Research on Discharge Permit Allocation in Lushui River Based on Environmental GINI Coefficient
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The present paper used the environmental Gini coefficient allocation method to allocate the total amount of COD, AN, and TP discharge permits in the Lushui basin. And four indicators were selected: land area, population, GDP, and water environment capacity. The subject is important and relevant to Water journal. The quality of the manuscript, however, should be improved significantly, so that I would like to suggest a complete revision before submitting it again.
1. What I most concern about the manuscript is its novelty. Generally speaking, the topic of this study is to assess water quality through allocating the total amount of COD, AN, and TP discharge permits in the Lushui basin. Neither the topic nor the method is new. Therefore, I recommend the authors to fully stress what is new in the study (compared with previous works) and what new knowledge we can learn from their study.
2. The introduction is not well structured and does not provide a comprehensive summary of the problem analyzed in the text. However, a deeper explanation of option for monitoring dynamic surface water is needed. The author should review a number of existing techniques for studying water quality. The author should further discussion/comments on the advantages/disadvantages of these techniques
3. The manuscript tends to be elaborative and make a meal of the subject matter (this is true in Introduction, Data, Methodology strategy and the presentation of the results). Often, there is no structure in the arguments. I hasten to add that I am complaining about absence of structure and communication style, as a result of which it is easy to be bogged down most of the time. I would strongly recommend that the authors communicate the subject matter. For instance, consider the results. I would be keen to see that (i) the authors identify the structure in the figures and tables in the results section and marshal them in a logical succession; (ii) state each figure/table in a sentence or two; (iii) state clear information outright as a message, as deduced from the figure/table; and (iii) if necessary, qualify the main message. In this way the results will become more understandable. The Introduction section is related to what other people have done, whereas it should explain the authors' work in the context of the state-of-the-art.
4. Please discuss the uncertainties and I recommend performing the sensitivity analysis to allocate the total amount of COD, AN, and TP discharge permits in the Lushui basin.
5. Where the performance section of your proposed method? Why you did not compare it with other methods to assess the efficiency?
6. In the conclusions section, there is no conclusion made about results or learning from the presented study. The authors could have made a better effort to explain what is better understood in the case they presented.
7. L254 removes the “(Nicolas et al., 2021)” as the references format in number.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise and resubmit our article. We appreciate very much for your constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Research on Discharge Permit Allocation in Lushui River based on Environmental GINI Coefficient”. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections have been marked up using the “Track Changes” function in the revised manuscript and here is a point-by-point response to your comments and concerns.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper used the environmental Gini coefficient (EGC) method based on four indicators such as water environmental capacity, population, land area, and gross domestic production (GDP) to represent social factors, economic factors, and environmental factors, respectively. Results of the study may have important application in the field of water pollution control. Authors may wish to consider the following in revision of their manuscript.
1. Please discuss limitations of the proposed method.
2. Please compare the proposed method with other commonly used method reported in the literature.
3. Please comment on the errors in the proposed method.
4. Please comment on the cost saving as compared to other commonly used methods reported in the literature.
5. Please discuss whether proposed method may be applicable to other areas.
English is acceptable.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise and resubmit our article. We appreciate very much for your constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Research on Discharge Permit Allocation in Lushui River based on Environmental GINI Coefficient”. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections have been marked up using the “Track Changes” function in the revised manuscript and here is a point-by-point response to your comments and concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Line 467: There are only the total emissions of COD, AN, and TP of Lushui River in 2020. Are there longer time period data of emissions of COD, AN, and TP of Lushui River? It is better to understand the change trend and average emissions not only based on one-year data.
2. Line 473: “The results are shown in Table 7-9. For example, the EGCs based on land area for COD, AN, and TP are 0.30, 0.26, and 0.23, respectively.” I am confused that I don’t find the values for COD, AN, and TP with 0.30, 0.26, and 0.23, respectively in Table 7-9. Is it correct?
3. Line 525: The contribution coefficients of each control unit to the pollution emission are calculated to examine the distribution of unfair factors using the GIS spatial analysis techniques to investigate the distribution of unfair factors that cause pollution inequity. Please explain more detail about the GIS spatial analysis techniques. What kinds of techniques you applied in this study, and why choose this method?
4. Line 543: For the EGC of COD, the most significant change in the Gini coefficient is for GDP, which has a higher rate of change than the other indicators. However, the higher rate of variation in Table 7 is Land Area not GDP. How to explain it?
5. Line 563: “It can be seen from Tables 7, 8, and 9 that most Gini coefficients are less than 0.4, so it is considered that the distribution results are reasonable.” In Table 7, the COD environmental Gini coefficient is 0.45 after the optimization. It is higher than 0.4. I am confused.
6. Line 649: “After optimization, for COD, the EGC based on land area is 0.30, the EGC based on population is 0.21, the EGC based on water environmental capacity is 0.02, and the EGC based on GDP is 0.45.” Please check Table 7, the EGC based on water environmental capacity is 0.002 not 0.02. Please correct this value.
Minor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to revise and resubmit our article. We appreciate very much for your constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Research on Discharge Permit Allocation in Lushui River based on Environmental GINI Coefficient”. We have studied the comments carefully and made corrections which we hope meet with approval. The main corrections have been marked up using the “Track Changes” function in the revised manuscript and here is a point-by-point response to your comments and concerns.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
There are major improvements in the manuscript. Most comments appear to have been dealt with. I satisfied with many improvements like clarification of the performance section of your proposed method, the explanation behind the sensitivity analysis, and the modification of the conclusion section. I would recommend to accept this manuscript in this form
