Is Greenhouse Rainwater Harvesting Enough to Satisfy the Water Demand of Indoor Crops? Application to the Bolivian Altiplano

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

your submission is a very detailed and well written paper describing the efficiency of roof rainwater harvesting systems for agriculture in a mountain plateau, certainly of general interest for a wide public interested in the topic.

For the above mentioned reasons my opinion is that your paper can be published as it is. My only comment concerns the use of the word "Altiplano" throughout the text. Maybe "Plateau" is more correct. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper is fairly well written. However, much improvement is needed on the results and discussions presentation. The following are some suggestions which may enhance the quality of this paper:

11.       Several keywords duplicate the same as in the paper title. Other selections should be re-chosen.

22.      Please use “,” to represent “thousands” in Line 43.

33.      Last paragraph of the introduction section is redundant and can be deleted.

44.      No first name initials are needed for literature citations in the text.

55.   All equations listed in the text must be numbered.

66.     Table 2 must not be referred to prior to Table 1.

77.     The meaning of “lost water” should be clearly defined.

88.     Some results presentation may be preferably changed to table forms, such as Figures 7 and 8. Too much information has been clamped in a tiny figure which is difficult to identify significant result findings.

99.     The heading “Discussions and Conclusions” is inappropriate because this section only summarizes study results. A more appropriate heading is “Summary”. Since some descriptive involves recommendations, it can be changed to “Summary and Recommendations”.

110.    A better suggestion is to move the summary descriptive to the “Results and Discussions” section. Add a “Conclusions and Recommendations” section, in which the significant result findings may be emphasized along with the practical implications derived from this study and recommendations.

111.   In fact, the conclusions of this study should focus more on the best design for each type of greenhouse used for rainwater harvesting. How to utilize rainwater during summer and winter periods is also of great importance.

112.   Some English language check and improvement is also highly recommended.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised version has demonstrated lots of improvement in both paper structure and English. However, there are two suggestions to further enhance its quality:

1.          The last paragraph of the introduction section should be removed. This is not a thesis report. Besides, this paper is not super lengthy that requires detail explanation of what the first section is up to the last section.

2.          Figures 7-10 are too tiny to allow readers the capability to identify all the details. If box diagrams are the most preferable form, please improve their clarity and readability.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

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 manuscript presents a case study of optimizing water harvesting tank size for 25 greenhouses in Bolivia. While the subject is interesting there are many limitations that render this manuscript unfit for publications:

1. the model is overly simplified and in some aspects may be wrongly assessed (e.g. the volume of collected water)
2. crop stage is not taken into account
3. there's ample space to improve literature research on the subject and improve on the methods
4. the sample is very small to make any generalizations - on the other hand, the approach is so simple that a sample may not be required: the same (if not better because of generalization) results would be reached if the problem was solved only mathematically and led to rules regarding tank sizes (e.g. if farm size <x and irrigations frequency <y then tank size z).

Some of these points are elaborated in the marked manuscript along with other corrections.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments:

Line 61. Please delete the semicolon.

Line 85. Greenhouse catchment areas. Please specify the most characteristic crops present in the greenhouses. This is important considering that crops have different water requirements, and modelled tank capacity can vary on crop types. By growing plants with lower requirements, less water is consumed and more can be produced (at least in some areas).

Line 93. Tabel 3. Please move-up Table 3 near the text.

Lines 177-179. Of course, the meaning of the sentence is right, but given the size of the greenhouses and the volumes involved, it is irrelevant. I suggest elaborating the concept further, otherwise, it should be deleted.

Lines 179-181. This sentence should be removed; irrelevant to the purpose of the paper

Line 234. This study is quite dated. We also suggest this on the topic:

Lupia F., Baiocchi V., Lelo K., Pulighe G. (2017) Exploring Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting Potential for Food Production in Urban Areas. Agriculture 2017, 7(6), 46

In the discussions, authors may also consider and suggest that in the absence of daily data, today can also be used time series of multiple climate variables coming from climate reanalysis. Reanalyses are among the most-used datasets in the geophysical sciences.

Line 247. Please better clarify the rationale for the choice of the 15% threshold which as exposed does not appear clear. For example, I don't see the connection to water shortages in dry seasons (line 244).

Line 262. As indicated above, clarification on the type of crops also concerning ET is crucial. The discourse could be expanded by considering crops with low water demand.

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, this is a clear, concise and well-written manuscript. The introduction is pertinent and based on interesting papers.

The procedure is described in details and gives sufficient information on the study logic.

In addition, the results are clear.

Kind Regards