This is an exhaustive research work about the vulnerability to draught of forested cold climate regions from Europe. The most respondent are from southern Sweden (84%) and the others are detalied in supplementary materials. From a risk analysis, there are assesed the vulnerability factors and the final assessment underline the factors that seem to be generally impactful for all consumer groups of: blue water, green water and univesal water, respectively.

To be published with some minor revisions:

Row 102 : pls. explain Cfb

Fig. 4, to be zoomed in, there are many details, hard to follow

Fig. 6, axis to be explained, impact score vs?

 Table 2 to be centered

Review for “Sectoral Vulnerability to Drought: Exploring the Role of Blue and Green Water Dependency in Mid and High-Latitudes” by Stenfors et al.

Droughts are hydro-meteorological hazards that are thought to be strongly impacted by global climate change regarding their severity and frequency. For the efficient use of resources in mitigation/adaptation measures it is important to know where droughts have their largest impact. This contribution differentiates the vulnerabilities of different socioeconomic groups to droughts, based on their dependency on groundwater/streams/lakes or soil moisture. They analyze a survey among water-dependent sectors that was aimed at identifying and rating specific vulnerability factors for drought risk.

They first separate the respondents into green, blue and universal water consumers and then identified relevant vulnerability factors, respectively. After application of an impact score to assess the relative importance of the vulnerability factors they use statistical tests to find significant differences in ratings between the consumer groups.

They find that the importance of vulnerability factors differs among the consumer groups in particular concerning factors that relate to water supply and species characteristics. They propose universal vulnerability factors such as existing drought risk assessment, soil water holding capacity and the presence of wetlands, lakes and ponds. They finally argue that future drought risk assessments should incorporate specific vulnerability factors for the exposed consumer groups.

I think the this work has value regarding refining/designing future drought risk assessments and I agree with reviewer 1 that it should be accepted. Yet, I have some minor points that the authors should consider.

I had a hard time to figure out the sectors you have chosen and to what consumer group these belong. Figure 1 was not really helpful in that respect. It lacks the universal consumer group.

Line 167: “two groups” but above you write about three groups. please clarify

Line 404: This entire paragraph should go to results because nothing is discussed here.

Line 412: This paragraph except for the last sentence should belong to the results.

J. Mey