Development and Application of a Methodology for the Identification of Potential Groundwater Recharge Zones: A Case Study in the Virvini Micro-Basin, Tiraque, Bolivia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Groundwater is a vital resource for human and eco-environment. To identify and protect groundwater recharge zones is important for sustainable groundwater exploration. This manuscript takes the Virvini micro-basin, Tiraque-Bolivia as a case to study potential groundwater recharge zones. However, the hydrogeological setting is the key to reveal groundwater recharge-flow-discharge system. The detailed comments are as follow:
>> Section Abstract, The full name of "EARLI" is missing in line 24.
 The line 26 lacks a description of the influence of the spatial distribution of rainfall on the importance of groundwater recharge areas.
>> Section Introduction. The introduction writing logic is less smooth. The first to third paragraphs can be combined into one paragraph as a research background. In the fourth paragraph, the logical words "however" and "as a result" are not properly connected. The research methods and limitations of paragraphs five to six could be combined into one paragraph. Paragraphs 7 to 8 can be combined into one paragraph.
>> Page 12. The order of tables, figures and text should be rearranged for clearly reading,e.g. the text goes through Fig. 8b before returning to Fig. 8a, while Table 2 explains Fig. 8b earlier and Table 3 explains Fig. 8a later.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors;

You can find my comments in the attached file.

Best Regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This is the review comments on the manuscript “Development and application of a methodology for the identification of potential groundwater recharge zones: A case study in the Virvini micro-basin, Tiraque-Bolivia” by Rodriguez-Levy et al. to the journal Water for potential publications. The writing has some flaws regarding clarity and accuracy. The scientific claim is big and attracting but the manuscript seems to not be able to defend it. It requires major revision in order to improve the soundness of the methodology.

Some major concerns:

1.       Please discuss the reason why the specific parameter proposed by the method were not suitable for the Virvini micro-basin and why the Delphi method is used to adjust it.

2.       What is the connection between springs and the recharge probability? Are these springs a support of the modeling results?

3.       Please validate those derived methods. The methodology lacks serious derivation but is full of citations from other studies. This has made the paper more like a report rather than a research paper.

4.       Please defend the weird results such as Figure 11, in which the low recharge probability zones looks un-realistic.

Minor concerns:

1.       Some language issue, including but not limited to

a.       “This approach, …, was applied in the Virvini micro-basin as a pilot study area” in the abstract. Moderate proofreading is required.

b.       Some vague tones like “local community participation”. These language are not accurate and concise.

2.       The digital maps in Figure 4 have a lot of error points that needs technical improvement. A more advanced operation on these DEM-based data is required.

3.       Line 177, please identify how these weight factors are obtained.

4.       Lines 148-160, please present these digital maps. Otherwise, we cannot get any useful information from the paper.

5.       Is the rainfall distribution a temporal mean? How long is the period for obtaining this map?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors;

Thank you for addressing my comments. My suggestion is acceptance. Congratulations to the Authors.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

I have no more comments. The paper may be considered publishable with some minor proofreading.