Spatial and Temporal Variations of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Surface Water and Groundwater of Mudong River Watershed in Huixian Karst Wetland, Southwest China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper is discussing an amazing subject concerning the spatial and temporal distribution of nitrogen and phosphorus in surface water and ground waters.  I believe the paper is well wrotten, only some remarks about the Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion must rewrite them. I additiom, Please check all the figures and tables and be sure that the information’s presented are the same in the titles. Also check the details of every figure (symbols...). I believe that the manuscript must go for another round of revision (figures, tables...).

Author Response

Dear Editors and Reviewers,

Thank you for your comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Spatial and temporal variations of nitrogen and phosphorus in surface water and groundwater of Mudong River watershed in Huixian Karst Wetland, Southwest China" (Manuscript ID: sustainability-1330628). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion is marked in red in the paper. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as flowing:

 

 

Point 1: This paper is discussing an amazing subject concerning the spatial and temporal distribution of nitrogen and phosphorus in surface water and ground waters.  I believe the paper is well wrotten, only some remarks about the Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion must rewrite them. I additiom, Please check all the figures and tables and be sure that the information’s presented are the same in the titles. Also check the details of every figure (symbols...). I believe that the manuscript must go for another round of revision (figures, tables...).

 

 

Response 1: Thank you so much for your careful check. We feel sorry for our negligence of details. We have rewritten some of the Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion as suggested. It is really a good idea to go for another round of revision. We have checked all the figures and tables, tried to ensure that the information’s presented are the same in the titles, and also checked the details of every figure (symbols...). In addition, several other type errors have been corrected.

We greatly thanks for all your time and efforts spent continually on the manuscript. Your valuable suggestions and comments provided great contribution to improving the quality of our manuscripts.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

General comment:

The manuscript deals with the assessment of the spatial and temporal dynamics of nitrogen and phosphorus through regular monitoring and collection of surface water and shallow groundwater in an agricultural-dominated Mudong River watershed in Huixian Karst Wetland over a one-year period.

The manuscript is very interesting and suitable to be published in this journal, however some points should be addressed before publication.

Some minor language mistakes are present that should anyway be corrected.

 

1. Introduction

Please, improve the literature overview on pollutant transport modelling and source detection. Please, consider the following manuscripts:

o   Convolution integral vs. Finite difference for the inverse problem of detection of a contamination source in rivers (2017) Desalination and Water Treatment, 86, pp. 277-284.

o   Simulating nonpoint source pollutant loading in a karst basin: A SWAT modeling application (2021) Science of the Total Environment, 785, art. no. 147295.

o   From local measures to regional impacts: Modelling changes in nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea (2021) Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 36, art. no. 100867.

o   Characterizing the river water quality in China: Recent progress and on-going challenges (2021) Water Research, 201, art. no. 117309.

Please, highlight the innovation of the proposed approach.

3. Results

Monitoring results should be used for modelling, otherwise your manuscript and the proposed approach could sound link a data collection without an application.

Please, clarify if you compare the monitoring campaign with previous campaigns.

Please, clarify if you can compare water quality data with soil quality data of the area of interest, in order to further support your hypothesis.

4. Discussion

 

Please, improve the comparison between your findings and literature data.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf