Linkages between Meteorological and Hydrological Drought in the Jinsha River Basin under a Changing Environment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

2. Paper title

I would suggest making the title shorter - e.g. Linkages between meteorological and hydrological drought in the Jinsha River basin under a changing environment.

It is well known that any scientific paper is some kind of investigation so it is not necessary to put "Investigating" in the title

35. Please avoid the abbreviation in the keywords – “JRB;”, despite it is mentioned in the abstract

272. Figure 2. Is not mentioned in the text of paper.

341. Figure 6 appears before it is mentioned in the text (r. 346). It is better to write it in the text first and after it to illustrate by figure.

463. It is not very clear what “1 correlation coefficient” means – Please clarify.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript investigates an important topic of drought propagation in the Jinsha River Basin. The analysis of meteorological and hydrological drought patterns and their linkages under changing conditions could provide valuable insights for water management in the region. The study design is appropriate, and the results mostly support the conclusions. I recommend this paper for publication after minor revisions.

Comments:

• The introduction could be improved by more clearly stating the gap in knowledge this study aims to address. What specifically is unknown about drought propagation in the Jinsha River Basin that this study looks to elucidate?
• In the methods, please provide more details on the SWAT model setup, parameters, calibration, validation, etc. This is needed to assess the model's reliability.
• The seasonality findings are interesting but require more discussion. Why might human activities (e.g. reservoirs) specifically alter seasonality? Elaborate on the mechanisms.
• The conclusion about increased hydrological drought frequency requires caution due to short study period. This would be strengthened by references to other studies in the region.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor of Water,

I have reviewed the manuscript “ Investigating the linkages between meteorological and hydrological drought in the Jinsha River basin under a changing environment”.

The authors conducted a study to inquire into the extended patterns and connections between meteorological and hydrological droughts in the basin, using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) as drought indicators.

The content of the manuscript is relevant since environmental conditions, such as climate changes and precipitation and temperature can influence the hydrological drought. The information is important to managers, mainly where water is scarce and is essential for the sustainability of the environment. Thus, the paper has a relevant subject, adequate to be published in the journal Water. However, I recommend accepting the paper for publication after some major revision.

The whole manuscript is well-structured. In general, all sections are well described. The figures and tables are well-designed.

It is necessary to explain better how the indexes were calculated and describe the SWAT model (importance, methodology, results, and discussion) in the whole manuscript.

The authors mentioned the use of the SWAT model. However, the SWAT model used for simulations was not described or mentioned in the Introduction section. It is necessary to indicate some studies that used this model and if the results were good or not in order to explain why the SWAT was chosen. The SWAT was just mentioned in the Material and Methods section. The last paragraph of this section (page 6, lines 225-236) was dedicated to describing some information related to SWAT but did not describe why SWAT is important in this study. The SWAT model parametrization, data input, description of warm-up, calibration and validation processes, and statistical indicators were not described in the Material and Methods section. The results and discussion of the SWAT simulation need to be inserted in the manuscript.

 

 

Minor comments

It is necessary to indicate the complete name before the abbreviation or acronym at the first mention of it. Correct it in the whole text.

There is a mix of results and material and methods in the results section. The description of the processes for obtaining the results or the description of the dataset analyses belongs to the Material and Methods section. For example, the first paragraph of the Results section (page 6, lines 239-244) belongs to the Material and Methods section since describes the statistical procedure to evaluate the annual mean precipitation and temperature; What is the result described in this paragraph?

Page 6, lines 266-269: How and why? What are those trends? What are those valuable insights?

Page 8, lines 293-294; Page 9, lines 312-314: Belongs to Material and Methods section.

Page 9, lines 334-337: It is important which are the partners, and which are the contrasting conditions in which region of the watershed. If there are no descriptions, the information is superficial and the paragraph is not necessary.

 

Page 11, lines 358-361: How and why? What are those insights?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Editor of Water,

I have reviewed the revised manuscript “Investigating the linkages between meteorological and hydrological drought in the Jinsha River basin under a changing environment”.

The authors conducted a study to inquire into the extended patterns and connections between meteorological and hydrological droughts in the basin, using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) and Standardized Runoff Index (SRI) as drought indicators.

The authors made all corrections and improvements in the manuscript, as recommended by the reviewers.

 

The paper has a relevant subject, adequate to be published in the journal Water. After the revision, I recommend accepting the paper for publication at this present form.