A Need for Standardized Reporting: A Scoping Review of Bioretention Research 2000–2019

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of water-965114 “A need for standardized reporting: a scoping review of bioretention research 2000-2019” by Spraakman et al.

A very well written review article that capture and synthesize a lot of good points from across the published bioretention research. The manuscript is rather long, but I cannot point out a single part that is not written to the point so this is simply a result of the many points covered and discussed. The conclusion include a recap of the findings that is really not necessary as it becomes so condensed that it is not really informative. Consider transforming the conclusions section into a more clean recommendations section where you very clearly (maybe in bullets) list how the community could establish a best practice for bioretention reporting.

You do a literature review of 320 papers but does not reference all of them. I know that it would add 10+ pages of references to the manuscript, but I would also believe that it would underpin all the work you have put into this review as well as acknowledge all the work put into all the papers. Maybe discuss this issue with the editor.

Small comments:

Ll119-125: some of the numbers does not add up: 1157 – 286 – 64 – 24 – 24 – 13 = 746 and not 320 which should be the result. Please expand the description to make it fully transparent how you ended up with 320 included articles.

Figure 4 is quite confusing as the circles and labels in the map does not match well (e.g. Colombia is written off the east coast of USA). Please tighten up the presentation of data in this Figure by leaving out the labels.

L384: (106/109) should probably be (106/141)?

L494: “he percentage” should probably be “The percentage”.

Figure 10: Infiltration and degradation has the same color.

Figure 12: “not reported” and “none” are the same color. Even though the result is the same it does make a difference whether it is not reported or if no protocol is followed.

Author Response

Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Paper summary: This manuscript describes a thorough review of bioretention literature over at least the last 20 years, including an evaluation of field and modeling “performance” of these systems.

Overall, I think the paper is well organized despite the breadth of information provided from the number of studies. There are a couple instances where formatting is inconsistent, and coloring could be improved to increase clarity. These are highlighted in the specific comments. I have several specific comments for the authors to consider in their revision.

Specific Comments:

• Line 52-53: “… does bioretention achieve its intended design objectives.” Should this sentence end in a question mark because it asks a question?
• Lines 79-86: “…to understand…” through “…are two sub-questions:” is a different font than the surrounding text.
• Table 1 (page 3 and 4 of 38): While it’s OK for this table to span multiple pages as it does, it’s confusing when the break occurs within a row of information; splitting the sentence. If possible, please consider revising to keep page break(s) from occurring within a row of the table.
• Figure 3 (page 7 of 38): Please consider adding the axis labels for both the left and right vertical axes.
• Line 194: “…with only 47 out of 320 publications…” Nearly all previous statistics were reported as percent (e.g., “Only 3% of publications…”) first and then as number. Including percent here will aid in comparison to other parameters in this paragraph.
• Lines 257-261: “The implementation of bioretention steadily increased in the United States, Australia and We found either guidelines on LID technologies or governmental policies promoting their use [2,40-47]; in all countries with studied field bioretention cells there were however the existence of policy alone was insufficient in spurring or accelerating bioretention research. Europe from 2000-2015, where environmental standards were established in the 1990s and early 2000s.” These sentences seem incomplete, possibly due to tracked changes from internal author revisions. Specifically, “…Australia and We found either…” is confusing and the last sentence (“Europe from 2000-2015…”) is not a complete sentence. Please consider revising for clarity.
• Figure 4 (Page 10 of 38): This figure is first mentioned in line 217 (page 8 of 38). Please consider moving the figure closer to the first mention.
• Line 312: “…performance include: water quality, peak flow, volume, infiltration, peak flow, filtration and urban.” The term ‘peak flow’ is repeated.
• Line 314: “…typical bioretention cell comprised of the most frequently…” Please consider replacing “comprised of” with “composed of,” “comprised,” or “comprising.”
• Figure 5 (page 12 of 38): Please consider adding the phrase “Average =” with the numerical distances included in the figure (0.15m & 0.8m) to avoid confusion. The figure implies that the depth of media and ponding were fixed, not a range of values.
• Line 331: “…for bioretention media. 54 bioretention cells studied…” Please consider revising to state “Fifty-four bioretention cells” to be consistent (e.g., like 341, “…demonstration. Fifty-five articles…”
• Figure 6 (page 14): Please consider relabeling the bins to avoid overlap (e.g., “0-5; 6-10; 11-15” or “0 to <5; 5 to <10” etc.). Also consider including the label for the values greater than the first column of data (darkest color; e.g., “> 25”) and including a label for 6b and 6c.
• Figure 9 (page 19) Please consider including the label for the values greater than the first column of data (darkest color; e.g., “> 2”) and including a label for 9a and 9c.
• Line 453: “…determine long term performance changes.–“ There appears to be a dash at the end of the sentence; could this be a typo?
• Figure 10 (page 23): I can’t distinguish between the colors for Infiltration and Degradation. Please consider a different color for one of these to distinguish it from the other.
• Figure 12 (page 28): I can’t distinguish between the colors for Not Reported and None. Please consider a different color for one of these to distinguish it from the other.
• Line 624: “…assessed in the literature?”. Under …” There appears to be an extra period before the word ‘Under.’ Please consider revising.
• Lines 623-625: “…“How is the field performance of bioretention assessed in the literature?”. Under that primary research question are two sub-questions: …” These sentences appear to be a different font from the surrounding text. The italic text may be the same font, but I’m not sure. Please consider revising to be consistent.

Author Response

Please see attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Great

Author Response

Thank you. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks to the authors for the thorough review of comments, making changes in response to my comments, and for providing a detailed response. I have only one other comment related to Figures 6 & 9: I appreciate the changes the authors made to Figures 6 & 9 related to the bin ranges. Now, though, some integer values are excluded. For example, the legend for Figure 6(a) lists bins 20 - <25 and >25, but it should be ≥25 to include the integer. Similarly, ≥200 for Figure 6a; ≥0.25 & ≥1 for 6b; ≥20 & ≥100 (6c); ≥2 & ≥8 (9a); ≥101 (9b); and ≥5 (9c).

Author Response

Thank you, and apologies for the minor error. Figures 6 and 9 have been updated.