The three referees of this manuscript have provided detailed reviews, and I encourage the authors to submit a revision of the manuscript that addresses each point. I will request the referees to review the revised paper.

To these three reviews, I add my review as Associate Editor. This paper describes a substantive piece of modelling work to describe existing v. naturalised flows in a large basin with multiple and complex reservoirs. The results of this modelling can then be used to analyse the impacts of the reservoirs on drought flows. The impacts of reservoirs on droughts, good or bad, is a topic of current interest in the hydrologic community, and this paper has the potential to contribute to the debate.

However, the existing paper is on the borderline of acceptability for HESS, as it describes a case study using existing models, and does not contribute to the development of new techniques or theory. In order to overcome this deficiency, I urge the authors during their major revision, to develop the results and discussion section such that it is clear that the paper contributes to the wider understanding of the impacts of reservoirs on droughts. The paper should clearly articulate the major findings in terms of what controls reservoir impacts on droughts (using the multiple reservoirs and multiple years in this study). The authors then need to consider, using additional data on other reservoirs if necessary, how these findings would apply to other watersheds. Would other systems likely behave the same way? Which other parts of the world could see similar effects? Are there any aspects of these systems that are unique and not likely to be replicated elsewhere? It would also be relevant to see a discussion of the effects of these changes on water users in the study watersheds. I will review the revised paper to determine whether the authors have been successful in making this important link to current understanding of hydrologic systems.

I was very pleased to see how thoroughly the authors have addressed my comments and those of the reviewers. A second review by Reviewer 3 confirms this view and recommends that the revised paper be accepted as is. I am therefore please to accept the paper for publication in HESS.