Uncertainty analysis of a spatially explicit annual water-balance model: case study of the Cape Fear basin, North Carolina

Hamel, P.; Guswa, A. J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-839-2015

Articles | Volume 19, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-839-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-839-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 2

Research article

|

06 Feb 2015

Research article |

| 06 Feb 2015

Uncertainty analysis of a spatially explicit annual water-balance model: case study of the Cape Fear basin, North Carolina

P. Hamel and A. J. Guswa

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Feb 2015)
Preprint (discussion started on 02 Oct 2014)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC C4524: 'Review of hess-2014-390', Anonymous Referee #1, 17 Oct 2014
RC C4629: 'Review comment on: Spatially explicit application of Budyko curve', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Oct 2014
RC C4773: 'Interactive comment on “Uncertainty analysis of a spatially-explicit annual water-balance model: case study of the Cape Fear catchment, NC” by P. Hamel and A. J. Guswa', Anonymous Referee #3, 31 Oct 2014
EC C4804: 'Start discussing', Nunzio Romano, 02 Nov 2014
AC C5002: 'Short response to reviewers comments', Perrine Hamel, 10 Nov 2014
RC C5154: 'Review of “Uncertainty analysis of a spatially-explicit annual water-balance model”', Anonymous Referee #4, 18 Nov 2014
AC C5345: 'Response to reviewers – details and changes to the manuscript', Perrine Hamel, 27 Nov 2014

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (07 Dec 2014) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Perrine Hamel on behalf of the Authors (08 Dec 2014) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (15 Dec 2014) by Nunzio Romano

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (18 Dec 2014)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (21 Dec 2014)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

As the editor indicated, the authors have made a concerted effort to respond to the reviews and revise the manuscript. While I am generally happy with these, I am still reluctant to give a clean chit for it to be published. I want improvements in two areas:
(1) There is still some sloppiness in the writing - for example, some of the references in the main text do not show up in the reference list, whereas there is a reference in the reference list that does not show up in the main text. This is sloppiness, which may also show up in other areas as well. I picked these up in a quick review.
(2) The authors insist that their focus is on uncertainty estimation, and less on the basic scientitic issue of disaggregating the Budyko theory to individual pixels within a catchment. I am willing to accept this argument, but still they must highlight this issue more in the discussion as a service to science. Methods for this already exist. For example, there is a lot of literature where the applicability of Budyko is extended to monthly time scales using storage carry-over explicitly. While it is true that in the case of spatial disaggregation, this has not been attempted, yet one theory for this does exist in the paper by Thompson et al. (2011) on "catchment ecohydrology" where they use of the notion of downslope groundwater subsidy. The authors should provide a brief discussion on this topic for completeness.
For these reasons I recommend acceptance after minor revisions. Hopefully I do not have to review the paper again.

Thompson, S. E. et al. (2011). Scaling of ecohydrologically mediated water balance partitioning: A synthesis framework for catchment ecohydrology. Water Resources Research, 47, W00J03, doi:10.1029/2010WR009998

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (29 Dec 2014) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Perrine Hamel on behalf of the Authors (06 Jan 2015)

ED: Publish as is (08 Jan 2015) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Perrine Hamel on behalf of the Authors (10 Jan 2015)

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Short summary

The paper presents an uncertainty analysis of the InVEST annual water yield model applied to the Cape Fear catchment, North Carolina. The InVEST model is a popular tool used in ecosystem services assessment based on the Budyko theory. The theory is used in a spatially explicit way, at the resolution of GIS rasters. The study confirms the large uncertainties associated with the climate inputs and provides insights into the use of the spatially explicit model.