Implementation of a Decision Support System for Sewage Sludge Management
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Overall assessment
The paper proposes and validates a wastewater treatment simulation in combination with a decision support system to assist in the socio-economic evaluation of wastewater treatment options. In the introduction, the authors contextualize their work, provide an overview of previous studies, explain the objective of the current study and describe the applicability of the expected results – all well written.
With the reservation that the study is somewhat outside my expertise, I find the paper interesting, scientifically sound and well presented.
Detailed comments to the text
Lines 5, 6 and 8: Why is “Spain” placed in parentheses for institution #1 and #2 but not for #3?
Line 12: Avoid the adjective “innovative” to describe your own research. It soulds a bit self-congratulating. Leave it to the reader to judge the level of innovation.
Lines 12–13: The terms ‘decision support system’ and ‘wastewater treatment plant’ are not proper nouns in this context. Hence, do not capitalize (correctly written in Line 34 and 38).
Line 31, 50–51, 83–84 and elsewhere: The information enclosed in parentheses seems to be quite important. Hence, consider removing the parenthesis signs. In fact, all text in a research publication should be essential. Extensive text in parentheses is, therefore, discouraged.
Lines 95: Specify that this is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Line 127: Misplaced closing parenthesis?
Table 1: Capitalize ‘temperature’ in “Wastewater temperature” to be consistent with the other parameters(?).
Table 1: Convert the number ‘3’ from normal to superscript in “m3/d” (see also Table 2).
Line 170: The term “layer 1” appears to be a proper noun in this context. If correct, capitalize it (‘Layer 1’). See also Line 461.
Line 178: Insert comma behind “e.g.” to be consistent with other cases.
Line 182: The term ‘net present value’ is not a proper noun, hence do not capitalize.
Table 2: Insert space after ‘%’ consistently.
Lines 196, 342, 364, 377, 378 and several following lines: Insert space between number and the unit ‘%’.
Figure 1: This figure is non-informative for readers who don’t already know what QtsHT, StsHT, VStsHT, KpoliR, StsHTo Qts, Sts, VSts, QdpHT, Cec, Kpoli and fcn stand for. None of these abbreviations are defined. What should the reader learn from this figure?
Line 258 and 272: Insert comma behind “e.g.” to be consistent with other cases.
Table 3 – 7: Indicate procedure sub-categories under “Process outputs” by indentation.
Lines 302–324: Shouldn’t this information be placed in the Materials and Methods chapter?
Lines 320, 330, 363: Use the en dash (–) instead of hyphen (-) to indicate numerical ranges (correctly done elsewhere).
Lines 320, 409, 467: Check missing references.
Line 330: Insert comma behind “e.g.” to be consistent with other cases.
Figure 4 and Lines 388, 396, 409, 414 and more lines below: The term “scenario 1” appears to be used as a proper noun in this context. If so, capitalize.
Figure 5: Increase font size in titles and axes.
Figure 5 and Line 369: Insert open line between the two elements.
Line 593: Remove hyphen.
Line 597: Remove period.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
your study on the design and implementation of DSS i a Wastewater Teatment Plant is interesting, clear presented and described.
So, I think you don't need to correct much in the manuscript. However some aspects can be corrected for better presentation.
1.Please check if all shortcuts are explained.
2. Please describe citations in better way. e.g. L112 would be better "In the study described by Castillo et al. [14]..."
3. Please use SI units (Tab. 2; L - dm3).
4. Figure 3. How many WWTPs can we see? 26?
5. L320 and 467 ???
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
