Quality Assessment of Groundwater Resources in the City of Al-Marj, Libya
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
- The English is poor, many sentences and phrases have grammatical errors. It is highly recommended to be revised by a native English speaker.
- The title is too long, please provide a shorter and conceive one, for e.g. “Quality assessment of groundwater resources in the City of Al Marj, Libya”.
- Is it Al-Marj or Al Mark? Please put the correct name in the entire paper.
- Please provide the full names of the abbreviations (TDS, DO, BOD, COD, TSS).
- Please modify in superscript the valence sings (-) for the anions.
- Please use the terms referring to water (groundwater/well/drinking water) uniformly during the entire work, because the reader could be confused.
- Please change “physical chemical” and “physicochemical” to physico-chemical.
- Please provide the quality assurance for the applied methods.
- What does “pH probe means”? Please explain.
- What are the methods that you used for the anions, total hardness, ammonia and ammoniacal nitrogen determinations? Please provide data regarding the used equipment, methods and standard solutions.
- What is the reason of studying ammonia and ammoniacal nitrogen from the studied groundwater resources?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Greetings;
First of all, we really do appreciate your efforts, observations, and valuable comments on the entire paper. The given comments have been highlighted by red color in the entire paper. Besides, the response to the valuable comments is attached in a PDF file.
Your kind consideration is highly appreciated.
Kind regards
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
First of all, in the PDF manuscript I received line numbers are missing.
This paper addresses the vital issue of drinking water quality assessment. However, English is very poor and the manuscript should be heavily checked by an English native speaker. Particularly, the Abstract, the Introduction, and the Conclusion should be entirely rewritten. Often, the manuscript takes more the character of a Review than a Research paper as explained here in more detail:
page 1 (Abstract): "eleven (11)" is redundant.
page 1 (Abstract): change "were significantly at a" with "displayed".
page 1 (Introduction): the phrase "which are groundwater is providing" doesn't make any sense.
page 2 (Material and Methods) :what does "expected populace" mean?
page 2 (Material and Methods): change "380 mm/year" with "380 mm year-1"
page 2 (Material and Methods): change "degrees Celsius" with "°C"
page 2 (Material and Methods): what does "which is not influenced by the groundwater wells" mean?
page 3, Figure 1: excellent and very clear.
page 3: "to determine the matter of water quality": delete "matter of"
page 3, Table 1: the last column (on the right): remove it and put "Farm" in the text.
page 5: delete "the steps of the IDW method ....OK".
page 5 (Temperature): "This finding corresponds .... timing of collection." this sentence is unclear.
page 5 (Temperature): change "the temperature-gradient figure..." with "Figure 2..."
page 7 (Turbidity): it should be spelled out what NTU means.
page 7 (Turbidity): change "as demonstrated in Figure 4" with "as displayed in Figure 4"
page 7 (Turbidity): remove "An identical research by Brhane (22)... 4,8 NTU" This is supposed to be a Research paper, not a Review.
page 7 (Turbidity): well #3 shows the highest NTU and, in Table 21, displays very high BOD while the lowest DO in Table 20. This is compatible with the "sewage hypothesis" proposed by the Authors and it should be addressed somewhere in the paper, for example in page 24 (see my comments about page 23). Normally, BOD and DO are inversely proportional, see also page 27 (E. Coli) and page 28 (Total Coliforms) about well #3.
page 14 (Calcium): remove "Tikle et al. (42)...station". This is not a Review.
page 20 (Sodium): remove "A comparable study ...permissible limit". This is not a Review.
page 23 (Dissolved Oxygen): the sentence "the variation in the spatial distribution of DO ....study area" states something which is not proved and, most probably, wrong. The observed variation might be due also to one more parameter, the BOD. It would be expected that the higher the BOD, the lower the DO. This because, it is expected that microorganisms which are present in the soil consume DO to a higher extent when BOD is elevated, as explained by the Authors in page 24: "contaminated water from sewage .... its decomposition (77)". The same can be said about Chemical Oxygen Demand (page 25).
page 25 (Chemical Oxygen Demand): the sentence "The high concentration ...(76,83,84)" is unclear to me.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Greetings;
We are totally thankful for your given comments and corrections on the entire paper. In addition, the appreciated comments have been made and highlighted by red color in the entire paper.
The responding comments attached in a PDF file below.
Your kind consideration is highly appreciated. Kind regards
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Please correct below mistakes:
Thirteen (13) chemical parameters were included to examined the quality of water which are: Chloride (Cl-). Sulphate (SOâ‚„²-), Bicarbonate (HCO3-), Total Hardness, (Cl), Calcium (Ca),... (page 4 - what is Cl- after total hardness?)
In every figure description after number space is missing
The paper was written in good language. Presented informations are very ineresting but needs some extensions:
In section 2.3. (page 4) the Authors write about trace elements. Please explain why You measure only copper nad iron? What about other heavy metals (i.e. cadmium, aluminium, nickel, lead)?
Colnclusion section (page 29) must be change. In this section I couldn't see discussion of obtained results. The reader couldn't see if they are comparable to other authors or standards (WHO is not an international standard - it's only recomenndations for governors).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Greetings,
Thank you very much for taking the time to give us such great corrections of recommendation within the paper. Therefore, the given comments have been made and highlighted by the red color in the entire paper. Furthermore, I have attached the PDF file for responding to comments.
Your kind consideration is highly appreciated.
Best regards.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper was improved and the authors provide details regarding the equipment and applied methodologies,
but no data regarding the quality assurance was added:
- what standard solutions were used in order to calibrate the equipment?
- what standard solutions, certified materials were used in order to verify the precision and accuracy of the methods were used?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for the valuable observation and comments. I am herewith attaching the response to your raised comments.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Proposed corrections were made properly
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thanks for the valuable observation and comments for improving my manuscript.
