Spatiotemporal Evolution and Attribution Analysis of Water Yield in the Xiangjiang River Basin (XRB) Based on the InVEST Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript Number: water-2157174

General Comments: I would like to thank the editor of Atmosphere for providing me with an opportunity to review the paper. The study is focused on spatiotemporal evolution and driving forces attribution from climate change and land use by budyko. No doubt, the study is aligned with the scope of the journal and provides some interesting insights into the literature.

However, for scientific contribution to the literature, the study needs quality improvement. Below are my comments and suggestion that the authors need to incorporate.

Main Points:

1.     The abstract of the paper is too weak and does not provide any significant for the finding of the study.

2.     In the abstract, before layout of your purpose, try to add a sentence at the beginning with a brief background information description. There are too many simple conclusive statements in the abstract, which are well-known to people who are involved in this area. You should first layout a background information description.

3.     I found a weakness in the identification of the research gap identification paragraph. There are many studies cited in the papers have already been published in the literature. How the author distinguished this research has significance.

4.     Does the author don’t think that there would be an environmental change impact as well..?

5.     Results are well written; however, I suggest using reader-friendly language as the reader can easily understand and get more benefit from the research output.

6.     Conclusion section is too large and needed to be precise.

Minor Points:

The author may miss citing a recent study in a similar direction considering climate change impacts and used Budyko Curves and Hydrological Sensitivity analysis approaches.

I recommend the author go through these studies and cite them.

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/w14040512

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1007/s12205-022-0650-z

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1007/s11069-022-05650-y.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In the article Spatiotemporal Evolution and Attribution Analysis of Water Yield in the Xiangjiang River Basin (XRB) based on InVEST Model the authors use recent information from the research field, managing to gather in a complex study the appropriate knowledge and methodology. In addition, they bring improvements through detailed spatiotemporal evolution and driving forces attribution from climate change and land use, as the authors mention.

However, the study has, in my opinion, some limitations:

- the temporal interval to which the authors refer (15 years) is a short period to draw conclusions about future climate changes.

- The authors state that in the period 2006-2010 there was an accentuated process of urbanization. However, they divided the data series into two (2006-2009 for calibration and 2010-2020 for validation), being asymmetrical in terms of construction land.

- The slope of the land was not taken into account. The slope is of particular importance in the drainage of water on the surface of the soil and the infiltration of water, therefore in evapotranspiration.

Last but not least, the authors do not propose measures (for the population, industry) in the case of a water deficit and in the case of a water surplus, in certain periods of the year, for the sustainable development of the region.

Overall, the article can be published in a form close to this with the proposed measures improved.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf