the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 04 Apr 2022
Water shortage: Assessment and Analysis on a Regional Scale
Abstract. This paper aims to analyze the risk of municipal urban water shortage in the state of Rio Grande do Norte (RN) through the results of the Index of Water Shortage Risk (IRDH). The theoretical-methodological assumptions are based on Walle and Birkmann (2015); Almeida, Welle and Birkman (2016); Medeiros (2018); Oliveira (2018); Macedo et al. (2020 e 2021). In this context, the IRDH was structured in a systemic perspective, where the territories of water shortage risk were identified through environmental, social and economic, and state planning indicators, using 19 variables as instruments of analysis. The research was conducted qualitatively and quantitatively, evaluating and analyzing the risk of water shortage in RN and the 153 cities that compose the system of supply managed by the Company of Waters and Sewers of Rio Grande do Norte (CAERN), a state concessionaire (representing 92 % of the 167 cities of the State), in its seven regions of water supply. The result of the IRDH of Rio Grande do Norte proved the relationship between the indicators in the water shortage problem in the State, classifying 49 % of the analyzed cities in the classes of “high” and “very high” risk, which places them in a situation of higher attention regarding the potential damages derived from the water shortage, 40.5 % of them being “medium” and 10 % “low” risks, with no occurrences of “very low” risk examples. In absolute values, 1 city was classified as “very high”; 74 were classified as “high”; 62 as “medium”; and 16 were considered of “low” risk of water shortage. With the goal of reducing/mitigating the results of the IRDH in the State, a transposition of watersheds, integration of supply systems, hydrogeologic research, among others, were proposed.
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2022-86', Anonymous Referee #1, 14 May 2022
Review - Water shortage: Assessment and Analysis on a Regional Scale (Macedo et al.)
This paper presents an evaluation based on Index of Water Shortage Risk results from environmental, social, economic, infrastructural and state planning factors perspective using 19 variables in the state of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. I personally liked the conceptualization in the paper which suggests an index, IRSH (I would suggest the authors not use IRSH but use WSRI for Water Shortage Risk Index). This index is composed of 4 indicators each with varying weight: (i) environmental, (ii) infrastructural, (iii) state planning, and (iv) social and economic. Even the authors anticipate adding a fifth indicator (cultural indicator) in future studies. The indicators are calculated as the weighted averages of 19 variables. The authors classified cities according to water shortage at different levels which are very low risk, low risk, medium risk, high risk, and very high risk. This study performs an analysis, but scientific innovation is not enough interest and high quality for this publication. The most important point is that the study does not well describe/explain the purpose of the study, methodology, explanation/evaluation of analysis results and conclusions. Hence, I cannot recommend this paper for publication.
My main concerns in the present paper are an unclear focus, aim, and methodology (which at the same time, makes it unsystematic), and the lack of definition or clarity in the introduction, methodology, result, and conclusion. Many sentences are a kind of a combination of unrelated words. I also struggle a bit still with this analysis - it needs a better framework of why you do what you do and what is expected by method choices and what is ’surprising’ or unexpected to warrant it publishable in an international scientific journal. For a scientific paper, it is required more clarity why it should be read by an international audience and it needs:
a) a clearer focus on where the analysis adds to the current scientific state of the art; or as a case study how exactly this case study confirms or contradicts regional state-of-knowledge
b) some more rigor in phrasing the research gap, the aims/objectives (and possibly hypotheses or research questions)
c) better separation of results and discussion (with the removal of redundant information); discussion is limited and needs more on what the choice of methods means for the results and more clear what exactly was known before and what this study added to it, and what it added for a wider science could be argued more on the results.
d) The paper has been documented as a kind of local technical report rather than a scientific paper. There is a lot of local information that international scientific readers will not be interested in. Local information should be minimized to make the paper more interesting for international readers.
e) A clearer methodology is needed - the conclusion is unrelated to all the text where the authors discuss uncertainties and the results of the analysis the authors have made – None of these were mentioned in the method and result section - the conclusion should include general aspects of relevance. Also, the paper should be in cohesion and coherence - a well-organized paper uses techniques to build cohesion and coherence between and within paragraphs to guide the reader through the paper by connecting ideas, building details, and strengthening the argument. But I could not see a fluent reading in all manuscript and there are many disconnected sentences and repetitions in the Methodology and Results section especially. Results were not clearly explained with their justifications.
A few more thoughts/comments
a)The authors need to think about which role this case study plays in the broader scheme - they emphasized that the results of this research can contribute directly to the management of water resources of the State, diagnosing problems, such as the identification of the most vulnerable cities and what indicators must be improved. This is not sufficient. It is also unclear how the mentioned management of water resources relates to this study exactly.
b)As a general rule: an abstract section should not have or need any reference.
c)The results should include the pure outcome of the analysis rather than the explanation of methodology or discussion - ideally following each methodological step that was described in the Methods section (some are missing and not written in order of appearance of results).
d)Redundancy: overall the manuscript is too long with too many long descriptions. There are too many repetitions.
e)In drought literature 'risk' is the combination of hazard, vulnerability, and exposure. Why do the authors want to change the definition that is known in the literature very well? Then why should an international readership read this paper if the authors only aim the knowledge gained at the local decision-makers? The authors need to find a scientific aim and added value.
g)It is needed to have a separate discussion section. It is very difficult to understand the combined results and discussion section and the readers struggle to see what the result of this study is and what is the results of previous studies.
h)All figures are really very basic for a journal article and also they are not English. I did not understand anything else from them.
Specific
- Lines 140 and 149: In the drought literature, we use ‘meteorological drought not ‘climatological drought’.
- Maps in Figures should be converted into English to make them understandable.
- Lines 10-12: Delete the sentence that cites references from the abstract.
- Line 73: “the thesis of Castro (2010)” Better you say ”Castro (2010)”
- See also Lines 45-46, Lines 154-156, and some more similar cases through the manuscript
- Line 85: NOT ‘Field of Study’ Better ‘Study Area’
- Line 275: There are 19 variables but 20 maps in Figure 3.
- Figure 4: Four indicators but six maps made me confused.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Yuri Marques Macedo, 30 May 2022
Greetings, initially I would like to thank the referee for appreciating the work and bringing so many constructive contributions to the manuscript. Thank you very much, I will make all the proposed corrections.
Some points raised by the referee need clarification from the authors, they are these:
- All the suggestions proposed by the referee are possible to be carried out, some had already been observed by us authors and we were working on them, such as the need to adapt the maps and/or index nomenclature to better adjust to the English language. Therefore, we find it unnecessary or with disproportionate rigor the prior non-acceptance of the manuscript, which was proposed by the referee.
- The research has a pragmatic character, bringing the knowledge built in the academy to the practical reality of the management of water resources in a Brazilian state. This bias permeates the entire research, however, we understand that it is not the main or only contribution. Therefore, we will adjust the text to make this pragmatic perspective clear, but also bringing the relevance of the research in terms of the scientific contributions it has brought, mainly theoretical and methodological.
- The research work has the function of bringing an innovative methodological proposal, so there are no parameters of other works available that can bring the assessment of disaster risk on a local/regional scale, through an index, with 19 variables, therefore robust . Any criticism in the sense that we should have brought parameters from other works or something similar would be a task that would not fit. Even the works found that resemble the theme of the manuscript were cited.
- The work is a product of a doctoral thesis, which had a very extensive and detailed analysis. So, summarizing it in a manuscript with approximately 20 pages is a very complicated task, in this way, the referee's proposals for corrections are very necessary and pertinent. Therefore, we are working on the text of the manuscript, in order to remove redundancies, expand the discussion and make the methodology clearer/direct, show the relevance of the research for the academy in its methodological proposal and general analysis, in addition to expanding the discussion to the international audience.
- The manuscript has, by nature, a regional scale of analysis, it is a Brazilian state with an area of 52,797 km². In addition, the perspective of risk studies on a detailed scale permeated the work, so there was an effort to bring information inherent to the regional reality, with its problems detailed in their causes and solutions proposed by the research. In this context, the importance of research is to bring this detail which can be used by the academy for comparisons with other places in the world, for example. Therefore, we disagree with the referee when he says that: "There is a lot of local information that is not of interest to international scientific readers". The theme of risk in Geography focuses on broad socio-environmental dangers, on a global scale, such as climate change, earthquakes, famine, drought, but there is also a need to study the place and how its problems relate to a global perspective, it is the what is called the "game of scales", or even, as Milton Santos said: "places become particular manifestations
of the world-totality (...) thinking globally and acting locally. Perhaps this relationship was not clear in the manuscript, but we will be careful to clarify it when we present the corrected manuscript, we are already working on it.Again, your contributions were fundamental for the evolution of the research and improvement of the text, thank you very much!
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-AC1
-
RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2022-86', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Jun 2022
Review for ‘Water shortage: Assessment and Analysis on a Regional Scale’.
The paper is dealing with the analysis of the risk of urban water shortage in a Brasilian state (153 cities). The analysis is based on the evaluation of the index of water shortage risk (IRDH). Solutions are proposed to mitigate the risk.
The text of the paper needs some revision and to be rephrased in several points before it can be published. Namely some of the sentences are too long and not very comprehensible.
Major comments:
- The largest part of the study area has semiarid climate, where dry period was observed recently. What about the hydrological conditions and water depth at the area? In section 2, please explain in detail.
- The article displays more generalized concept of studying water stress. What are the major sources of water supply, since the author is expected to be discussing municipal water supply. Please elaborate clearly, the sources.
- 45: ‘naturalizing’? explain what it is in a few words.
- Table 2: V5) Type of capture. It is vague, what do you mean by it? How can the aquifer, water storage and supply be used as an indicator for water stress? Why is it important to study water shortages?
- V8) Materials used..: It is good to include the complete water system materials.
Minor comments:
- Remove citations from abstract and explain in words the methodological assumptions. Also, give at least insight of what those 19 variables are.
- Abstract: Line 14-17: – Rephrase by dividing it into 2 or 3 sentences.
- 45: re-write first sentence of this paragraph. If you are citing an article, you don’t need to mention their name in the text
- Section 3.1: L. 185, 195: write the equation numbers in front of the equation and in text also.
- 230: ‘… can be viewed on Table 2.’.. It should be ‘.. can be viewed in Table 2.’
- 715: V5) Type of capture. What are you trying to tell? Please write in an elaborative way.
- 210: Why are the indicators so important for water shortage in urban systems? Add a paragraph to explain.
- Authors are not clear about the difference between weather and climate.
- 185: ‘After establishing the weight of each variable and indicator in the sample…..’
Explain the method or criterium used for assigning weights to each variable and indicator.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Yuri Marques Macedo, 09 Jun 2022
Greetings referee 2!
Thank you very much for the comments and suggestions, they were all very relevant.
I point out that we are already working on some placements at the moment and we will make all the corrections before sending the final version.
Thanks again.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-AC2
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2022-86', Anonymous Referee #1, 14 May 2022
Review - Water shortage: Assessment and Analysis on a Regional Scale (Macedo et al.)
This paper presents an evaluation based on Index of Water Shortage Risk results from environmental, social, economic, infrastructural and state planning factors perspective using 19 variables in the state of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. I personally liked the conceptualization in the paper which suggests an index, IRSH (I would suggest the authors not use IRSH but use WSRI for Water Shortage Risk Index). This index is composed of 4 indicators each with varying weight: (i) environmental, (ii) infrastructural, (iii) state planning, and (iv) social and economic. Even the authors anticipate adding a fifth indicator (cultural indicator) in future studies. The indicators are calculated as the weighted averages of 19 variables. The authors classified cities according to water shortage at different levels which are very low risk, low risk, medium risk, high risk, and very high risk. This study performs an analysis, but scientific innovation is not enough interest and high quality for this publication. The most important point is that the study does not well describe/explain the purpose of the study, methodology, explanation/evaluation of analysis results and conclusions. Hence, I cannot recommend this paper for publication.
My main concerns in the present paper are an unclear focus, aim, and methodology (which at the same time, makes it unsystematic), and the lack of definition or clarity in the introduction, methodology, result, and conclusion. Many sentences are a kind of a combination of unrelated words. I also struggle a bit still with this analysis - it needs a better framework of why you do what you do and what is expected by method choices and what is ’surprising’ or unexpected to warrant it publishable in an international scientific journal. For a scientific paper, it is required more clarity why it should be read by an international audience and it needs:
a) a clearer focus on where the analysis adds to the current scientific state of the art; or as a case study how exactly this case study confirms or contradicts regional state-of-knowledge
b) some more rigor in phrasing the research gap, the aims/objectives (and possibly hypotheses or research questions)
c) better separation of results and discussion (with the removal of redundant information); discussion is limited and needs more on what the choice of methods means for the results and more clear what exactly was known before and what this study added to it, and what it added for a wider science could be argued more on the results.
d) The paper has been documented as a kind of local technical report rather than a scientific paper. There is a lot of local information that international scientific readers will not be interested in. Local information should be minimized to make the paper more interesting for international readers.
e) A clearer methodology is needed - the conclusion is unrelated to all the text where the authors discuss uncertainties and the results of the analysis the authors have made – None of these were mentioned in the method and result section - the conclusion should include general aspects of relevance. Also, the paper should be in cohesion and coherence - a well-organized paper uses techniques to build cohesion and coherence between and within paragraphs to guide the reader through the paper by connecting ideas, building details, and strengthening the argument. But I could not see a fluent reading in all manuscript and there are many disconnected sentences and repetitions in the Methodology and Results section especially. Results were not clearly explained with their justifications.
A few more thoughts/comments
a)The authors need to think about which role this case study plays in the broader scheme - they emphasized that the results of this research can contribute directly to the management of water resources of the State, diagnosing problems, such as the identification of the most vulnerable cities and what indicators must be improved. This is not sufficient. It is also unclear how the mentioned management of water resources relates to this study exactly.
b)As a general rule: an abstract section should not have or need any reference.
c)The results should include the pure outcome of the analysis rather than the explanation of methodology or discussion - ideally following each methodological step that was described in the Methods section (some are missing and not written in order of appearance of results).
d)Redundancy: overall the manuscript is too long with too many long descriptions. There are too many repetitions.
e)In drought literature 'risk' is the combination of hazard, vulnerability, and exposure. Why do the authors want to change the definition that is known in the literature very well? Then why should an international readership read this paper if the authors only aim the knowledge gained at the local decision-makers? The authors need to find a scientific aim and added value.
g)It is needed to have a separate discussion section. It is very difficult to understand the combined results and discussion section and the readers struggle to see what the result of this study is and what is the results of previous studies.
h)All figures are really very basic for a journal article and also they are not English. I did not understand anything else from them.
Specific
- Lines 140 and 149: In the drought literature, we use ‘meteorological drought not ‘climatological drought’.
- Maps in Figures should be converted into English to make them understandable.
- Lines 10-12: Delete the sentence that cites references from the abstract.
- Line 73: “the thesis of Castro (2010)” Better you say ”Castro (2010)”
- See also Lines 45-46, Lines 154-156, and some more similar cases through the manuscript
- Line 85: NOT ‘Field of Study’ Better ‘Study Area’
- Line 275: There are 19 variables but 20 maps in Figure 3.
- Figure 4: Four indicators but six maps made me confused.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-RC1 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Yuri Marques Macedo, 30 May 2022
Greetings, initially I would like to thank the referee for appreciating the work and bringing so many constructive contributions to the manuscript. Thank you very much, I will make all the proposed corrections.
Some points raised by the referee need clarification from the authors, they are these:
- All the suggestions proposed by the referee are possible to be carried out, some had already been observed by us authors and we were working on them, such as the need to adapt the maps and/or index nomenclature to better adjust to the English language. Therefore, we find it unnecessary or with disproportionate rigor the prior non-acceptance of the manuscript, which was proposed by the referee.
- The research has a pragmatic character, bringing the knowledge built in the academy to the practical reality of the management of water resources in a Brazilian state. This bias permeates the entire research, however, we understand that it is not the main or only contribution. Therefore, we will adjust the text to make this pragmatic perspective clear, but also bringing the relevance of the research in terms of the scientific contributions it has brought, mainly theoretical and methodological.
- The research work has the function of bringing an innovative methodological proposal, so there are no parameters of other works available that can bring the assessment of disaster risk on a local/regional scale, through an index, with 19 variables, therefore robust . Any criticism in the sense that we should have brought parameters from other works or something similar would be a task that would not fit. Even the works found that resemble the theme of the manuscript were cited.
- The work is a product of a doctoral thesis, which had a very extensive and detailed analysis. So, summarizing it in a manuscript with approximately 20 pages is a very complicated task, in this way, the referee's proposals for corrections are very necessary and pertinent. Therefore, we are working on the text of the manuscript, in order to remove redundancies, expand the discussion and make the methodology clearer/direct, show the relevance of the research for the academy in its methodological proposal and general analysis, in addition to expanding the discussion to the international audience.
- The manuscript has, by nature, a regional scale of analysis, it is a Brazilian state with an area of 52,797 km². In addition, the perspective of risk studies on a detailed scale permeated the work, so there was an effort to bring information inherent to the regional reality, with its problems detailed in their causes and solutions proposed by the research. In this context, the importance of research is to bring this detail which can be used by the academy for comparisons with other places in the world, for example. Therefore, we disagree with the referee when he says that: "There is a lot of local information that is not of interest to international scientific readers". The theme of risk in Geography focuses on broad socio-environmental dangers, on a global scale, such as climate change, earthquakes, famine, drought, but there is also a need to study the place and how its problems relate to a global perspective, it is the what is called the "game of scales", or even, as Milton Santos said: "places become particular manifestations
of the world-totality (...) thinking globally and acting locally. Perhaps this relationship was not clear in the manuscript, but we will be careful to clarify it when we present the corrected manuscript, we are already working on it.Again, your contributions were fundamental for the evolution of the research and improvement of the text, thank you very much!
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-AC1
-
RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2022-86', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Jun 2022
Review for ‘Water shortage: Assessment and Analysis on a Regional Scale’.
The paper is dealing with the analysis of the risk of urban water shortage in a Brasilian state (153 cities). The analysis is based on the evaluation of the index of water shortage risk (IRDH). Solutions are proposed to mitigate the risk.
The text of the paper needs some revision and to be rephrased in several points before it can be published. Namely some of the sentences are too long and not very comprehensible.
Major comments:
- The largest part of the study area has semiarid climate, where dry period was observed recently. What about the hydrological conditions and water depth at the area? In section 2, please explain in detail.
- The article displays more generalized concept of studying water stress. What are the major sources of water supply, since the author is expected to be discussing municipal water supply. Please elaborate clearly, the sources.
- 45: ‘naturalizing’? explain what it is in a few words.
- Table 2: V5) Type of capture. It is vague, what do you mean by it? How can the aquifer, water storage and supply be used as an indicator for water stress? Why is it important to study water shortages?
- V8) Materials used..: It is good to include the complete water system materials.
Minor comments:
- Remove citations from abstract and explain in words the methodological assumptions. Also, give at least insight of what those 19 variables are.
- Abstract: Line 14-17: – Rephrase by dividing it into 2 or 3 sentences.
- 45: re-write first sentence of this paragraph. If you are citing an article, you don’t need to mention their name in the text
- Section 3.1: L. 185, 195: write the equation numbers in front of the equation and in text also.
- 230: ‘… can be viewed on Table 2.’.. It should be ‘.. can be viewed in Table 2.’
- 715: V5) Type of capture. What are you trying to tell? Please write in an elaborative way.
- 210: Why are the indicators so important for water shortage in urban systems? Add a paragraph to explain.
- Authors are not clear about the difference between weather and climate.
- 185: ‘After establishing the weight of each variable and indicator in the sample…..’
Explain the method or criterium used for assigning weights to each variable and indicator.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-RC2 -
AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Yuri Marques Macedo, 09 Jun 2022
Greetings referee 2!
Thank you very much for the comments and suggestions, they were all very relevant.
I point out that we are already working on some placements at the moment and we will make all the corrections before sending the final version.
Thanks again.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2022-86-AC2
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