I am satisfied with the way the authors have meticulously responded to the perceptive, detailed, constructive and critical comments by the two reviewers. I appreciate, for example, the changed (and improved) title of the paper (from “Large-scale impacts… ” to “Basin-scale impacts… “)

For me a few (5) detailed issues remain, as detailed below (referring to the revised document, as submitted with the responses to the reviewers):

p.7 line 8: what is the unit/dimension of the DOR value? Does it have a physical meaning related to the unit/dimension?

p.7 line 12: you write “DORw provides a better estimate…” How do you know? Is there evidence for this?

p.7 line 18: “32-year” or is it 33 –year (see p. 6 line 30, above). Please be consistent.

p. 14 line 33/p.15 line 1: “As shown, in some cases simple restrictions result in expansion pathways consistently better in most analyzed impacts and benefit metrics.” Was this really shown?

p.21 lines17-18: You state: “Our analysis of possible scenarios, however, indicates that other scenarios would result in much lower differential changes.” Are there principled lessons to be learned from this – what type of scenarios (i.e. which types of interventions) have lower negative impacts and higher positive impacts?

I look forward to the reflections by the authors on these comments.

Dear authors,

I am happy with how you have addressed my final comments. I therefore recommend the manuscript to be accepted for publication in HESS.

Pieter van der Zaag