1. In the abstract, you mentioned three lakes including Caohai, Waihai, and Dianchi lakes. Comparatively, you only mentioned Dianchi in the manuscript title. Thus, readers may feel confused about these three lakes since most of them are not familiar with them. You need to add one short sentence in the abstract to clarify relationships among those three lakes. Also, corresponding detailed clarification needs to be added in the main text.
2. Your references need to be updated. Please try to cite more papers published in HESS.
3. Since S.R. Wang is listed as the coauthor of your paper, it is not necessary to mention his name in the Acknowledgements.
4. Since monitoring is the main part of your work presented in this paper, please strengthen this part. I guess more details should be better. For example, justification is needed for your monitoring plans.
5. In page 8, you mentioned “Spatial CA produced a dendrogram with two groups (Fig. 4). Cluster A comprised sites 1–2, and cluster B contained sites 8–10. Group B was further divided into two clusters: sites 8–10 in cluster B and the other sites in cluster C”. This sentence is confusing to readers. Firstly, all data were grouped in to groups A and B. Group A contained sites 1 and 2. Group B contained sites 8 to 10. Then, the original Group B was further divided into two groups, i.e., groups B and C. You stated that Cluster B contained sites 8 to 10. This is the same with the original Group B. Also, which site was included in Group C? Moreover, please keep consistency in listing your results. For example, it is confusing for readers since you used both group and cluster here.
6. Title of 4.1 needs to be revised. “Reason analysis” is not proper here. Also, remove “Overview” in the title of 4.2. As I know, it is rare to put overview in the discussion part. What is the difference between the titles of 4.2 and 4.2.2.? I suggest you reconsider all of the subtitles in 4. Discussion.
7. Also, please add one short paragraph to match this research to the topic of the special issue.