Blending Irrigation Water Sources with Different Salinities and the Economic Damage of Salinity: The Case of Israel
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to read this interesting paper (Water-1612678). I would expect deeper and more concise information:
- Abstract - it is clear and sufficient, but the writing structure for the abstract should be improved to be more fluent.
- Introduction - please provide the knowledge gap clearly and mention how this paper fills this knowledge gap. The structure needs improvements. Please make sure that sufficient logical flow exists in this section. Please clearly point out the novelty of this study in the Introduction section in the revision. I believe that the paper can make a solid contribution if the presentation is significantly improved and the findings could be tied much more significantly to the international experience. It does feel like a very case-specific paper that does not consider how it fits into broader debates. The limitations of the study should be included. Please point to the unique contribution for each cited work and why it is important [e.g. 12-15].
- Methods – I recommend adding this section.
- Conclusion - it should begin with the main contribution, such as what has been done in the present study. Conclusion without references! I propose to add a text with references to the sections with discussion. The scope for future research is not highlighted.
- I suggest including a list of abbreviations in a paper.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the valuable suggestions and comments. Below we outline the responses to the comments and the changes introduced to the revised version.
Thank you for the opportunity to read this interesting paper (Water-1612678). I would expect deeper and more concise information:
Comment 1
- Abstract - it is clear and sufficient, but the writing structure for the abstract should be improved to be more fluent.
Response:
We modified the abstract with the hope that it is more fluent.
Comment 2
- Introduction - please provide the knowledge gap clearly and mention how this paper fills this knowledge gap. The structure needs improvements. Please make sure that sufficient logical flow exists in this section. Please clearly point out the novelty of this study in the Introduction section in the revision. I believe that the paper can make a solid contribution if the presentation is significantly improved and the findings could be tied much more significantly to the international experience. It does feel like a very case-specific paper that does not consider how it fits into broader debates. The limitations of the study should be included. Please point to the unique contribution for each cited work and why it is important [e.g. 12-15].
Response:
In the revised version we restructured the Introduction to improve its flow. We also explain the limitations of previous economic studies of the blending issue and point out the contribution of the paper; it reads (Page 3):
The contribution of this paper is in the introduction of the nexus between the agricultural and water sectors into the economic analysis of water-blending strategies.
As our analysis focuses on the case of Israel, we changed the title of the paper to explicitly reflect that specification.
Regarding limitations of the study, we believe that they should be mentioned in the discussion section, in relation to future studies.
The cited works [12-15] are examples of studies that examined blending from an agronomic approach, and are mentioned to contrast with the economic literature to which this paper pertains. We now refer to these agronomic studies in more detail in a footnote.
Comment 3
- Methods – I recommend adding this section.
Response:
Section 2 is now called "Methods".
We also merged sections 3 and 4 into a single section, named "Results".
Comment 4
- Conclusion - it should begin with the main contribution, such as what has been done in the present study. Conclusion without references! I propose to add a text with references to the sections with discussion. The scope for future research is not highlighted.
Response:
We separated the last section into two sections, named "Conclusion" and "Discussion", and adjusted their contents in line with the reviewer's suggestions.
Comment 5
- I suggest including a list of abbreviations in a paper.
Response:
The revised version includes a list of abbreviations as requested.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper analyses the salinization processes in irrigated agriculture, a process that affects a significant part of regions worldwide that face significant deficits in freshwater sources. Specifically, it is done by using a mathematical programming model for the case of Israel’s entire vegetative agricultural sector, and evaluates the economic damage of irrigation-water salinity under two strategies of blending water sources with different salinities. The paper addresses an interesting topic for the scientific community in the fields of rural development, water management, ecology, agriculture in arid areas the general public, for some parts of the paper.
I find the article acceptable in its present form, so my comments below refer more to issues that could be clarified.:
The MYWAS-VALUE model used is developed by the authors of this paper if I've got it correctly (developed by Slater et al.(2020) [35]). I think it is important to specify this aspect in the paper. In such case I think that their model (line 83), for example, could be replace by our model or the model.
Lines 189-194: a. In the schematic illustration of FB, each crop uses all the sources of water. Is this correct, as field blendig enables farmers to assign water with specific salinity to each crop (row 10)?
b. as far as I understand from the introductory part, the water sources have different salinity or they could be freh water etc. I think that should be illustrated in the figure for a better understanding.
Please check the link indicated in the Supplementary Materials part (line 398), as it returned Page not found.
Date of this review
24 Feb. 2022
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the valuable suggestions and comments. Below we outline the responses to the comments and the changes introduced to the revised version.
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The paper analyses the salinization processes in irrigated agriculture, a process that affects a significant part of regions worldwide that face significant deficits in freshwater sources. Specifically, it is done by using a mathematical programming model for the case of Israel’s entire vegetative agricultural sector, and evaluates the economic damage of irrigation-water salinity under two strategies of blending water sources with different salinities. The paper addresses an interesting topic for the scientific community in the fields of rural development, water management, ecology, agriculture in arid areas the general public, for some parts of the paper.
I find the article acceptable in its present form, so my comments below refer more to issues that could be clarified.:
Comment 1
The MYWAS-VALUE model used is developed by the authors of this paper if I've got it correctly (developed by Slater et al.(2020) [35]). I think it is important to specify this aspect in the paper. In such case I think that their model (line 83), for example, could be replace by our model or the model.
Response:
Thank you. In the revised version we use "the model".
Comment 2
Lines 189-194: a. In the schematic illustration of FB, each crop uses all the sources of water. Is this correct, as field blendig enables farmers to assign water with specific salinity to each crop (row 10)?
Response:
We change Figure 1 by referring specifically to freshwater, TWW and brackish water as three sources with different salinity levels. We explain as follows (Page 5):
The difference between the scenarios with respect to the intraregional water-supply system is illustrated in Figure 1 for a hypothetical region, in which farmers grow 5 crops and have access to 3 water sources with different salinities: freshwater, TWW and brackish water. Under FB, farmers can select a specific combination of the three sources for each crop, whereas the RB scenario implies one combination for all crops. Note that, while both scenarios do not preclude the non-blending option, under RB this means that only one water source is used in the entire region, whereas the FB scenario enables farmers to use all water sources by assigning to each crop a single water source.
Comment 3
- as far as I understand from the introductory part, the water sources have different salinity or they could be freh water etc. I think that should be illustrated in the figure for a better understanding.
Response:
See our response to Comment 2.
Comment 4
Please check the link indicated in the Supplementary Materials part (line 398), as it returned Page not found.
Response:
We checked and found that the link woks well.
