Comprehensive Water Quality Assessment Using Korean Water Quality Indices and Multivariate Statistical Techniques for Sustainable Water Management of the Paldang Reservoir, South Korea
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments for author File: 
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Author Response
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Author Response File: 
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Reviewer 2 Report
Review of “Comprehensive Water Quality Assessment Using Korean Water Quality Indices and Multivariate Statistical Techniques for Sustainable Water Management of the Paldang Reservoir, South Korea”
This paper addresses an important topic, and the authors present a large volume of interesting data from long term research. However, the international context of the work is most probably insufficiently justified. I suggest more comparison with worldwide data. Moreover, it will be very useful if all measured data are published in tables in appendix.
I had some additional comments and suggestions which should not be difficult to address. Also, they should give some additional information.
Detailed comments are as follows
The introduction is a bit too long and I would suggest shortening it a bit.
In Figure 1, the satellite image should have the same shape and dimensions as the map. Now it is actually smaller, and its purpose is lost. It should be fixed, or the satellite image should be removed.
Conclusion should be better structured according to study aims
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
This study presents quantitative evaluation result of water quality in a reservoir. Statistical methods were used to identify factors that affect water quality. The manuscript was properly organized including methods, results and discussion. There are comments that would improve the reader’s understanding of the manuscript.
Comment 1) In Section 3.2, the correlation results show that COD, TOC and BOD have significant positive correlation. Although it is expectable result it would be better including a simple explanation about the result (e.g. Significant correlation was observed as COD, TOC and BOD represent organic matters in water body.)
Comment 2) In line 369-376, the authors suggest that RTWQI of PDR was more affected by anthropogenic factors than seasonal factor. It seems that this conclusion was determined based on the observation that seasonal RTWQI of the PDR showed no significant difference (p>0.05). It looks somewhat confusing as the authors compares the difference of monthly average of RTWQI through the entire section of section 3.3.1. If possible, including more solid evidence or detailed explanation about the analytical result would improve the understanding of the readers and better support the conclusion. Including a simple explanation about why water quality was more affected by anthropogenic factors would also improve the understanding of the readers.
Comment 3) In Section 3.4.1, the HCA results were presented including explanation about why each cluster were determined. If possible, provide more detailed explanation related with environmental condition with the watershed (e.g. pollutant sources) would improve the practical applicability of the manuscript (e.g. why low pollution was observed in sites in cluster 2).
Author Response
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Reviewer 4 Report
The paper reported by Dr. Yong-Chul Cho et al. focuses on water quality assessment of a reservoir by using water quality indices and multivariate statistical techniques. The topic is very interesting. The paper is well-written, and suitable for Journal Water. I would recommend publishing this manuscript with a minor revision.
Specific comments
Lines 21-23, Please added details for potential pollution sources that resulted from the principal component analysis.
Lines 75-85, please do more review on multivariate statistical techniques to water quality. In addition, please supplement details for limitations in applying MST alone to water quality assessment.
Lines 155-167, what about the details for quality control? what about relative errors for parameters?
I recommend some references related to principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis that may be useful for authors.
Science of the Total Environment, 857, 159527, 2023.
Science of the Total Environment, 829, 154676, 2022.
Journal of Hydrology 585, 124860, 2020.
Environmental Pollution, 260, 114079, 2020.
Journal of Hydrology, 577, 124004, 2019.
Author Response
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