Assessing the Long-Term Production of Suspended Sediment and the Climate Changes Impact on Its Deposition in Artificial Lakes—A Case Study of Lake Trakošćan, Croatia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Authors have done significant improvement to the presentation of their work. That is highly appreciated. They have included the famous MK test to their climate analysis. However, they have presented their man kindle test results in the methodology section instead of the results and discussion section this is again poor presentation. I would like to suggest the following two papers which used MK test for their analysis. The first paper presents the trend analysis of runoff and sediment. Please see the presentation of their work.
The second paper presents the usage of MK test to a different study (instead of climate) which is based on climatic factors. Please kindly see the presentation.
You surely must amend your presentation. You did a very good job but needs improvement in arranging your results. Discuss the results of MK test in discussion so that the editor will be in favour of your work to be fitted in the Climate journal. If not this can be move to Hydrology.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.12.023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13201-019-0925-9
Language corrections are needed at proof.
Author Response
The authors thank you for the advices and suggestions.
According to them we made corrections:
- Corrected Ln 299-319, MK test results are moved to chapter 3. Results, 3.1. Homogenuitivity and trend analysis
- Further explanation is added in Discussion sectio, Ln 466-477.
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Reviewers ' comments .
The authors revised manuscript according to suggestions and comments . I recommend publication of the paper in CLIMATE after minor revision .
Minor comments
Line 326' downward ' should be ' decrease ';
Line 433 this sentence need to be revised ' Result
minor revise
Author Response
Thank you for the suggestions.
Authors made corrections according the recommendation:
- Line 326 - corrected
- Line 433 - corrected
- The manuscript was checked by a colleague fluent in English writing.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Revisions are accepted.
Minor edits.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Assessing the long term production of suspended sediment and the climate changes impact on its deposition in artificial lakes – a case study Lake TrakošÄ‡an, Croatia
The work in this manuscript is very interesting but poorly presented. First the authors are advised to thoroughly proofread the manuscript for its style. Please see the following section of your abstract which showcases the poor presentation.
“… that have a multifunctional function”. The stressing words are multifunctional function.
Abstract is not properly done. It is more or less an introduction. what is the necessity of this research with research gap. Rather than presenting the research gap and solution for that research gap in this paper the authors tried to present a project work here.
Authors stated that they have obtained meteorological and hydrological data from the relevant authorities. however it is important to tell the readers the real techniques which they have used to measure the following two which are highly important; suspended sediment concentration (SSC) [g/m3 ] and suspended sediment transport (SST) [t/day]. These two are not straightforward to measure yeah what would be in the which has been carried out.
Figure 2 showcases the precipitation trend analysis. however, it is well noted that you can't analyze the precipitation trends by just plotting the annual precipitation with time this gives only an eyeball statistic or a simple trend. therefore, nonparametric methods are widely used to find the meteorological trends.
What is the real research output here? If you have measured data for sediment, then you could have alreast predict the sediment load using mathematical techniques. Maybe you can think of using Machine Learning techniques. If not there is no real research output here.
Please see the above comments.
Author Response
the authors would like to thank you for the helpful and assertive suggestions.
The answers are in file Review_1.doc
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments on “Assessing the long term production of suspended sediment and the climate changes impact on its deposition in artificial lakes – a case study Lake TrakošÄ‡an, Croatia”
General comments:
In this study, the annual sediment production is calculated based on empirical parametric methods in TrakošÄ‡an Lake. This work needs more observation like evaporation and soil moisture etc to support the conclusion. It helps to improve the lake's ecological condition in the future. I recommend publication of the paper in Climate after revision.
Specific comments:
1. ‘The topographic catchment area of 13 the lake is 10.7 km2, about 1.5 km long, and its area is about 17 hectares, with an average depth of about 2.5 meters. The lake's total volume was originally around 400,000 cubic meters, and down-stream from the dam, the water from the lake flows into the Bednja River.’ Should be deleted.
2. What is the latitude and longitude of the station in table 1?
3. The unit of precipitation should be mm/h in table 2?
4. please provide The CORINE (Coordination of information on the environment) Land Cover (CLC) linkage？
5. Mixed columnar and broken lines, difficult to distinguish, unified as broken lines in figure 2.
6. L.277-295 move to the Methods section
7. When analyzing climate change, evaporation should also be considered, as hydrological cycles have a significant impact on reservoir settlement.
8. section 3.3, calculated results need to be evaluated by observation.
Comments on “Assessing the long term production of suspended sediment and the climate changes impact on its deposition in artificial lakes – a case study Lake TrakošÄ‡an, Croatia”
General comments:
In this study, the annual sediment production is calculated based on empirical parametric methods in TrakošÄ‡an Lake. This work needs more observation like evaporation and soil moisture etc to support the conclusion. It helps to improve the lake's ecological condition in the future. I recommend publication of the paper in Climate after revision.
Specific comments:
1. ‘The topographic catchment area of 13 the lake is 10.7 km2, about 1.5 km long, and its area is about 17 hectares, with an average depth of about 2.5 meters. The lake's total volume was originally around 400,000 cubic meters, and down-stream from the dam, the water from the lake flows into the Bednja River.’ Should be deleted.
2. What is the latitude and longitude of the station in table 1?
3. The unit of precipitation should be mm/h in table 2?
4. please provide The CORINE (Coordination of information on the environment) Land Cover (CLC) linkage？
5. Mixed columnar and broken lines, difficult to distinguish, unified as broken lines in figure 2.
6. L.277-295 move to the Methods section
7. When analyzing climate change, evaporation should also be considered, as hydrological cycles have a significant impact on reservoir settlement.
8. section 3.3, calculated results need to be evaluated by observation.
Author Response
The authors would like to thank Reviewer 2 for the helpful and assertive suggestions.
The answers and comments are in file Reviewer_2.doc
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
General comments:
Paper investigates the temporal dynamics of the suspended sediment production and deposition in the artificial lake Trakoscan. The lake faces huge problems with the excess of sediment deposits and inflow of particulate organic matter which also cause water-quality related problems.
I am missing some general introduction about the problems of artificial water bodies which often inevitably become filled with sediment deposits. Namely, this is a widely known problems which is very difficult to solve effectively.
The author implemented the Fleming’s equation for estimating the average annual sediment production. The method is relatively well known in various applications. However, in comparison to other much more widely used methodologies for estimation of average annual sediment yield (erosion rates – e.g. USLE method or some other methods) is there any specific reason to argue the use of the Fleming equation?
Additionally, in terms of the climate change impact on the sediment yield which seems to be one of the central topic of the paper and the special issue, only yearly precipitation was considered. It is well known that one of the most important factors triggering the erosion rates is rainfall kinetic energy which is usually related to the rainfall intensity (e.g. rainfall-runoff erosivity factor R factor in USLE equation). If the authors would like to analyze the climate change impact, in my view, the characteristics of the rainfall should be investigated more in detail and could provide much more tangible information. It is hard to see directly how can one estimate the impact of climate change from the implemented Fleming’s equation or other available data. This aspect should be discussed more clearly throughout the paper.
Specific comments:
Many parts of the “Introduction” section and first part of section 2.1 are repeating.
Line 12: Instead of “Multifunctional function” maybe “multifunctional role”.
Line 43: Were there any problems with the lake reported before first monitoring campaign in 1969?
Line 45: What was the land use management before mentioned cleaning of the forest cover?
Lines 49 – 54: What was the main purpose of the regulation works in the torrent channels mentioned in this section?
Line 79: Did the investigations also include some water and sediment chemical, physical and sediment granulometric parameters?
As an addition to Figure1, I suggest to present Figure 6 which shows the investigated Trakoscan lake with the main tributaries and topographic characteristics of the catchment.
Line 106: What is meant by “flood-type stream”?
Line 139: Does the mentioned dataset contain measured suspended sediment concentrations at daily time step? For which period?
Data presented in Table 2 need some additional explanation. Are these only yearly data or also some monthly data? Instead of “Data count” I would suggest showing “Data period”.
Line 184: Reference missing at the end of the sentence.
Line 222-224: How was the statistical significance of the trends assessed?
Section 3.2: Interestingly, there were only slight changes in the land-use in the analyzed 28-year period. Among the largest changes seems to be the reduction of the “transitional woodland-shrub”? Any specific reason for this?
Table 6 seems redundant, maybe only some statistical values of the estimated sediment yield could be reported (mean, max, min, stdev).
Lines 262-265: Here some strong assumptions about the sediment yield dynamics are given without any additional arguments/comments. Additional justification of the assumptions are needed. Since there is also huge uncertainty related to the estimation of the sediment yields I would strongly suggest to round all the reported annual sediment yields to tonnes.
Lines 278-280: Unclear sentence, please rephrase it.
How were the segments of the Trakoscan lake reported in Table 9 defined?
Line 303: Are this “barriers constructions” some kind of torrent check dams? Were the sediment deposits behind the barriers removed (cleaned) since construction of the barriers?
Table 11: Based on what assumptions was the sediment yield increase for 50% assigned?
Figure 7: What data were used to calculate the yearly sediment transport measured at hydrological station Bednja?
Line 380: What is meant by “lagoon”? What measures are foreseen and could be effective to reduce the amount of the particulate organic matter that deposit in the Trakoscan lake?
The reference list is quite short, we suggest to extend it with some more up-to-date research on similar topic especially in the introduction section.
Generally, in view of the English language quality, I found paper easy to follow, however I would suggest minor to moderate editing of the paper in order to make some parts of the paper more concise.
Author Response
the authors would like to thank Reviewer 3 for the helpful and assertive suggestions.
The answers to the questions are in attached file Reviewer_3
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
After reviewing the article with title “Assessing the long-term production of suspended sediment and the climate changes impact on its deposition in artificial lakes – a case study Lake TrakošÄ‡an, Croatia” I found it interesting for the journal audience and that fits the journal’s topics. The author’s have to addressed the following issues according to the reviewer comments:
In the introduction must be it must be enriched with more information and references adequate with the topic of the article. For instance, climate variability and changes in climatological variable and its effects on erosion dynamics must be highlighted as reported in recent literature (https://www.cjees.ro/viewTopic.php?topicId=652, https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.3061) and reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/) .
Additionally, some information about other studies mentioned the problem sediment inflow into lake ecosystem should be added to show the literature review in this subject (https://www.witpress.com/elibrary/SDP-volumes/6/3/533, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15051339)
In the last paragraph of the introduction clearly present the novel points of your approach in comparison with similar published studies and the scientific gap if exist.
Please increase the fonts in the legend of figure 1.
Have you checked the meteorological data for homogeneity?
Are the linear trends statistically significant (p=0.05). Did you make any analysis (eg. t-test?)
In figure 6. It would be more preferable to add a google earth background with labels in English!
The number of twelve references are too little for a scientific journal please add as many as you can.
It would be useful to add some targets for future research.
Author Response
The authors would like to thank you for helpful and assertive suggestions.
The answers to the questions are in attached file Review_4.doc
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors said, they have done a simple analysis for climate to see. If that is the case, how this manuscript could be suitable for the "Climate". The scope is totally out!!!
Figure 2 showcases the precipitation trend analysis. however, it is well noted that you can't analyse the precipitation trends by just plotting the annual precipitation with time this gives only an eyeball statistic or a simple trend. therefore, nonparametric methods are widely used to find the meteorological trends.
Answer:
We were just doing a simple preliminary analysis of the trend, without some tests.
Language slips.
Reviewer 3 Report
I believe authors have adequately answered most of the issues and questions I raised during my previous review. I understand the authors intent to make the analysis consistent with previous investigations in the study area and the problems they have with the lack of data (e.g. rainfall intensity etc.). However, since the sediment yield equation are usually rough estimates and there are several methods that enable the analysis of climate change (rainfall erosivity) as one of the crucial factors influencing the sediment yield, application of some additional method would, in my view, considerably contribute to the consistency of the results presented throughout the paper.
Generally I found manuscript easy to follow, I would recommend minor Englis Language editing.
Reviewer 4 Report
The author's addressed all the reviewer suggestions. The article in the current version is accepted for publication.
