Experimental Study of Overland Flow through Rigid Emergent Vegetation with Different Densities and Location Arrangements
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments on manuscript “Experimental Study of Overland Flow through Rigid Emergent Vegetation with Different Density and Location Arrangements”
This study has the potential to provide insights into the driving factors underlying hydrologic and soil erosion processes and guidance for the management of forests allocated for soil and water conservation.
Please find below the criticisms:
1. The width of the channel (30cm) is quite small. Are you sure that the walls don’t influence the flow velocities?
2. The analysis of the figure 1 must be improved. Please fix it.
3. Please provide a table with the characteristics of the experiments.
4. How you chose the flow rates? Random?
5. The same question foe the channel slope.
6. Did you measure the porosity of the vegetation?
Author Response
my point-by-point response was uploaded as PDF file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
your research on the effect of vegetation density on overland flow is interesting, and the manuscript is enough clear. As you can see in my comments, I proposed some improvements to point out the novelty of your approach, and discuss the outcomes in the current state-of-the-art.
As for the Introduction, I would like to suggest some additional references. Regarding the Discussion, as already said, try to contextualize your work in a better manner.
You are speaking about the possible implications of vegetation on erosion and deposition patterns. In the present form, it is not very clear that this discussion is not directly derived from your experiments (made with a fixed bed) but rather a possible follow-up. I suggest to better clarify this concept in presenting your results.
Given that you are using several equations, adding a notation list could be helpful for readers in understanding the meaning of the adopted symbols in a quicker manner.
Double-check the English grammar and style. Several (but minor) language errors are present along the manuscript. I reported a few of them below.
Detailed comments
line 67: recent years? update your references with studies related to arid and semiarid environments
l.79: Froude number, named after William Froude. Double-check its spelling along the manuscript
l.110: in the study, are used three or four vegetation densities?
l.122: here you can use cm instead of m, given that the distances are quite small
l.133: are you sure about this distance? how did you manage to measure micrometres?
l.136: is the signal-to-noise ratio measured in [s] or [dB] (Yilmazer et al., Water 2018)?
l.157: use the common symbols for describing the quantities: usually the wetted perimeter is indicated with P
l.164: what forces? Avoid introducing a concept without describing it in detail
l.202: what do you mean with Pv and Pre?
Figure 6: use the same dimension on the y-axis. I would like to suggest staying with [cm]
l.334: delete “density” after vegetation
Table 4: add the units
l.400: are you speaking about Karman vortex?
Additional references
Experiments with flexible vegetation: Righetti (2008). Flow analysis in a channel with flexible vegetation using double-averaging method. Acta Geophysica 56, 801. doi: 10.2478/s11600-008-0032-z
Experiments with rigid vegetation: Yilmazer et al. (2018). Flow Characteristics in the Wake Region of a Finite-Length Vegetation Patch in a Partly Vegetated Channel. Water 10(4), 459. doi: 10.3390/w10040459
Kinetic energy and momentum distribution: Kubrak et al. (2015). Experimental Investigation of Kinetic Energy and Momentum Coefficients in Regular Channels with Stiff and Flexible Elements Simulating Submerged Vegetation. Acta Geophysica 63(5), 1405-1422. doi: 10.1515/acgeo-2015-0053
(Old) review on flow and transport in vegetation: Nepf & Ghisalberti (2008). Flow and transport in channels with submerged vegetation. Acta Geophysica 56(3), 753-777. doi: 10.2478/s11600-008-0017-y
Grass strip patterns: Zang et al., (2018). Effects of precipitation and different distributions of grass strips on runoff and sediment in the loess convex hillslope. Catena 162, 130-140. doi: 10.1016/j.catena.2017.12.002
Author Response
my point-by-point response was uploaded as PDF file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
