Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Al Abila Dam in the Western Desert of Iraq

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

Unfortunately, the manuscript has not been revised significantly, and my previous comments are still observed in the new version. As the manuscript is now in track changed mode, it is obvsious that modifications are just adding/correcting a few sentences here and there. Also, in my opinion, the aim of the study is still not clear. Is it climate change impact assessment (on the Al Abila Dam in Iraq's western desert)? Is it downscaling of GCMs for rainfall and temperature data? Is it applying water harvesting model under climate scenarios? All of these topics cannot be the aim. You should have one main aim and maybe one or two minor objectives. The aim of your study shows the focus of your study. If you are able to set the aim of your study, you can write a good introduction. The current format of the introduction presents various materials "beginning with a definition of climate change, GCM models, scenarios, and their application with rainwater harvesting systems, dams, and rivers", as you correctly mentioned in your response to the comment #8. It is not acceptable. The introduction is confusing. The novelty is not clear. The literature review is waek and selective. In addition, the text has full of bias statements. For instance, in lines 12, you are stating that "underdeveloped nations where the effects are felt the most". In my previous comments, I literally mentioned that it is your opinion and not the case in reality. This is a scientific journal. You cannot state something from your opinion, which is not the real case. To be more specific, developed countries like US, UK, Canada, and a few Nordic countries are suffering from the climate change impacts. So, whether a country is underdeveloped or developed, it may encounter impacts of cliamte change. My suggestion is to carefully read my comments, check papers published on the topic, and revise your article accordingly. 

The problem with this article is not just the language. Nevertheless, it requires to be checked and corrected by a professional scientific writer.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. 

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

The study deals with the impact of the climate change on water availability, uses hydrological models with the  downscaled climate change projections. The novelty can be atributed to the study region which has problems with water availability. The methodology and the reporting is apropriate. There may be some additional explanations for the climate change impacts around the region. The figures and tables and the design of the results needs no revison.

 

 

Author Response

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to you for identifying areas of our manuscript that need corrections or modifications.

The forthcoming paper will address more details about climate change's impact on the region.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

 

 

The effect of climate change on the water availability at the catchment scale were evaluated based on the FNL and CMIP5 data. The authors used the SDSM model to downscale the GCM data and the water availability at AL Abila Das was determined by the WHCatch model. The Key variables (precipitation/Tmax and Tmin) and the accuracy of the downscale model were provided in this study. The data/method/model and results are very impressive.

 

Here are some minor comments:

 

1.      The author need to take care of the format of the manuscirpts. Such as use the same color for the text.

2.      Line 34 “increased significantly.,”

3.      Line 117 The section 2 title need to move to the new line.

4.      Line 340 The figure 3 did not display correctly.

5.      Line 256 All the variables in formula (2) are bold. Need to be corrected.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to you for identifying areas of our manuscript that need corrections or modifications.

Here are some minor comments:

1. The author need to take care of the format of the manuscirpts. Such as use the same color for the text.

• The manuscript was revised.

2. Line 34 “increased significantly.,”

• The manuscript was revised.

3 . Line 117 The section 2 title need to move to the new line.

• The manuscript was revised.

4. Line 340 The figure 3 did not display correctly.

• The figure was revised.

5. Line 256 All the variables in formula (2) are bold. Need to be corrected.

• The manuscript was revised.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

The manuscript has not been modified and many shortcomings mentioned in the previous rounds of the review are still in the artcile. As a reviewer, I suggest rejection.

The language should be checked and improved significantly.

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

2.1 Study area and data used

Correct square kilometers for 13107.83 square kilometers.

In Figure 1, Al Rutba city, Euphrates River should be included.

Complete the sentences: Autumn: 15% and Spring: 35%.

2.2.Methodology overview

Why choose WHCatch model?

Why not update IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report?

Explain the meaning of symbols in the equation: ∆? = − ?

3. Results and Discussion

Remove this paragraph: "We'll start with the findings of downscaling the climatic scenarios for the research region. They will be incorporated into the rainwater harvesting model.3.1. Subsection"

Corrected cubic meters for 4 X 106 m3.

In Figure 5, why is the runoff of the reservoir of the dam so high? Spelling Ruunoff to Runoff.

Author Response

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to you who identified areas of our manuscript that needed corrections or modifications. Please find in the attachment our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript entitled “Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Rainwater Harvesting  Systems in the Western desert of Iraq” by Adham et al., made an important contribution to the evaluation of the impacts of climate change on water resources, especially on rainwater harvesting. I thank the authors for the good job done in this analysis. However, I have some major remarks that might help improve the manuscript.

· Abstract (page 1, line 21): add the historical and future analysis timeframe.

· Abstract (page 1, lines 24 and 25): using 20s is confusing. Please write the year in full format.

·   Page 3, lines 106-107: This claim needs a reference.

· Figure 1: Ahila dam location on the left map is plotted within the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, not in Iraq. Please, correct the location.

· Page 4, section 2.2.1: What is the rational behind selecting specific GCM models in this study? Why use CanESM2 and CCCma? Why not others?

·  A data section is needed. It would be useful to provide a table in the data section to summarize the data used and their specifications.

· Page 5, lines: 193-194:  Example papers need to be cited to support the claim that SDSM 4.2 is a widely used model.

· Page 5, lines 203-204: Readers of your paper are mainly people with relevant experience in hydrology. This sentence doesn’t add important facts to the reader’s knowledge.

·  Page 5, lines 208-209: more information is needed on which variables you used to account for input and output for calculating a change in storage,

·  Page 5, lines 225-231: Why these specific parameters? More elaboration is needed here.

·  Page 6, lines 237-238: It is unclear what you mean by probability (P) here. Also, it doesn’t appear in the table.

·  Page 12, lines 515, 516, 517: What are the units for 1875681.8, 1335167.9, and 1506788.98?

· Figure 3, 4, 6, and 7: write the years in complete formats within the figure and caption.

 

·  Discussing uncertainties and limitations of the study is a crucial part. It is currently missing. 

Author Response

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to you who identified areas of our manuscript that needed corrections or modifications. Please find in the attachment our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript title and the abstract do not match. Many sentences in the abstract are either wrong or do not make any sense. Due to poor scientific writing, I regret to reject this manuscript. The authors are encouraged to improve the level of the writing of their manuscript and resubmit it as the topic is interesting:

1.       Line 11: What do you mean by “The global and regional systems for managing water resources”?

2.       Line 13: Why do you think that impacts of climate change “are most felt in underdeveloped nations”? This is not correct in general. For instance, Nordic countries are not underdeveloped nations, whereas climate change impacts can be observed in many places in those countries.

3.       Lines 13-14: What do you mean by “Techniques for harvesting water provide a different source of water”? The rainfall harvesting collects water rainfall. So, which different source of water do you refer to?

4.       Lines 17-19: Here, it is clearly stated that “The primary objective of this study was to quantify the effect of climate change on the availability of water at the catchment scale by statistically downscaling temperature and rainfall from the GCMs.” However, the manuscript title does not reflect downscaling GCM outputs.

5.       Lines 24-25: What does “10% in RCP 2.6 in the 20s for 24 future scenarios” mean?

6.       Line 26: The concluding remark of this study is “The findings of this study proved that the Al Abila Dam was unable to supply the necessary water.” For when? For which scenario? Under which condition.

Author Response

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere thanks to you who identified areas of our manuscript that needed corrections or modifications. Please find in the attachment our response to your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for revising the manuscript.

I have only one observation. I would agree with using 20s, 50s and 80s abbreviations if you use the 2020s for (2020-2029), for example. But using the 20s for (2011-2040), 50s for (2041-2070), and 80s for (2071-2100)] is indeed incorrect and confusing too. I think you need to revise this in the text and all figures. Please use the full-time periods instead of abbreviations. 

Then, the manuscript will be ready for publication. 

Reviewer 3 Report

As mentioned in the previous round of the review, the manuscript title does not match the abstract. This shortcoming is still there. More importantly, the authors´ responses to the comments are unfortunately not satisfactory. So, the authors need to go through the comments of the previous round of the review and address them. The language requires to be checked and corrected by a professional scientific writer. Nevertheless, the problem with this article is not just the language. The authors need to state the aim of the work. Is the objective of the work rainfall harvesting or climate change impact assessment or another thing? There is an ambiguity of this issue in the text. Another shortcoming is that there are many sentences in the text that do not make any sense. The introduction has many unrelated materials, which should be removed. The literature review is weak and needs to be updated and improved. Lines 245-280 should be moved to materials and methods. There is no discussion section. The conclusion is a repeat of the results. Finally, I suggest that the manuscript be given back to the authors not only to significantly improve and rearrange it but also to make the study structure and aims clear.