Field-based estimation and modelling of distributed groundwater recharge in a Mediterranean karst catchment, Wadi Natuf, West Bank

Messerschmid, Clemens; Sauter, Martin; Lange, Jens

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-887-2020

Articles | Volume 24, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-887-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Environmental changes and hazards in the Dead Sea region (NHESS/ACP/HESS/SE...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-887-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 2

Research article

|

26 Feb 2020

Research article |

| 26 Feb 2020

Field-based estimation and modelling of distributed groundwater recharge in a Mediterranean karst catchment, Wadi Natuf, West Bank

Clemens Messerschmid, Martin Sauter, and Jens Lange

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Final revised paper (published on 26 Feb 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Jun 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of ’Field-based groundwater recharge and leakage estimations in a semi-arid Eastern Mediterranean karst catchment, Wadi Natuf, West Bank’ by C. Messerschmid et al.’', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Jul 2018
- AC3: 'Answer to RC#1', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018
- AC2: 'Answer to RC#2', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018
- AC1: 'Answer to RC#3', Clemens Messerschmid, 18 Oct 2018
- AC4: 'Answer to RC#1', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018
RC2: 'R2', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Jul 2018
- AC2: 'Answer to RC#2', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018
- AC1: 'Answer to RC#3', Clemens Messerschmid, 18 Oct 2018
- AC3: 'Answer to RC#1', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018
RC3: 'Review: Field-based groundwater recharge and leakage estimations in a semi-arid Eastern Mediterranean karst catchment, Wadi Natuf, West Bank', Okke Batelaan, 03 Aug 2018
- AC1: 'Answer to RC#3', Clemens Messerschmid, 18 Oct 2018
- AC2: 'Answer to RC#2', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018
- AC3: 'Answer to RC#1', Clemens Messerschmid, 26 Oct 2018

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (19 Nov 2018) by Christian Siebert

AR by Clemens Messerschmid on behalf of the Authors (10 May 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (05 Jun 2019) by Christian Siebert

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (19 Jun 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This is an interesting case study about soil moisture changes in different depths and daily readings of discharge at five springs over a period of more than 3 years in an ungauged basin in Israel.

Modeling was performed by means of a box model which is not well described in particular with respect to the boundary conditions. Furthermore, a discussion whether the selected points for soil moisture reading are representative for the entire catchment is missing. Surface runoff is not considered at all in the model described. Missing as well is a water balance, any discussion about evaluation and uncertainties of the results.

It is not clear why this regional case study is divided in two parts. 5 pages introduction were written to express that missing data cannot be circumvented by sophisticated models. Thus the introduction is a kind of review, but not in depths and not complete and thus should be shortened to an introduction for a case study.

Authors do not define the term “deeper soil” and “deep percolation”

Table 1: the term “class of recharge potential” is used here, but not addressed before in the entire manuscript

Fig 6. is not a time series because the sequence of years is random or at least not increasing. Probably better plotting a bar graph. Using abbreviation makes understanding of the figure rather difficult

Related to fig 7: What is a “…very good to excellent correlation A correlation test can either accept the null hypothesis or reject it. …”? It looks like that regression coefficient and correlation are mixed up.

Fig. 9 and 10: why are these data plotted as "time series" and not as bar graph?

Table 3: units are missing

The entire manuscript is cumbersome written and in many parts way too lengthy.

decimetre and metre are used in same places instead of decimeter and meter

page 9: a follow-up-paper is cited: Messerschmid, C., Sauter, M. and Lange, J.: Regionalization of distributed groundwater recharge and leakage calculations in a Mediterranean karst catchment, Wadi Natuf, West Bank, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., - in preparation, 2019b. THis is for me a no go.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #5 (02 Jul 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments
The authors present a parsimonious approach to estimate recharge in a data-poor karstic region with severe water quantity problems. Idea and approach of that manuscript are highly suited for the journal. However, this manuscript reads like a monograph but not a paper in a scientific journal. I generally appreciate the work that was done over the years under truly harsh conditions. However, this is a paper that needs to keep level of detail reproducible but limited to what is really needed to understand the outcome. In all parts of the manuscript I see a lot of potential condensation. I like the general results and outcomes of this study but this is all hidden in way to much information and words. Moreover, I saw a lot of plots on the spatial variability of recharge but no map resulting from this to put this into a catchment context. Overall, the authors have to decide to either condense everything significantly or to consider another publication format.
Specific comments
Abstract: Overall the abstract should put more weight on the results and discussion. At the moment the methodological approach is a bit overemphasized on the cost of quantitative results and their meaning.
L19: I did not know “tank model” but rather “bucket model”. Consider to change that across the manuscript.
L21: Main active hydrological processes may be replaced by “dominant hydrological processes” or “first order controls”.
L24f: Giving some numbers (mm/yr) in addition to the % make sense.
The introduction follows an interesting path on how research approaches groundwater recharge. While I found this interesting I would like to see rather a problem-driven not theory-driven approach to groundwater recharge. What is the global problem, what the specific problem, what is already known and where is the gap of knowledge to be filled. I would not omit the structure as it is but suggest to restructure and simplify the introduction. Definitive there is no need for 2 hierarchies of headers in the introduction section. Even one is already too much for me.
Figure 2: Consider to number the different panels. The map seems to be too large when looking at the information content and may be placed side to side with the geological profiles above.
Figure 3: This is nice to see but I suggest to move this into the supporting information – this is not needed to understand recharge variability in the catchment.
L303ff: This statement needs referencing.
Table 2: You need to include abbreviations into the table caption. Moreover, I don’t get the difference between #years measured and years measured.
Figure 5: I would like to see the ET leaving at the top or do I get something wrong?
Figure 6: Is the axis really precip divided by recharge?
L545: Consider “dashed line” not dotted line in the captions.
L591: The part in the bracket does repeat the part of the sentence before that.
Fig. 9: Typo in Y-axis name. Why are the years connected by a line? Wouldn’t it make sense to connect the stations over the year not the other way round?
Table 3: Units are missing.
Fig. 10: Number should separate digits by a point not a comma.
L647f: If this is highly location-specific, what does that mean for your measurement points? Are they representative?
L735ff: The concluding section is too long. Focus on the main objectives and try to restrict it to the main take home messages.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #6 (25 Aug 2019)

ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (02 Sep 2019) by Christian Siebert

AR by Clemens Messerschmid on behalf of the Authors (14 Nov 2019)

ED: Publish as is (02 Dec 2019) by Christian Siebert

AR by Clemens Messerschmid on behalf of the Authors (20 Dec 2019) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Recharge assessment in the shared transboundary Western Aquifer Basin is highly relevant, scientifically as well as hydropolitically (in Israeli–Palestinian water negotiations). Our unique combination of field-measured soil characteristics and soil moisture time series with soil moisture saturation excess modelling provides a new basis for the spatial differentiation of formation-specific groundwater recharge (at any scale), applicable also in other previously ungauged basins around the world.