Two referees reviewed the paper carefully and assessed the scientific content and the presentation of the results only as fair, and I agree. I really appreciate the hard work that has been done in this very important river basin. Furthermore, the changes that have been carried out in the draft manuscript.
However, this paper does not meet the standards of HESS with respect to scientific quality and novelty (methods, as well as new scientific insights). Further analysis needs to be done that provide new insights into the functioning of the hydrological system.

I would like to apologies to the authors that it took so long till I finished my assessment of this paper. I recently moved to a new country and took up a new job, thus I could not keep up with all my duties.

Stefan Uhlenbrook, WWAP, UNESCO, Italy

The paper received two reviews, both were critical but very helpful as they provided many useful comments guiding the authors for the necessary revisions. The authors took up the challenge and revised the paper significantly.
I appreciate the work of the researchers and I could see that this paper finally gets published in HESS. However, I need a document detailing how the author address all comments by the reviewers (point by point rebuttal). This should also explain why they did not address a specific comment or disagree with the reviewers.
I would like to offer my sincere apologies to the authors that review process took a bit longer.
Minor comment:
- The unit of delta d of the water balance equation is mm/yr and not just mm.
- Caption of figure 4 is unclear
- Unit of y-axis in fig 5 is not given

Stefan Uhlenbrook, UNESCO, WWAP, Italy

First, I would like to offer my apologies to the authors that it took so long to finalize assessment.
The authors replied to all issues raised by the reviewers and revised the paper is a satisfactory manner. The paper is now almost ready for publication in HESS. I would like to consider the authors the following points; this will cause a lot of additional work for the authors:
- Evaporation by forest (as well as other land uses) is dependent of the species; forest is not the same as forest. Would the conclusions of the paper still apply, if more appropriate, local species for dry land conditions would be used? What does that mean for future land use management in the basin?
- This paper is about land use, avoid the term land cover when you discuss the same thing.
- Figure 8 shows in a few cases that the calculated transpiration is up to 200 mm/a higher than P-Q. How can you explain that
- One reviewer suggest a number of additional references some also published as open access papers (thus easy accessible for the reader) and the authors have not included them.
- The tables in figure 3 and 9 have the same info as graphics, correct? Thus, why both?
The paper is very well written and clear (note that I am not a native English speaker), however, there a few sentence that need attention (e.g. work has been done ‘in’ the study area and not ‘on’ the study area; space before a bracket etc.). It should be read by a native speaker to eliminate these typos.

Stefan Uhlenbrook, WWAP, UNESCO, Italy