Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Drought Forecasting on Rivers of South India
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article deals with the extremely important problem of the temporal and spatial analysis of the occurrence of droughts. The authors focused their research on meteorological drought. Meteorological drought occurs first and its consequences are agricultural, hydrological, hydrogeological and socio-economic droughts.
The reviewed article corresponding to the scope of the special issue "Urban Resources and Environment".
1) I suggest including one more type of drought in the article, i.e. hydrogeological drought. The authors refer to groundwater resources in chapter 2.2.2, while in the introduction or discussion of the results lacks a direct reference to hydrogeological drought.
2) The heading in Table 1 "Drought Category" may incorrectly imply that drought also occurs with standardized precipitation index values greater than zero. Please change the description of the table column and add information on the interpretation of the SPI value in the text.
3) I propose to reword the title and add information that the research concerns a meteorological drought.
Author Response
Response to the reviewer’s comments:
- I suggest including one more type of drought in the article, i.e., hydrogeological drought. The authors refer to groundwater resources in chapter 2.2.2, while in the introduction or discussion of the results lacks a direct reference to hydrogeological drought.
Response: Authors thank to the reviewer for valuable comment. Conclusive statement of hydrological drought is written and modified in line 37-41 and highlighted.
- The heading in Table 1 "Drought Category" may incorrectly imply that drought also occurs with standardized precipitation index values greater than zero. Please change the description of the table column and add information on the interpretation of the SPI value in the text.
Response: First of all, authors thank to reviewer. Needful changes has been done and highlighted.
- I propose to reword the title and add information that the research concerns a meteorological drought.
Response: Authors thanks to the reviewer and needful changes has been done.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear all,
I reviewed the ms. "A Research of Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Drought Fore- 2 casting on different rivers of South India". I congratule the authors and I would like to improve the ms with some major suggestions:
All Figures: It´ss really hard to read. Please improve the letter´s size/scale.
L240: Figure 1 in fact is Figure 2. The authors must to correct al the figure´s numbers.
L311 - Figure 5: there is no Y´axis...please, insert it. The numbers also can be only: 0.40 (not 0,400)
Where is the discussion? The authors only describe the results. I suggest to include some recent papers too (introduction and discussion).
Author Response
Author’s Response to reviewer:
Comment 1: All Figures: It´ss really hard to read. Please improve the letter´s size/scale.
Response: Authors thank to the reviewer and needful changes has been done.
Comment 2: L240: Figure 1 in fact is Figure 2. The authors must to correct al the figure´s numbers.
Response: Authors thank to the reviewer and all figure number has been corrected.
Comment 3: L311 - Figure 5: there is no Y´axis...please, insert it. The numbers also can be only: 0.40 (not 0,400)
Response: Authors thanks to reviewer and needful changes has been done.
Comment 4: Where is the discussion? The authors only describe the results. I suggest to include some recent papers too (introduction and discussion).
Response: Authors thank to the reviewer and conclusion has been updated accordingly.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Title is not appropriate.- Research of Analysis ?!?
Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Drought Forecasting on rivers of South India would be enough.
The introduction starts from bringing out four different meanings of droughts. This is not classification – no basis for making classes is brought out. The relations between different understanding of droughts is not explained. No relation to drought categories in Table 1 is brought out. Neither is there the relation to drought severity classes used in figures 1 – 3. And in Table 3 there are again new droughts severity classes. Drought classification used in the paper has to be clarified and has to be consistent. In this version it is just mess.
Row 48 people not peoples.
Rows 115 -117 say that “The various Droughts definitions were studied, and the implications for the physical presentation and the relevance of the Droughts evaluation were discussed.” It does not have reference. What is it? Statement that this was done in this particular paper? The definitions were mentioned in the beginning of the introduction, nothing was studied or discussed.
Rows 117 – 118. The aim of this study is to develop a meteorological and agricultural drought assessment procedure and to develop a flourishing rule-based methodology for drought forecasting.
The aim has not been met. There is no clear description of the procedure or methodology. Some drought analysis has been carried out and may be interpretation of what was done is a basis for the procedure but such aim should end up with a clear procedure description in the results.
Rows 126 – 128 repeat the same sentence which is in rows 119 – 122.
Row 130. 2.1 “Steady area” must be study area.
Figure 1 (page 4) is pretty empty. Add location of data collection points like weather stations, agricultural land-use etc mentioned in 2.2. May be also relief and mountains.
Row 213. What is the meaning of “For all 20 six stations”.
Row224. Reference to Table 5.2 is wrong.
Table 2. Explain what is the meaning of M0 to M10 and how are theses related to “sever damage”, “moderate impacts” etc – characterizations used in text.
There are two Figures titled as Figure 1. (page 4 and page 7).
What is the difference between Figures 1 and 2 in page 7. The text says it is different years? This has to be said in the Figure caption.
Row 281. Reference to Figures 5.8 to 5.29 is wrong (no consistency between numbering the figures and referring to them.
Row 299 – 302. It is said that ranks are predicted with the models. What are MA and AR models is not explained. There is a sentence in the introduction saying that MA and AR models were used. (row 12, row 128). The models have to explained/described in Methodology.
The references are not up to date. The newest reference is to a 2022 general overview paper (which is appropriate), second oldest reference is 2019 (which is actual research and appropriate), third is 2017 (reference 17) which sounds like general methodology (the reference itself is not complete, no journal, no publisher), rest of the references are more that 10 years old. Old references might be appropriate but lack of recent ones is not. Search in science databases using the keywords provided by the authors shows that there are publications.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3:
Comment 1: Title is not appropriate.- Research of Analysis ?!?
Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Drought Forecasting on rivers of South India would be enough.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and title has been revised.
Comment 2: The introduction starts from bringing out four different meanings of droughts. This is not classification – no basis for making classes is brought out. The relations between different understanding of droughts is not explained. No relation to drought categories in Table 1 is brought out. Neither is there the relation to drought severity classes used in figures 1 – 3. And in Table 3 there are again new droughts severity classes. Drought classification used in the paper has to be clarified and has to be consistent. In this version it is just mess.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer. Introduction is modified & highlighted and figure 1 and 3 shows SPI values with different drought categories of two government institutions.
Comment 3: Row 48 people not peoples.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and needful changes has been done.
Comment 4: Rows 115 -117 say that “The various Droughts definitions were studied, and the implications for the physical presentation and the relevance of the Droughts evaluation were discussed.” It does not have reference. What is it? Statement that this was done in this particular paper? The definitions were mentioned in the beginning of the introduction, nothing was studied or discussed.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and statement is reframed.
Comment 5: Rows 117 – 118. The aim of this study is to develop a meteorological and agricultural drought assessment procedure and to develop a flourishing rule-based methodology for drought forecasting.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and statement is reframed.
Comment 6: The aim has not been met. There is no clear description of the procedure or methodology. Some drought analysis has been carried out and may be interpretation of what was done is a basis for the procedure but such aim should end up with a clear procedure description in the results.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and a clear paragraph is written for the objective of the study and highlighted from line 116-125.
Comment 7: Rows 126 – 128 repeat the same sentence which is in rows 119 – 122.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and needful changes has been done.
Comment 8: Row 130. 2.1 “Steady area” must be study area.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and needful changes has been done.
Comment 9: Figure 1 (page 4) is pretty empty. Add location of data collection points like weather stations, agricultural land-use etc mentioned in 2.2. May be also relief and mountains.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer. Figure 1 shows only basin area of the river and location nearby that area. However, figure 2 and 3 gives brief explanation about drought areas.
Comment 10: Row 213. What is the meaning of “For all 20 six stations”.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and it is modified as 26.
Comment 11: Row224. Reference to Table 5.2 is wrong.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and it is corrected as table 2.
Comment: Table 2. Explain what is the meaning of M0 to M10 and how are theses related to “sever damage”, “moderate impacts” etc – characterizations used in text.
Response: Here M0 to M3 defines drought category, where M0 stands for no drought, M1- mild drought, M2- Moderate droughts and M3 stands for severe droughts.
Comment 12: There are two Figures titled as Figure 1. (page 4 and page 7).
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and it is corrected accordingly.
Comment 13: What is the difference between Figures 1 and 2 in page 7. The text says it is different years? This has to be said in the Figure caption.
Response: Both figures are from different years one is of 1996 and second is of 1999.
Comment 14: Row 281. Reference to Figures 5.8 to 5.29 is wrong (no consistency between numbering the figures and referring to them.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and needful changes has been done. All figure number has been revised.
Comment 15: Row 299 – 302. It is said that ranks are predicted with the models. What are MA and AR models is not explained. There is a sentence in the introduction saying that MA and AR models were used. (row 12, row 128). The models have to explained/described in Methodology.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and a brief explanation of Moving Average (MA) and Autoregressive (AR) has been given and highlighted in line 300-311.
Comment 16: The references are not up to date. The newest reference is to a 2022 general overview paper (which is appropriate), second oldest reference is 2019 (which is actual research and appropriate), third is 2017 (reference 17) which sounds like general methodology (the reference itself is not complete, no journal, no publisher), rest of the references are more that 10 years old. Old references might be appropriate but lack of recent ones is not. Search in science databases using the keywords provided by the authors shows that there are publications.
Response: Author thanks to the reviewer and new reference has been added to this manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear all,
The authors improve and reorganized the paper. I just keep one more suggestion: be careful about the Figures. In my opinion, they are not read because still hard to read the information on it. Please, improve the size of letters.
Author Response
Author thanks to the reviewer. I have some how improved the size and pixels of figures. Attaching full length manuscript with this. Thank you.
Reviewer 3 Report
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