Multi-Dimensional Interval Number Decision Model Based on Mahalanobis-Taguchi System with Grey Entropy Method and Its Application in Reservoir Operation Scheme Selection

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

No further comments

Author Response

Thank you for your positive comments on this manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear editors and authors

 

Thank you for the opportunity to read about your research. Application of Multi-objective Decision Model in Reservoir Operation Scheme Selection is a very relevant topic and I am convinced that your methods and validation are sound. But the novelties of this study and the research questions the authors want to address are not so clear to me yet. In addition, the results of flood control risk rates corresponding to design standard floods are incorrect. The comments are suggested for your revision.

 

General and Specific comments

1. Introduction: The authors mentioned a lot of multi-attribute decision-making methods and concepts in the introduction part. To make this section more concise and easier to understand, I personally suggest the authors make a table to compare the pros and cons of all the methods they talked about in Table 1 (e.g. Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) [2], set pair analysis [3], grey relation analysis [4], grey target method [5], etc.).

 

2. Introduction (P2, Lines 50-55): Why the method of Mahalanobis-Taguchi System (MTS) is adopted for improving the original grey entropy method in this study? What advantages this method has, in comparison to other methods?

 

3. Introduction (in a paragraph before the last one): Please also highlight why this research is necessary and important. This can be achieved by clarifying research gaps and how does this work fulfill research gaps. In the current state, the summary of research gaps is vague and fails to show the importance of this work. What the novelty (not the research purposes) this study has?

 

4. Methodology: Despite the details of MTS-GEM method reader can see in the methods section, you should add a paragraph for briefly describing what the inputs, parameters and outputs of this proposed method have.

 

5. Case Study (section 5.1): The dynamic control methods of reservoir water levels consist of (1) dynamic control of reservoir operation (or flood limiting) water levels (appropriate for medium-small scale floods) and (2) seasonal control of multiple flood limited water levels (appropriate for all floods, including different design standard floods). According to the Chinese Flood Act, the division of flood seasonality and without lowering the original flood control standards are two requirements (or constraints) for dynamic control of reservoir water levels. Please supplement the two contents.

First, why you do not divide the flood seasons (pre-, main-, post-flood seasons or summer flood season/autumn flood season) before you implement the dynamic control of reservoir water levels?

Second (Line 344), corresponding to this description (1000 design standard floods), is your research content regarding seasonal control of multiple flood limited water levels (Schemes 1-6)? And what is the design standard used as the flood control risk constraint?

 

6. Case Study (Table 3): for the flood control risk rates of the Pankou reservoir, the design flood water level (357.14) is corresponding to the 1,000-year return period while the flood control high water level (358.4) is corresponding to the 10,000-year return period. One of the requirements for dynamic control of reservoir water levels is without lowering the original flood control standards. Why are all the results of flood control risk rates (1.812%-5.594%) in Table 3 larger than the 1000-year return period (0.1%) and 10000-year return period (0.01%)?

 

 

With best regards,

Anonymous Reviewer

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments and constructive suggestions on this manuscript. Please see the attachment for the detailed responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear editors and authors

Thank you for inviting me to read this manuscript again. 

The manuscript in its present and revised form merits publication in Water journal. Despite there is no unified concept regarding the flood risk (design or operation stages) to date, I agree with your good defense on the last comment (Point 6). The authors have done a remarkable effort to address all my major and minor comments, which are explained and analysed in the authors' response document and the revised manuscript. As a conclusion, based on the authors' response to reviewers and the revised manuscript, all major and minor comments have been addressed and I recommend accepting for publication the revised manuscript in its present form. 

With best regards,

Reviewer

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

The concept of entropy is an measure for the amount of information in things like events, random variables, and distributions. What is the physical meaning of grey entropy? 

 

Lines 143-144, "In scheme decision-making, an alternative scheme is better if its Mahalanobis distance to the reference scheme is smaller, hence we adopt the SB SNR" I cannot find any relationship between Mahalanobis distance and SB SNR. The Mahalanobis is denoted by mean vector and covariance matrix, but SB SNR is related to Dg  

 

In the case study, how to get the interval values for the decision matrix X in Table 2  

 

The conclusions in this study can hardly demonstrate the meanings of the proposed method.  (1) The authors claimed the proposed method can avoid the tedious calculation of interval numbers. However, the proposed method consists of amounts of equations and they are not easy to follow. So I cannot see how to avoid tedious calculation of interval numbers. Also, due to the advancement of computer techniques, calculation of interval numbers can definitely not an big issue. (2) the authors also claimed that MTS-GEM can reduce the loss of decision information. However, when the mapping distance is employed, the uncertainty information is changed to crisp information, which will also lead to loss of decision information. 
 

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript Ref.: water-673293

Article Title: Multi-Dimensional Interval Number Decision Model Based on Mahalanobis-Taguchi System with Grey Entropy Method and Its Application in Reservoir Operation Scheme Selection

Comments:

The final results did not demonstrate the relevant technique on reservoir operation strategy (e.g. power generation, storage, etc.) What is the sensitivity and achievement of the presented technique if monthly operation strategy adopted Model’s limitation and applicability are not presented The applicability of the proposed technique if more than three targets were adopted (e.g. flood risk, storage, power generated), for example water demands on downstream, water quality, sediment transport, etc. I suggest to use figures and graphs to illustrate the results. Location map and current operation strategy of the adopted case study