft of the paper, and we are attaching also the supplementary material consisting of answers to your questions.

Sincerely,

Luminita Lazar

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Good work but has problems as described below

1.     Using the snowball method, 97 stakeholders were identified. However, the attributes of stakeholders were not explained. Are they residents, business people, or local administrative staff? Is there any bias resulting from stakeholder selection?

2.     How were nitrogen loadings estimated for the four stakeholders listed in Table 2? It provided one reference, but it is a general manual not actual application to the study area.

 

3.     Since model details were not explained, the results presented in Figure 6 lack reliability.

Author Response

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our research paper. We have carefully considered the comments and tried our best to address every one of them.

Accordingly, we will upload the latest version of the paper and the answer to your particular questions.

Sincerely,

Luminita Lazar

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for your great effort being made for the improvement of scientific quality and dataset added as supplementary materials. I have no further comments, and recommend "accept".  

Author Response

Thank you for your work in revising your paper,

Sincerely,

The Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

I am satisfied with the revisions.

Author Response

Thank you for your work in revising your paper,

Sincerely,

The Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

The nitrogen loading model is still poorly explained.

How N-uptakes by crops, and water runoff were estimated? Furthermore,  under what rainfall conditions, nitrogen loadings from different sources were calculated? 

Author Response

Thank you for your work in revising our paper. We have studied comments carefully and have made corrections which are attached. Sincerely,

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx