Fresh Water Use in Florida: Trends and Drivers

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In the manuscript "Fresh Water Use in Florida: Trends and Drivers" the authors analyze the water use in Florida from 2005 to 2015.

Overall the manuscript is of interest and falls within the scope of the journal. However, in my opinion it would benefit from some further discussion in some issues, such as, water prices, and water governance approaches. In its current version, it is more a report-like, mostly presenting results.

I am attaching the commented version of the manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

response in attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

1) The authors estimate the water use from 2005 to 2015 in Florida, and analyze the drivers affecting the water use. However, some problems influence the quality of this manuscript. Firstly, there is not an accurate scientific problem in the manuscript, which leads to lack a thread connecting the drivers, the water uses and the affected trend. Secondly, the authors only simply statistic the water use in different regions and different water use agents, and briefly analyze the trend of the water uses and the drivers affecting the water uses, I am not sure that the work can contribute much to related science research and policy making. Thirdly, description on methodology is not clear, in particular Figure 2.  

 

2) In addition, the maps need professional revises, i.e., scale bar, coordinate system; means of the symbols (i.e., arrow, dash-line) in Figure 2. need more description; words in Figure 4. are not clear; and description of capital text of Figure 12. is difference with description of its’ reference in Line 413 and implication of Figure 12. is not clear.

 

3) Some conclusions may need more evidences to validate its’ availability, for example, how to get “population growth is the most important…” (line 576), because the authors didn’t analyze co-impacts of all drivers on the water use.

 

4) The language needs big revise and further polishing for better understanding.

Author Response

response uploaded as attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript has been revised in detail, in particular introduction and method, nevertheless, the conclusion still needs more revision.

Author Response

The conclusion is rewritten to address this review comment.