Effect of Land Use/Cover Change on the Hydrological Response of a Southern Center Basin of Chile

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript presents a very interesting SWAT-based analysis on the effects of land use/cover changes on water balance. The main transition observed in the area was related to exotic planatation expansion, which is a common driver of change in Chile and South America in general. The topic is very relavant since exotic plantation are rapidly exanding under national subsidies, and a quite good number of studies demonstrated that their environmental effects seem important.

Overall, the paper is very well written and the application of SWAT model (with related calibration and validation) seems robust. So, the contribute deserves the interest of the journal.

I have only few minor comments before publication.

Study area: Exotic plantation should be characterized more in detail. Which species are used? Which management practices? Which is the mean timber production in the area?

Table4: It seems you provide a quite high Curve Number value. MAny studies use a more simple CN approach to assess variation in water runoff. Your value could represent a basis for these studies?

Discussion:

line 396-397: "A substantial increase in forest cover due to the replacement of native forests and scrubland". This sentence could be a bit counterintuitive. Please, rephrase it.

You observed that exotic plantation expanded differently according altitudinal zones. I think that the landscape location of land cover transitions has relevant effects on water balance. This deserves to be mentioned.

You compared and discuss your data with respect other studies, that are in accordance with your results. However, Benra et al. (2019) found that exotic plantation expansion in Chile could have only slight effects on water regulation (expecially if compared with other ecosystem services). How you explain this?

Benra et al. (2019) Ecosystem services tradeoffs arising from non-native tree plantation expansion in southern Chile. Landscape and Urban Planning, 190, 103589.   Your results have important consequences in terms of environmental governance that should be discussed more in deep.

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents impact of land use/cover change on the hydrological response in Chile. This topic is interesting for the audience, especially for the responsible water managers and landscape engineers. Paper has a standard structure and is easy to read.

Broad comments

several typographic mistakes occur in the text (dots, spaces, eg. see line 139) several translation mistakes occur in the text (eg. see table 6), please read the paper carefully and replace "y" by "and" there are not used uniform abbreviations (eg. see line 166 and head of Table 2) and describe them only once authors described analysis, calibration and validation of SWAT model for the conditions of Chile in detail, what was not the aim of the study and thus detract the attention from the main aim of the study several long senteces occur in the text (eg. lines 423 -426 or lines 428 - 432)

Specific comments 

information presented in the Table 5 doubt the information in the Fig. 3 lines 400 - 403 - sentence is too long and with mistakes, consider to rewrite it

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The study talks about LU 2011; why 2011 was considered for validation and not any recent value. Why do the temperatures talk about 2013 and yet the whole study does not show any relevant maps or depiction of temperature/soil/precipitation distribution. The SWAT model parametres have been mentioned but they have not been described clearly as what goes in and what comes out of the model. Monitoring points have been established or not is another concern. The model needs more elaboration for your particular study to understand overall functioning. However the statistical analysis seems to be satisfactory.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Kind regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx