Development of Daily Flow Expansion Regression and Web GIS-Based Pollutant Load Evaluation System
, Yongchul Shin 3, Jihong Jeon 4, Jeongho Han 5, Kyoung Jae Lim 6 and Jonggun Kim 6,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors- The abstract should follow the research subject, the importance of the research, the research method, and the main points of the results. It seems the authors have not followed this instruction, so the abstract should be revised
- According to the methodology, I suggest the title be revised accordingly
- For the referencing inside the text, I strongly suggest studying the guidelines for the authors and revising the text- I could not find any novelty for the research. In addition, the literature review is very weak and it is not understood the Gap for this research.
- I could not understand the elation of the Web-GIS based pollution load evaluation system to this research in the introduction. It must be clarified more obviously
- This sentence should checked and maybe revised because it is not clear
“we collected 8-days interval flow at “A” station man- 158 aged by MOE and developed the regression equation for daily flow expansion compared 159 with flow data at “B” station. The developed daily flow expansion relation was applied to 160 the “B” flow station, and the correlation with the measured daily flow data at the “A” 161 flow station was analyzed.”
- What is the meaning of the expanded flow rate? What is the importance of it in FDC? It is not clear to me.
- Q and L must be introduced inside the text.
- More information about the watershed should be added including the rainfall distribution and DEM.
- The machine learning that has been used in this manuscript is very simple and it is such linear regression. Therefore, I think to revise the manuscript and the regression is used. learning effects is not clear to me
- I am not sure what is concept of the specific discharge measurement method.
- I could not find any explanations about the implementation of FDC and LDC. The main part of this manuscript should be assigned to this section but the authors summarized the results in section 3-2 that the figures are clear
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required
Author Response
We appreciate the reviewer's detail and valuable comments. We made efforts to reflect all of the reviewer's comments, and as a result, it seems that the quality of the manuscript has improved. We have attached our responses, and the revised manuscript. Thank you once again.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsFirst, I want to thank the authors for their valuable work and effort to summarize the study in this manuscript. I have a few comments that can help improve the potential publication:
1. In the abstract, Line15: Please spell out all acronyms the first time they are used (e.g., TMDL).
2. In the abstract, Line 20: What was the machine learning technique used? Please provide the name of the technique.
3. In the abstract, Line 21: Please provide a brief numerical summary of the results (e.g., most representative results in terms of RMSE and NSE would be ideal).
4. In the abstract, Line 24: Please include a sentence to explain who are the major stakeholders and/or who can benefit from the results of your study.
5. In the Introduction, Line 56: "many studies have been drawing Flow Duration Curve (FDC) to evaluate the pollutant loads for flow conditions by using the daily flow data simulated by watershed scales hydrological models that calibrate the simulated results using the average 8-day interval measurement data of the monitoring network". Please provide a table that summarizes these studies, including the publication year, and pros (advantages) and cons (limitations) of their approach to solving this issue.
6. In the Introduction, Line 72: It seems that the objective is one, and not multiple. I suggest to either expand on the objective and change the verbs from plural to singular, or split your main objective into smaller objectives.
7. In the Introduction, Line 75: I suggest adding a paragraph to explain the importance of your study, why this study is necessary, the stakeholders involved, who benefits from the results of your study and how.
8. In the Materials and Methods, Line 89: Figure 1 is not well represented and must be improved. The font is much smaller then the rest of the paper and not currently readable. Please increase font size and image resolution. The shadow under the image on the bottom left should be removed to clear up the map. An indication of the country, continent should be included. The elevation distribution should be indicated. In addition, the coordinates (latitude and longitude) should be included around the frame. It is not my paper and I am not an author, but I suggest looking up "A Machine-Learning Framework for Modeling and Predicting Monthly Streamflow Time Series" by Dastour and Hassan (2023) - https://www.mdpi.com/2306-5338/10/4/95. Figure 1 is a good example for the study area image. Also, please expand on the figure caption to include more info regarding your study area.
9. In the Materials and Methods, Line 163: "This study evaluated the regression equations at two points by selecting the Jukjeon flow observation station in Naesung stream and Woochun in Musung flow...." Please explain why this two points were chosen.
10. In the Materials and Methods, there should a section that indicates the data source (showing where you obtain the data and info used with related references) so your study can be reproduced by other professionals.
11. In the Results, Line 368: Figure 5 is not readable. Please increase font size and image resolution.
12. I suggest adding a section under Results (Line 369) to summarize the limitations of your study and how your overcame the limitations of other studies by using your method.
13. In general, your reference list is not sufficient to support your reasoning throughout your study. I suggest finding more literature to include in your manuscript in support of your statements.
These are my comments for now, with the hope that I can better understand the process of your work and provide with additional comments on the second review round if necessary.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish is ok. However, I would suggest to reduce the wording and promote conciseness.
Author Response
We appreciate the reviewer's detail and valuable comments. We made efforts to reflect all of the reviewer's comments, and as a result, it seems that the quality of the manuscript has improved. We have attached our responses, and the revised manuscript. Thank you once again.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors
Thank you very much selecting this article to publish in this Journal.
General Comments:
The title of this article looks interesting and the paper is structured well. The aim of this paper was to develop Web-GIS based pollutant load evaluation system using machine learning algorithms. However, the aim of this article has not been clearly mentioned. Line 72-75 needs to be revised. This paper can be developed as a good paper after major revision. I strongly suggest to identify the knowledge gaps revising other quality papers which has been published in English. I have the following suggestions to improve the quality of this manuscript.
Abstract: Use full form, not abbreviation at the beginning. Line 15- TMDL.
The abstract should be written in the standard format such as introduction/problem statement, aim of the research, results, the novelty and contribution of this research. It is not clear to me what is the aim of this research article and what is the potential contribution of this research article. As the title of the paper is “ Development of Daily Flow Expansion Regression and Web- GIS based Pollutant Load Evaluation System”, I could not see that you have mentioned about the Development of Daily Flow Expansion Regression system on your abstract.
I would suggest to rewrite the abstract.
Line 18- Do not mix up with American and British English, for example, analysing vs analyzing;
Line 21- explain where Nakdong River basin is located?
Introduction: The introduction is written well. I have highlighted some sentences where it is better to support statements with citations/references. I am suggesting to include one paragraphs about the knowledge gaps in this area to show the novelty of this research paper. In the last paragraphs, it would be better to remind the reader what is the structure of this paper such as the paper has been organised into five sections. Section 2 describes ..etc.
Materials and Methods:
Write down short introductory paragraph about this section before jumping into 2.1 Study area.
Line 79 – Is this pilot application area or case study area?
Line 19- The quality of satellite imagery is not very good. I would suggest to use GIS created map to show the country. For consistency purpose also it is better to use the same projection system and type of map (raster vs vector).
Line 156 – You have mentioned that the upper watershed of Nakdong River was taken as study area. But, earlier you did not mention that it was “upper watershed”. Either clarify it or be consistent.
Results: The results section is well written. However, it would be good to explain more about Figure/graphs 3 and 4. The description is missing. In addition to this, a discussion section will add value.
Conclusions: Conclusion is good.
References: There are some . Be consistent on references and citations. I can see that there is room to include at least 10-15 more quality references/citations written in English language. When writing a discussion section a few more references could be added. In addition to this also include more other references (the majority are from Korean Literatures and Journal and I am not able to check those papers).
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
I have highlighted some grammatical errors. A moderate editing of English language will be required.
Author Response
We appreciate the reviewer's detail and valuable comments. We made efforts to reflect all of the reviewer's comments, and as a result, it seems that the quality of the manuscript has improved. We have attached our responses, and the revised manuscript. Thank you once again.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI suggest Figure 5 to change so that the reader of the paper can obtain more information related to the specific conditions from it. It seems were presented only as sample and I could not accept the figure as sample of the Web-GIS system.
Author Response
Thanks for the reviewer’s valuable comments. The Figure 6 (Figure 5 from original manuscript) shows the results of the Web-GIS based system applying to the Namgang E station, one of the study areas in this study. We added the additional explanation for the results of application of the system on Lines 463~478 in this revised manuscript.
Also, the title of the figure was revised as “Figure 6. Results of pollutant load assessment using Interface of the Web-GIS based pollutant load assessment system for Namgang E station”
(Figure number was 5 in the original manuscript, it was changed to Figure 6 in this revised manuscript)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank yuo for addressing my comments.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing would be suggested to facilitate academic reading.
Author Response
The English was double checked for the entire manuscript. Thanks
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAs the authors have incorporated my comments, I am happy with this revision. There are some grammatical errors and structure so it would be good to have proofreading of this article by a professional editor.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe quality of English language needs to be improved so it would be good to have proofreading before publishing this article.
Author Response
The English was double checked for the entire manuscript. Thanks.
