Unsaturated zone model complexity for the assimilation of evapotranspiration rates in groundwater modelling

Gelsinari, Simone; Pauwels, Valentijn R. N.; Daly, Edoardo; van Dam, Jos; Uijlenhoet, Remko; Fewster-Young, Nicholas; Doble, Rebecca

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2261-2021

Articles | Volume 25, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2261-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Data acquisition and modelling of hydrological, hydrogeological...

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-2261-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 4

Research article

|

27 Apr 2021

Research article |

| 27 Apr 2021

Unsaturated zone model complexity for the assimilation of evapotranspiration rates in groundwater modelling

Simone Gelsinari, Valentijn R. N. Pauwels, Edoardo Daly, Jos van Dam, Remko Uijlenhoet, Nicholas Fewster-Young, and Rebecca Doble

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Final revised paper (published on 27 Apr 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Jul 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review of the manuscript', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Jul 2020
- AC1: 'Response to Anonymous Referee #1', Simone Gelsinari, 17 Jul 2020
  - RC2: 'Response', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 Jul 2020
    - EC1: 'Tone of the review by anonymous referee #1', Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen, 02 Aug 2020
      - RC4: 'Apology regarding tone', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 Aug 2020
        
        AC5: 'Response to Referee#1', Simone Gelsinari, 02 Nov 2020
    - AC2: 'Response to Referee#1', Simone Gelsinari, 02 Nov 2020
RC3: 'Review of the manuscript', Manuela Girotto, 01 Aug 2020
- AC3: 'Response to A/Prof Manuela Girotto', Simone Gelsinari, 02 Nov 2020
RC5: 'Peer review report on ''Unsaturated zone model complexity for the assimilation of evapotranspiration rates in groundwater modeling"', Anonymous Referee #3, 05 Oct 2020
- AC4: 'Response to Referee#3', Simone Gelsinari, 02 Nov 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (08 Nov 2020) by Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen

Dear Mr Gelsinari,

Your manuscript "Unsaturated zone model complexity for the assimilation of evapotranspiration rates in groundwater modeling" has been subjected now to review by three reviewers and I apologize for the delay. Two of the reviewers recommend major revision and one reviewer recommends rejection. The main points to be handled are, in my opinion:
(i) lack of improvement by DA and the significance of the results (addressed by all reviewers). The significance of the results should be quantified.
(ii) the conceptual groundwater model including the imposed boundary conditions with lack of transient dynamics. A realistic groundwater system would show transient variations related to varying lateral fluxes, pumping and meteorology. Meteorology is considered now, but not for the boundary conditions. These additional sources of uncertainty could affect the impact of assimilation of evapotranspiration data. This should be assessed.
(iii) the small ensemble size. Typically, in groundwater DA studies larger ensemble sizes are used. It should be shown that 32 is enough, or the study repeated with larger ensemble sizes.
(iv) the coarse representation of the groundwater system. It should be clarified why this would not affect the study outcomes.
(v) in almost all groundwater DA studies also parameters are updated as these are the main source of uncertainty. This could be considered; assimilation of ET data could have more impact and result in more improvement if also parameters are updated. If parameters are also updated, a larger ensemble size will be needed.
(vi) more details should be provided in parts of the manuscript as suggested by the reviewers.

In summary, I suggest major revision and additional review of the paper. Please consider whether such a revision is feasible in the available time framework.
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
-------------------------------------------------

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AR by Simone Gelsinari on behalf of the Authors (17 Jan 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (18 Jan 2021) by Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen

RR by Manuela Girotto (12 Feb 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (25 Feb 2021)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (04 Mar 2021) by Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen

AR by Simone Gelsinari on behalf of the Authors (12 Mar 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (12 Mar 2021) by Harrie-Jan Hendricks Franssen

AR by Simone Gelsinari on behalf of the Authors (15 Mar 2021)

Short summary

Estimates of recharge to groundwater are often driven by biophysical processes occurring in the soil column and, particularly in remote areas, are also always affected by uncertainty. Using data assimilation techniques to merge remotely sensed observations with outputs of numerical models is one way to reduce this uncertainty. Here, we show the benefits of using such a technique with satellite evapotranspiration rates and coupled hydrogeological models applied to a semi-arid site in Australia.