Dear Dr Zhuo,

Your manuscript “Benchmark levels for the consumptive water footprint of crop production for different environmental conditions: a case study for winter wheat in China” has been subjected now to review by two reviewers, which both recommend major revision. Unfortunately, my editorial decision is significantly delayed which was related to a possible third review, which was promised many times, but never delivered.

The main points by the two reviewers are all important to be handled. In particular, more background on the used (crop growth) models is needed, and to the uncertainty associated with the predictions by those models and the consequences of this uncertainty on the outcome of this study. The practical implications of the study also need to be better highlighted in the paper.

In your answer to the main points and detailed comments, please indicate how comments have been handled exactly, indicating also whether text has been deleted and what the position of newly included text blocks is. I am looking forward to the new version of the paper.

Best regards,

Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen – editor

Dear Dr Zhuo,

Your paper "Benchmark levels for the consumptive water footprint of crop production for different environmental conditions: a case study for winter wheat in China" was reviewed again by the two original reviewers. They agreed that their comments were handled very well and recommend publication. I suggest also publication after a very few technical issues are handled (see below). Congratulations with your work.

Harrie-Jan Hendricks-Franssen (editor)

Technical comments:
Below equation 1. The symbol ET (evapotranspiration) was not introduced.
P9, L2: "Table" instead of "Tables"
P10, L22-L23: Reconsider sentence.