Assessing Impacts of Flood Diversion on the Ecosystem of Brackish-Water Lakes through Simulation-Optimization Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1.In the second and third paragraphs of the introduction, the operation of hydrodynamic models may indeed require a significant amount of computational resources, but this does not imply that the operation of artificial intelligence requires fewer computational resources. Therefore, using computational resource requirements as a research gap of the proposed ANFIS-based model for this topic is somewhat strained.
2. The introduction should provide a more comprehensive review of the literature concerning the impact of freshwater pulses on Brackish-water ecosystems.
3. Figure 1 should be placed in the section "Study Area and Problem Definition" rather than in the "Methodology" section. Furthermore, Figure 1 requires several improvements. The yellow markings are difficult to read against the white background. The polyline for the Bonnet Carré Spillway should be displayed, as this is essential for readers to understand how freshwater pulses affect the saltwater ecosystem of Lake Pontchartrain. The location of Rigolets should also be labeled. The latitude and longitude labels in the figure are very blurry. Additionally, there is no explanation of the specific coordinate system used.
4. This manuscript completely lacks an introduction to data sources. Where did the data for salinity and freshwater pulses come from? Were they obtained from hydrological monitoring stations? What is the time series of the data? How are the hydrological monitoring stations distributed?
5. Why use the SWAT model? The manuscript also does not provide an introduction to the data sources for land use, elevation, soil, weather time series, and the locations of weather stations.
6. Due to the lack of an introduction to data sources, it is challenging for readers to understand the content in the results section. I believe that there is still much work to be done before this manuscript can be published.
7. The explanations for Figure 3-5 are quite poor. The explanations for Figure 7-11 are also quite poor.
8. The ANFIS-based models should be compared with the results of other models, such as hydrodynamic models, to highlight the advantages of ANFIS-based models. Otherwise, the rationale for using ANFIS-based models to address the research gap would not exist.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript under review describes the simulation of environmental impact of flood diversion on the ecosystem of brackish-water lakes. The authors focus on the real case study of Lake Pontchartrain (brackish-water lake), situated near the delta of Mississippi River. The prevention of flooding by Mississippi leads to often pulses of freshwater to brackish-water lake. The authors proclaim its ecosystem valuable, but the reviewer wants to remind that this lake is an estuarine one, so it is doomed to live in mixed brackish-water/freshwater conditions.
The authors describe the models they developed - an adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) based model and an optimization model of Lake Pontchartrain in which reducing salinity due to freshwater pulses was minimized, while the flood diversion benefits are maximized. The descriptions of models are good as well as the representation of the results of their work. The results demonstrate that the first model is quite successful for simulating the salinity time series in the representative station of the Lake, though the authors honestly report that it is not robust enough for simulating the peak points in the salinity time series in the Lake. The results of optimization model demonstrate that the optimization is impossible in current conditions.
The work is excellently performed, clearly written, good illustrated and will be of interest for scientists and researchers facing similar situations and problems.
As recommendations, the authors must remove abbreviations from the abstract and keywords and it will be better to change the title of the manuscript. It is strange to have title “Minimizing environmental impacts of flood diversion on the ecosystem of brackish-water lakes” for the paper where conclusion states “no appropriate solution is available for mitigating the environmental degradations of the freshwater pulses in the Lake due to huge amount of freshwater even during minor Mississippi River flood diversions”.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe revised version is fine; it is ready for publication.
