Conservation of Water Resources in a Botanic Garden

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I really like the paper, it is a very practical case study about botanical gardens and water management.

The text is very clear and well written, what I really missed was photographs from the place (including geographical location) and a very-well-design diagram of the rain-water-system at the botanical garden. I think this is mandatory to integrate the text with visual objects.

This will be my main suggestion.

Author Response

Thank you for the thoughtful review and I appreciate the time that you took to review the submission.  I have added photographs of portions of the stormwater system that are described in the paper, an overview graphic of the entire system from an educational handout we use for the public, and a graphic that shows the overall geographical location of the Garden.   

Thank you.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is certainly interesting and offers a way of stormwater management that deserves to be shown.

The text is well-written. However, I have a question that is crucial and needs to be answered: can the author provide evidence that the stormwater management in Naples Botanical Garden is effective in achieving its goals? For example, is there evidence that the pollutants are removed? Please provide experimental data, if possible.

As minor comments now. I recommend the addition of a few references, that deal with the situation described particularly in lines 25-49. Likewise, please put some references in the text between lines 191-200.

Please write scientific names in italics (line 148).

Author Response

Thank you for the thoughtful review and I appreciate the time that you took to review the submission.

I greatly appreciate the question that you raise about the effectiveness of the Garden’s stormwater system in achieving our goals.  I’ve added language that clarifies this as best as I can.

The primary goals of the system are stated in lines 212-215: 

“The overarching goal was to create a functional system that balances the critical water resource management needs for flood control and prevention, treatment of stormwater to remove pollutants, and recharge of the aquifer to ensure the long-term sustainability of the region.” 

I’ve clarified in line 223 that the system was designed using established best practices in the literature to meet these goals by adding the following statement:

To meet these each of these goals, the system was designed using established best practices in Florida for stormwater systems.”

 These best practices are based on studies of the efficiencies of existing stormwater systems in Florida.  This is supported in lines 268-271, 274-282, 284-286, and 300-303 below: 

“When appropriately sized to retain runoff volume, dry retention systems like the Rain Garden and bioswales have been shown to be the most effective treatment in meeting goals for reduction of pollution loading [13].”

“The period of time that stormwater remains within a treatment of the system, or residence time, is highly correlated with nutrient removal efficiencies for nitrogen and phosphorous.  Longer residence times result in greater removal of nutrients, reducing the potential for harmful algal blooms downstream [21].  The large storage capacity of the open water lakes serves to achieve the primary water resource management goals of flood protection, removal of nutrients, sediments and other pollutants, and recharge of the groundwater table.”

“The planted littoral edges of the lakes serve to enhance uptake of excess nutrients while preventing surface erosion and providing habitat for fish, wading birds and other wildlife [19].”

“On-line wet retention systems like this in Florida have shown significant capacity to re-move total suspended solids and moderate capacity to remove total nitrogen and phosphorus [13].  In the future, more research is needed to better quantify their effectiveness in overall pollutant removal.”

I’ve added a note in lines 282-284 to clarify that a future goal of the Garden is to quantify the efficiencies of the system to meet these goals through regular monitoring. 

“One of the Garden’s future goals is to quantify the efficiencies of the system in meeting these goals through regular monitoring of water quality and hydrologic budget.”

Unfortunately, at this time, we lack the resources to regularly monitor water quality throughout the large system and the equipment to measure groundwater recharge.  I agree completely that having data on efficiencies of the system would make a much stronger case, but for now we are limited to implementing best practices established in other research carried out in Florida.  I feel that long-term follow-up on the efficiencies of many nature based solutions is a major gap and hope to see more investment in data collection and reporting in the future. 

I have added references in the sections that include lines 25 – 49, and 191 – 200.  I also made some edits in the 191 – 200 lines range to remove some absolute language.  In adding these references, the sequential numbering of the citations throughout the document changed, altering the sequential numbering of the reference page as well.   

The scientific name “Karenia brevis” has been italicized in line 148 and in the citations. 

I have also added photographs of the system and an overview graphic of the system as recommended by another reviewer. 

Thank you

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an excellent paper, and it makes an original and important contribution toward a better understanding of the role that botanic gardens can play by leading by example in the context of sustainable water management. It fills a major gap in the literature and I look forward to see it published. The one minor edit I would suggest is adding a bit more on the positionally of the author, namely in relation to how data for this article was collected and whether there are any sources at the botanical garden that visitors might consult if they wished to learn more.

Author Response

Thank you for the thoughtful review and I appreciate the time that you took to review my submission.

I’ve added some clarification around data collection and the design of the system to address your point and a similar point from another reviewer as best as I can.  The primary goals of the system are stated in lines 212-215:  “The overarching goal was to create a functional system that balances the critical water resource management needs for flood control and prevention, treatment of stormwater to remove pollutants, and recharge of the aquifer to ensure the long-term sustainability of the region.”  I’ve clarified in line 223 that the system was designed using established best practices in the literature to meet these goals. These best practices are based on studies of the efficiencies of existing stormwater systems in Florida.  This is supported in lines 268-271, 274-282, 284-286, and 300-303, citing the existing studies.  I’ve added a note in lines 282-284 to clarify that a future goal of the Garden is to quantify the efficiencies of the system to meet these goals through regular monitoring.  Unfortunately, at this time, we lack the resources to regularly monitor water quality through data collection throughout the large system and the equipment to measure groundwater recharge.  I feel that long-term follow-up on the efficiencies of many nature based solutions through data collection is a major gap globally and hope to see more investment in data collection and reporting in the future. 

Additionally, I’ve added some clarifying language as to what resources are available to Garden visitors to learn more in line 333-334.  The audio tour and handout identified in lines 346-349 are available as links in the Supplementary Materials section, and I’ve added a link to an educational blog post in the Supplementary Materials section.

I have also added photographs of components of the system and an overview graphic of the system as recommended by another reviewer. 

Thank you again for your time in reviewing my submission.