Two-Way Coupling of the National Water Model (NWM) and Semi-Implicit Cross-Scale Hydroscience Integrated System Model (SCHISM) for Enhanced Coastal Discharge Predictions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for incorporating suggestions. I recommend this paper for publication. 

Author Response

Thank you for your review and for confirming that there are no comments or suggestions for further revisions. We appreciate your time and effort in reviewing our work.

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have confirmed that the revised manuscript has adequately addressed the previous comments and questions. There are no additional comments and questions.

Author Response

Thank you for your review and for confirming that there are no comments or suggestions for further revisions. We appreciate your time and effort in reviewing our work.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this research, the authors introduced a coupling method between 1-D hydrologic model (NWM) and 2-D hydrodynamic model (SCHISM) to capture severe events at coastal areas such as tidal influences and storm surge effects that affects rivers discharge and storage. This integration is a good step for further improvements in numerical modeling techniques. Actually, the authors almost replied most of my questions at the results sections. However, I have simple major comments and other minor comments:

Minor comments:

1-     As almost numerical modelers, text should be adjusted at many positions.

2-     Figures and tables explanation should be before the table/figure.

3-     Figure 2, add Atlantic Ocean somewhere.

4-     Figure 3, (a) shows water levels, modify vertical axe title.

5-     Figure 3, (b) vertical axe title and scale of the wind speed are missing.

6-     Table 1 has a repeated row (Spatial Resolution)

7-     Addressing that NWM (the 1-D model) has limitations in the abstract, all models have limitations?? Even NWM couldn’t capture the upstream flow as the USGS observed discharge that used in Exp2.

8-     In discussion, why do you insist that NWM should capture appropriate water level; in this case you should use distributed hydrologic model.

9-     Discussion should include supportive references.

 

Major comments

1-     Figure 1 in not clear to visualize the coupling process between NWM and SCHISM models and the transition zone between the two boundary sections.

2-     Table 1 shown different time steps between NWM and SCHISM models, explain, how could you couple and why not unified time step.

3-     Page 7, line 201, I believe this experiment has no coupling as inflow measured by USGS, it is a validation for SCHISM as stated in the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript should be improved at many positions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Figure 7 shows that the results are not satisfactory after coupling. These results are not acceptable for publication as they do not make sense. They should explain why the results worsen after coupling. It appears that there is no need to couple these two models, as the SCHISM model alone can produce results similar to the observations.

 

Other minor comments:

The presentation of the work could be improved. In the results section, the author should provide more comparisons to draw solid conclusions. A peak-to-peak comparison between observations and simulations for different gauges is necessary. Additionally, they need to explain and show the timing of the peaks for different areas.

 

Introduction:

There is a new category of models that can simultaneously account for tides, storm surge, river flow, and rainfall. These models are not cited in the manuscript. Here are two recent examples:

[1] Leijnse, Tim, Maarten van Ormondt, Kees Nederhoff, and Ap van Dongeren. "Modeling compound flooding in coastal systems using a computationally efficient reduced-physics solver: Including fluvial, pluvial, tidal, wind-and wave-driven processes." Coastal Engineering 163 (2021): 103796.

[2] Begmohammadi, Amirhosein, Damrongsak Wirasaet, Ning Lin, J. Casey Dietrich, Diogo Bolster, and Andrew B. Kennedy. "Subgrid modeling for compound flooding in coastal systems." Coastal Engineering Journal (2024): 1-18.

Many other parts of the manuscripts did not cite the appropriate paper. They just claimed something. For instance, Lines 52-67. There are many statements without the reference.

 

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

I do not have any comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This study is aiming to address a significant knowledge gap in coastal coupling and coastal flood prediction. The methodology and experimental design is sound, but the interpretation of results and conclusion would require revisions. In particular, the results show the impact of two-way coupling on discharge with mode oscillations and backwater effect, which seems reasonable, but authors didn't explain how they concluded that these new results are more accurate than one-way coupling. To be more specific, yes oscillation and back water effect are captured, but there is no evidence of whether these new results from the two-way coupling are more accurate. How the authors can confirm that backwater effect and oscillations from two-way coupling are accurate in size and timing?

There are also some examples that the presented results does not match the corresponding conclusion text for justification of two-way coupling. for example:

- lines 282-292 (river-river interaction): authors claimed that "A small connecting branch, visible in SCHISM's high-resolution modeling, can alter flow dynamics during flood events", but it's hardly visible from Figure 6 that the connecting branch is the main driver of the backwater effect in the main river!

- lines 303-306 (water storage and release): authors did not provide a supporting evidence (reference to results) for this claim

- lines 307-311 (spatial variation): the text description is quite opposite of what is shown in Figure 5. authors claimed that there is a similar timing at 9071798, but Figure 5 shows a reverse lag at 9071798 .

- lines 433-435 (claiming more accurate prediction with two-way coupling): again, there was no validation of two-way coupling results vs observation, so there is no evidence for more accuracy. Instead, authors can claim that two-way coupling revealed some features that sound reasonable and appealing, but further investigation would be needed to quantify these improvements. 

 

minor comments (with line reference):

lines 37-38: mention that SCHISM is hydrodynamic ocean model.

line 46: add full name of ASGS-STORM and ADCIRC

lines 49-67: add references for the claims. mention more quantitative impacts 

line 110: explain how R_n is specified (the criteria)?!

Line 148: Add full name of ROMS

Line 160 (Add reference)

Figure 4: Hard to see performances. It would be better to zoom in the very short time range

Figure 5: to be consistent, call them with Exp. number, or one-way vs two-way coupling. 

Figure 5: what the numbers represent? Are these reach numbers? if yes, mention it in the figure caption

 

minor comments/suggestions:

you don't need to repeat National Water Model, multiple times. just define it once, and then use NWM.

I would recommend adding a new section called model set up explaining three models (ROMS, SCHISM, NWM) separately and their specifications in this model set up.

Model validation could be sub section of results

Authors could also use SCHISM 3D for the entire domain, instead of ROMS/SCHISM set up. That would be useful to explain the justification for their model set up. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I attached the review comment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf