A Framework for Developing a National Research Strategy for Water Reuse

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

It is interesting and important work to define the basis for the development of a research strategy for water reuse. Key gaps and existing resources that can be leveraged to increase water conservation and reuse were identified and analyzed.

However, there is a lack of definition of the importance and integration of tools such as AI, machine learning and other digital means (sensors, UAVs, IoTs, robots, GIS, etc.) in the management of reclaimed water. The strategy, to be successful, needs to be adapted to these tools.

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors present an ontological framework for developing a national research strategy for water reuse. This is an interesting approach to a much contemporary issue of great relevance. Unfortunately, their exposition is highly theoretical and lacks practical application examples. The situation described in this MS is highly utopian: is it actually applicable in the real world? I see the entire process thus described as a bureaucratic nightmare already at the local scale, let alone the national or supernational one. (It actually recalled to my mind the "committe song" of an old Babar cartoon movie that I used to watch with my kids when they were little). As such I would not define the MS as "article" but as a "commentary" or "perspective". As such it is certainly a basis for theoretical discussion, perhaps less for implementation.

Some comments:

Line 20, 36, 86, etc.: it is unusual to indicate page numbers when citing references

Line 26: "... water conservation could reduce the household water use by more than 30%..." see for example a discussion on water use reduction in " Taking the water out of “wastewater”: An ineluctable oxymoron for urban water cycle sustainability" (Water Environment Research, 2020, 92(12), 2030–2040)

Line 29: "...As of November 13, 2023, there were 1846 papers with ‘water reuse’ in their title indexed in the Scopus database..." I actually found over 3500; a Google Scholar search yielded over 1,300,000 hits...

Line 73: Please define WRF

Line 80: Is Figure 1 a figure or a Table? It seems derived from a previous publication. In that case, credits are due.

The first author self-citation rate is just short of 30% of the total citations. Refs. 10 and 48 are the same; also refs. 2 and 23. Some references (about 35% of them) are rather old (40 y.o.). I recommend considering whether they are all actually relevant and necessary, and possibly substituting them with more recent publications, given the current relevance of the MS topic.

Authors should endeavour to make their discussion more practical, e.g. by exemplifying their approach in a specific regulatory setting (US?) and a specific seleceted pathway.

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

MS has been improved and can be accepted for publication