A Dilemma between Flood and Drought Management: Case Study of the Upper Chao Phraya Flood-Prone Area in Thailand
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is an interesting paper. I suggest add the key point of the proposed flood control policy to the abstract and conclusion section, so this paper can be more attractive to a broad of readers.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer #1
This is an interesting paper. I suggest add the key point of the proposed flood control policy to the abstract and conclusion section, so this paper can be more attractive to a broad of readers.
Thank you for the suggestion. Based on your suggestion, the key point of the findings and the proposed flood control policy were added in the abstract (line: 19-27).
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript is “A Dilemma between Flood and Drought Management: Case Study for the Upper Chao Phraya’s Flood Prone of Thailand”. Comments are as follows.
(1) The authors had not carried out a detailed analysis of flood control and groundwater balance in abstract.
(2) The manuscript needs to be supplemented with a clear research purpose in the introduction chapter.
(3) The author needs to supplement the research background analysis in the introduction chapter.
(4) The author only introduces the research area, but does not introduce the research methods. In particular, data sources need to be supplemented.
(5) Chapters 3 to 6 are proposed to be merged into the chapter "Results and discussion".
(6) The parameters of equations 1 and 2 need to be explained, including the units used.
(7) The conclusion chapter is only the presentation of the research results.
(8) This manuscript lacks an in-depth discussion on the relationship between flood and drought.
(9) The formats of references need meet the requirements of the journal.
(10) I suggest the authors invite native speakers to revise the English.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer #2
- The authors had not carried out a detailed analysis of flood control and groundwater balance in abstract.
To this point of concern, the analysis key findings of flood control and groundwater balance were added in the abstract (line: 21-27).
- The manuscript needs to be supplemented with a clear research purpose in the introduction chapter.
There are 4 main objectives in the paper and as follows: 1) analyze river discharge and flood inundation areas, 2) evaluate government flood-management policy, 3) construct and assess the relationship between flood and groundwater in the UCP, and 4) propose a flood management scheme for sustaining the basin water demand. These were in the introduction chapter (line: 80-84)
- The author needs to supplement the research background analysis in the introduction chapter.
Tropical monsoon, e.g., time and amount, flood and drought disasters, economical losses, situations of water resources under climate change conditions, and flood management policy were provided as background information of the study [Ref No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].
Flood control policy and its potential impact on other environment in other areas, e.g., Cambodia and Vietnam, were also provided [Ref. No. 10, 11].
Flood and water issues in the study area as the research gap were mentioned in the introduction chapter (line: 66-77).
The information which provided in the introduction chapter is enough for potential readers to understand the research background and constraints.
- The author only introduces the research area, but does not introduce the research methods. In particular, data sources need to be supplemented.
Data and methodology were added in the revised manuscript (Data and methodology chapter). In addition, data source that we can request from the data owner was provided in Table 1.
- Chapters 3 to 6 are proposed to be merged into the chapter "Results and discussion".
Thank you very much. The revise version has been made according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
- The parameters of equations 1 and 2 need to be explained, including the units used.
Thank you very much. The revise version has been made according to the reviewer’s suggestion.
- The conclusion chapter is only the presentation of the research results.
Further study on Sustainable Development Goals by the UN, socio-economics of the trade-off between flood and drought management and the specify flood-confinement boundary for retarding flood-volume are recommended.
- This manuscript lacks an in-depth discussion on the relationship between flood and drought.
Flood and drought are commonly situation in the UCP. These were discussed in section 4.1 (Variation of river discharge and flood in the UCP). As shown in Fig. 3, flood is take place in the UCP every year particularly in the Yom sub-basin and this sub-basin is faced with drought almost every year. This was discussed in line 217-231.
The sub-section 4.3.1 and 4.3.2 discussed agricultural activity and the role of groundwater to alleviate water shortage (drought) in the study area. Extracting groundwater is costly for the farmers, but there is no choice. Groundwater in the UCP will be pumped more and more in the future. At present, groundwater storage shows a decreasing trend which was observed from Fig. 6. To protect a long-term groundwater depletion, flood water harvesting to increase groundwater resources was in section 4.3.3 and 4.4.
The flood management scheme for balancing out the water supply and demand under the basin development target was propose and discuss in section 4.4.
- The formats of references need meet the requirements of the journal.
The format of references was rechecked and corrected to compile with the requirement of Water.
- I suggest the authors invite native speakers to revise the English.
The revise manuscript was edited by a native English speaker for editing English grammar.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper
A Dilemma between Flood and Drought Management: Case Study for the Upper Chao Phraya’s Flood Prone of Thailand
presents an analysis of the flood magnitude and management affecting groundwater storage in a Thailand river basin.
The paper has 13 pages of which about 1 is for the Introduction, 1 is to describe the study area, 1.5 pag are to present the flood data, about 1 is to present the local law context, 3.5 pag are for presenting the relationship between flood and groundwater storage, 1.5 page is for discussions, about 1 page for Conclusions and 1 for References.
Unfortunately, the manuscript lacks clarity in description of the objective, method (particularily), results and novelty of the study. English language highly needs to be improved: grammar and style, as it is often difficult to understand the meaning.
Citations are not from highly referenced journal papers, mostly being reports, many without a link or possibility to retrieve them.
The paper is difficult to be understood. English language and writing style needs to be improved. Therefore, the paper cannot be accepted in this form for the journal.
A few examples of language issues:
1. R 25 remove but
2. R. 26 is carefully needed to consider
3. R. 27 of available basin water
4. R 37-38 awakes (present tense).. and called (past tense). Both should have the same tense. Replace with calles
5. R 45 have been designed ... varying. Was designed ... varied
6. R. 51-52 No meaning is what issue cannot underestimate
7. R 58 confining
8. R. 91 all flowing to ...
9. R. 93 Remove Since. The upper
10. R. 96 extends
11. R. 105 ... floods and draughts generated important economic loss in ...
12. R. 110 Please define LCP acronym before its first use in the text
13. R. 113 basin area, and involve around 3.1 million people working...
14. R. 114-117 please reformulate as it is not clear and correct
15. R. 121 please define/name the specified volume
16. R. 123 reservoir management or managers? .. the number of flooding
17. R. 124 reduction instead of reducing
18. R. 126 cut momentary and replace by peak discharge throughout the paper
19. R 131 (which are the discharge values corresponding to 10% .... probability of exceedance in a year)
20. R. 134-R. 135 you don’t need to explain what the flow-duration curve is
21. R 142 were fed
22. R. 146 the reservoirs are able ... but might not be sufficient...
23. R. 150 be benefited by riparian.... is in agreement
24. R. 155-157 threat, not thread. In Fig. 3 is shown the spatial .... 2013 from satellite image data ...
25. R. 158 Calculated flooding areas varied...
26. R 164 risk of flooding
27. R. 165 has allways suffered by floods
28. R 175 if (who?) one looks
29. R. 176 consider replacing alleviation with mitigation throughout the paper
30. R. 180 parenthesis on Bangkok should be moved before, to site description
31. R. 185-6 there will be floods... is over 3000 m3/s
32. ....
33. R. 410 are proposed instead of purposed
Author Response
Response to Reviewer #3
- presents an analysis of the flood magnitude and management affecting groundwater storage in a Thailand river basin. The paper has 13 pages of which about 1 is for the Introduction, 1 is to describe the study area, 1.5 pages are to present the flood data, about 1 is to present the local law context, 3.5 pages are for presenting the relationship between flood and groundwater storage, 1.5 page is for discussions, about 1 page for Conclusions and 1 for References.
Unfortunately, the manuscript lacks clarity in description of the objective, method (particularly), results and novelty of the study. English language highly needs to be improved: grammar and style, as it is often difficult to understand the meaning.
In the revised version, objectives of the study were added in the introduction section. There are 4 main objectives in the paper and as follows: 1) analyze river discharge and flood inundation areas, 2) evaluate government flood-management policy, 3) construct and assess the relationship between flood and groundwater in the UCP, and 4) propose a flood management scheme for sustaining the basin water demand (line: 80-84).
Data and methodology were added in the revised manuscript (Data and methodology chapter). In addition, data source that we can request from the data owner was provided in Table 1.
This was the first paper figuring out the potential impacts of flood magnitudes and flood control on groundwater water in the UCP. The proposed flood control policy for harvesting flood water to meet agricultural water demand was presented. This learning case points out that 1,820 km2 of the flood inundation areas is needed annually. A 100% flood control in the UCP will finally impact on rainfed area where is the home of approximately 3.1 million people and take advantage from groundwater to mitigate water stress.
And this revised manuscript was edited by a native English speaker for editing English grammar.
- Citations are not from highly referenced journal papers, mostly being reports, many without a link or possibility to retrieve them.
Although some citations are reports, they are official reports from the main organization in charge for water resources management in Thailand. We added Table 1 (data used and sources with URL) as information for other researchers, but some data need to get a permission from the owner.
The literature review, research background, and research gap were from the highly journal papers, e.g., Journal of hydrology, Hydrological Processes, Water Resources Research, Water Resources Management, Environmental Research.
- The paper is difficult to be understood. English language and writing style needs to be improved. Therefore, the paper cannot be accepted in this form for the journal.
The revise manuscript was edited by a native English speaker for editing English grammar.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors had revised their papers. I suggest that the author should check the whole paper before publishing.
Author Response
Reviewer 2: 1# I suggest that the author should check the whole paper before publishing.
We had read and checked throughout our manuscript and all relevant materials for this resubmission.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has been improved in terms of organizing, understanding and English language.
However there are still a lot of language corrections to be made.
The resolution of the figures could be improved (text and numbers of fig. 1, 3, 4, 7 are a bit blurred)
Ref. 1,2, 7, 9, 12, 18, 19, 22, 25 need a link and accession date. You should consider adding this report too as a reference https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/12308631_01.pdf
Some examples of language corrections are given in the attached file.
In conclusion, the paper may be accepted with minor changes.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
1# The resolution of the figures could be improved (text and numbers of fig. 1, 3, 4, 7 are a bit blurred)
Fig 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 were improved their resolution.
2# Ref. 1, 2, 7, 9, 13, 19, 20, 23, 26 need a link and accession date.
The links and accession date for Ref. 1, 2, 7, 9, 20, and 23 were provided in References. Ref. No. 13 (Department of Groundwater Resources report), Ref. No. 19 (Department of Water Resources report) and Ref. No. 26 (Prajamwong, S. and Suppataratarn, P) are the official technical reports but not available online for retrieving.
3# You should consider adding this report too as a reference https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/12308631_01.pdf
This technical report was cited and listed in the references No. 10.
4# The paper has been improved in terms of organizing, understanding and English language. However there are still a lot of language corrections to be made.
We had read and checked our revised manuscript based upon your suggestions. And thank you so much for your time and all edits, remarks, and suggestions that are very helpful and constructive for improving the quality of the manuscript.
