Assessing the Possibilities of Backwash Water Reuse Filters in the Water Treatment System—Case Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)

I found this article very interesting.
In my opinion the manuscript is well organized. I believe that the corrections suggested by other reviewers have already been made.The problem statements agree with the title and have significance. The methods used to gather the data for this article were clearly explained.  The citation quality is good. The topic is interested and the result are concreted and useful for the scientific community. However, I have a few comments:
1. Part of the article submitted for review is not placed in the form.
2. Please standardize the notation of figures and tables in the text; eg in line 22 there is Fig. 7 in line 35 Fig. 8 or in the text outside the form Fig 1a.
3. In the description of Figure 2, please indicate parts a and b
4. Please unify the captions under the figures (Figure 3).
5. Figures 9, 7, 3 the description of the axis requires correction.
In my opinion, this is a very valuable publication.
6. In the first two citations, the year of publication was omitted.
and is a valuable source of information and forms the basis for further analyzes and implementation of new solutions. I really like the way of presenting specific conclusions from the conducted analyzes and research.

Thank you for considering my opinion. I encourage the authors to continue working on improving the manuscript.
Author Response

We would like to thank You for Your time and attention. Due to Your feedback we can further improve our paper and this is highly appreciated.

All changes in the text we marked in green

In my opinion the manuscript is well organized. I believe that the corrections suggested by other reviewers have already been made. The problem statements agree with the title and have significance. The methods used to gather the data for this article were clearly explained.  The citation quality is good. The topic is interested and the result are concreted and useful for the scientific community. However, I have a few comments:
1. Part of the article submitted for review is not placed in the form.

We corrected it
2. Please standardize the notation of figures and tables in the text; eg in line 22 there is Fig. 7 in line 35 Fig. 8 or in the text outside the form Fig 1a.

We corrected it.  See in the text, please
3. In the description of Figure 2, please indicate parts a and b

Indicated. See in the text, please
4. Please unify the captions under the figures (Figure 3).

We corrected it.  See in the text, please
5. Figures 9, 7, 3 the description of the axis requires correction.

We changed in figures 3 and 9
6. In the first two citations, the year of publication was omitted.

We added it

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

1.     Abstract. Please add some important experimental data in this section.

2.     Introduction. Please check "1600 m3/person" and "50 m3/h".

3.     Methodology of research. "Escherichia coli, Enterococci, Clostridium perfingens" should be shown in italic type. Please check the whole draft.

4.     Figure 2. The specific year of the experiment should be shown.

5.     Page 5: While the UV254 absorbance and color intensity were measured using a Shimadzu spectrophotometer 1800UV, the measurements of the iron, manganese, and ammonium ion concentrations were done using the colorimetric method. Turbidity was measured using a Hach turbidimeter 2100 N. This spectrophotometer approach is also adopted by other research fields such as remote sensing, to quantify materials concentration or absorptance, as reported in "Potential of red edge spectral bands in future landsat satellites on agroecosystem canopy green leaf area index retrieval" and "Potential of Red Edge Spectral Bands in Future Landsat Satellites on Agroecosystem Canopy Chlorophyll Content Retrieval". Please consider citing these papers to verify the usage of spectrophotometer in wider research fields. 

Author Response

We would like to thank You for Your time and attention. Due to Your feedback we can further improve our paper and this is highly appreciated.

All changes in the text we marked in green

Abstract. Please add some important experimental data in this section.

We added it. See in the text, please

2. Introduction. Please check "1600 m3/person" and "50 m3/h".

We checked it.

3. Methodology of research. "Escherichia coli, Enterococci, Clostridium perfingens" should be shown in italic type. Please check the whole draft.

We corrected it. See in the text, please

4. Figure 2. The specific year of the experiment should be shown.

This information is included in the axis

5. Page 5: While the UV254 absorbance and color intensity were measured using a Shimadzu spectrophotometer 1800UV, the measurements of the iron, manganese, and ammonium ion concentrations were done using the colorimetric method. Turbidity was measured using a Hach turbidimeter 2100 N. This spectrophotometer approach is also adopted by other research fields such as remote sensing, to quantify materials concentration or absorptance, as reported in "Potential of red edge spectral bands in future landsat satellites on agroecosystem canopy green leaf area index retrieval" and "Potential of Red Edge Spectral Bands in Future Landsat Satellites on Agroecosystem Canopy Chlorophyll Content Retrieval". Please consider citing these papers to verify the usage of spectrophotometer in wider research fields.

In our opinion, the use of a spectrophotometer is common when analyzing water quality, and there is no need to cite other articles in this context.

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

I didnt find the response to reviewers comments in the revised report. 

I followed up my previous report on my saved version. 

The authors have improved the manuscript and justified most of my concerns. 

However, I recommend the authors to have alook to the citations within the text, follow up reference by reference, some of them dont have year. 

The english needs much more improvement. 

I also need to see the Reviewers responses to my first report. 

The manuscript then can be accepted after minor revision.

English still needs alot of improvement. 

Author Response

We would like to thank You for Your time and attention. Due to Your feedback we can further improve our paper and this is highly appreciated.

All changes in the text we marked in green

I didnt find the response to reviewers comments in the revised report. 

We have sent a response to all reviewers' comments in the first revision. We have attached a response to your comments, see below. We do not know what happened, why the response to the comments was not available. We apologize for this.

The weakness of the manuscript:

- low English quality, low editing quality,

      We corrected text

- vaguely defined aim of the research,

      We added it. See in the text, please

-half of the citations come from the country of the authors,

We changed it. See in the text, please

- Figure 1 has not the proper caption,

We corrected it. See in the text, please

- Figure 1 has not any significance because it is hard to understand what there is presented in it,

We corrected it. See in the text, please

 Figure 4 - is it correct? The MTN in backwash is lower than in raw water?

We corrected it. See in the text, please

- Figure 6 - what does "signal" mean? What is the significance of this chart?

- We corrected it. See in the text, please

- most conclusions could be drawn without any research.

- We corrected conclusions and added information in “results” chapter. See in the text, please

I followed up my previous report on my saved version. 

The authors have improved the manuscript and justified most of my concerns. 

However, I recommend the authors to have a look to the citations within the text, follow up reference by reference, some of them do not have year. 

We corrected it. See in the text, please

The English needs much more improvement. 

 We checked the text before sending it after proofreading.

I also need to see the Reviewers responses to my first report. 

 We have carried them above

Reviewer 4 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

This paper has been improved. Now it is in acceptable form to publish. However, this paper has low quality and scientific soundness.

Author Response

We would like to thank You for Your time and attention. Due to Your feedback we can further improve our paper and this is highly appreciated.

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

1. Abstract. Please add important experimental data.

2. Introduction. It is only a general analysis, and more specific researches in recent years need to be added.

3. Introduction. What is the novelty of this work? What is the difference compared to previous researches? These need to be added.

4. The data in this work has no error bars, such as Figs. 3, 4 and 8. These are very important and should be added.

5. There are many unnecessary spaces in this draft. It should be carefully edited.

Moderate editing of English language.

Reviewer 2 Report

The current manuscript evaluated the possibilities of backwash water reuse filters in the water treatment systems. Water from two plants were considered, one for treating the surface water and another plant for treating infiltration water. The quality of the water in both scenarios were monitored and measured and final conclusions remarks were summarized. The manuscript has data that worth publishing in Water. However, a lot of points that must be corrected before considering for publication. The English language is a critical issue. I recommend major revision of this manuscript.

Abstract

·       In the abstract, a lot of mistakes, typos, grammar, incomplete sentences, improper use of commas and sentences were not started or ended well. I recommend re-writing the abstracta and pay more attention to attract the readers.

Introduction

The authors provided good introduction. However, It needs the following:

·       More elaboration is required in the literature part. Any similar works in the literature, any results, the methodology of other studies, it will help the reader understanding the objectives of the study.

·       Then, proposing the research gap, the authors mentioned attractive points but still the research gap that the authors want to fulfill must be clearly identified.

·       The objectives of the study must be clearly mentioned in the last paragraph of the introduction. State them clearly point by point.

·       Related citations, recent literature has to be summarized. Overall, there is a lack of references throughout the manuscript.

Methodology

More clarifications required in the methodology:

The description of the methodology for the presented work is not enough. Please address any methodologies in details. Make subsections if required. 

·       There is no title for Figure 1. 1a and 1b are identified, but general title for the figure is required.  

·       Page 4: “All parameters were analyzed according to standard methods”, for any standard method utilized in the study must be mentioned by its number.

·       Any instruments used for analysis must be mentioned by name, model, manufacturer, country of origin.

·       Are there any chemicals used in the study, whether they are major chemicals or used for analysis must be mentioned including purity, manufacturer, and country of origin.

·       Is there any repetition of the experiments.

Results and discussion:

·       Starting from the first paragraph. English is not clear. Second paragraph started with “Monthly”, the authors are recommended to significantly improve the context of the manuscript. This comment is for all the manuscript.

·       Page 7: Figure 3, check the figure caption.

·       Any comparison studies with other works, either similar studies or case studies in other parts of the world is required. Either in table format or text in a separate section.

·       Cost analysis is highly recommended to show the feasibility of the process.

·       In general, such studies are recommended with some analysis, either LCA or SWOT analysis. If possible, it will add significant value to the article.

·       If possible, to include error bars or percentage error within the text or in the tables. This is important to demonstrate the accuracy of the data.

Conclusions:

·       “The amount of backwashed water independent of the water type is about 5%”, please clarify the sentence, what is the about 5%.

·       “Returning to the sand backwash treatment system is reasonable”, again, not clear.

·       Please, check all points, proof reading is required, few points are understandable.

Overall comments:

·       The quality of the figures must be improved. Font size, make it more colorful.

·       The English language is an issue in this manuscript. English proof reading is required. Also pay attention to many extra spaces between the words and the sentences, there are too many.

·       Many typos and grammar mistakes were found throughout the text, please read carefully and correct.

Please, refer to the review report. 

The English is very critical issue for this manuscript. English proof reading is a must before considering publication in Water. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The review of Assessing the possibilities of backwash water reuse filters in the water treatment system- case analysis by Małgorzata Wolska and Halina Urbańska-Kozłowska. I think this version of the manuscript is not ready for publication. I recommend rejecting it.

The weakness of the manuscript:

- low English quality,

- low editing quality,

- vaguely defined aim of the research,

- half of the citations come from the country of the authors,

- Figure 1 has not the proper caption,

- Figure 1 has not any significance because it is hard to understand what there is presented in it,

- Figure 4 - is it correct? The MTN in backwash is lower than in raw water?

- Figure 6 - what does "signal" mean? What is the significance of this chart?

- most conclusions could be drawn without any research.

The quality of English is low.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear authors, 

Thank you for your works. The paper is interesting and it deals with a big problem as it is wasting water in treatment plants for backwash operations. 

The paper is well organized, according to scientific method and it includes relevant information about the case studies.

Said that, I consider that the comparison of only 2 plants with similar sizes and configurations is not enough for extracting conclusions. I would recommend to the authors to add information from many more plants, with different sizes and treatment line (although they can be obtained from bibliography) in order to extract a more substantiated conclusions. 

It would also good to have information about how these conclusions can improve the plant operation or even economic information about how the strategy of backwash recommended can reduce O&M costs or the time between backwash.

I encourage the authors to improve this good work with more information for making it better,