Dear authors,
The manuscript has received two constructive reviews. Both reviewers note that the approach proposed in this manuscript is of interest to the broader remote sensing community. However, both reviewers had recommendations that should be addressed in an updated manuscript.

In particular, both reviewers had common concerns:
-That key literature was missing from the manuscript, necessitating placing this work within the context of this broader literature on surface water extents: Both reviewers note that key literature is missing.

While your response to the reviewers indicates that you will use this literature to revise your introduction, I would encourage you to go beyond this. In particular, I would encourage bringing this literature into the discussion section, to compare and contrast your approach with these existing approaches. Placing your findings in the context of this existing literature within the discussion section will help to show what is novel about this approach and how it advances the methodology of detecting lake extents.

The addition to the discussion that is most important will be clearly articulating how this approach enables researchers to answer new questions about lake water extent – what does this new approach allow that other approaches do not? As noted by Reviewer 1, what new insights can be gained? Crafting this novelty within the discussion section by bringing in the broad body of literature on lake water extent detection is necessary to show how this manuscript goes beyond what has already been accomplished in this research area.

-That only a few lakes have been chosen for analysis and validation: I like that the dataset used for testing this approach draws on lakes of different sizes and with different data availability, and in different places. I also appreciate that you have already conducted additional analysis and plan to include three additional lakes within the revised manuscript.

That said, I do think that the limited dataset, as well as your experiences searching for validation data, should be acknowledged within the discussion section. In particular, reviewer 1 asks for more discussion of the limitations of the approach – including where it will work, and how it will be impacted by other environmental conditions. Given the size of the training dataset, discussing these other potential limitations will add to the contribution of this work to the broader literature. When revising this Discussion section, I would encourage you to broadly discuss challenges to the satellite detection of lake water extents, and then move into more specific challenges for your application. Adding a more general discussion will help place this work in the context of other similar studies, and provide more context on common challenges to these types of approaches.

-That there may be more limitations to the approach – due to environmental conditions – than discussed in the current manuscript: Again, I would encourage a thoughtful discussion of environmental conditions that may limit this approach, taking into account many of the points raised by the reviewers (e.g., topographic shading).

Both reviewers also had a few minor comments that would improve the manuscript. In particular, the introduction is missing a scope in the final paragraph (noted by Reviewer 1). In addition, the figures were challenging to read, particularly axis labels, legends, and symbols. I encourage the authors to revisit all figures to ensure that they are readable.

I request that the authors incorporate their proposed revisions into the discussion paper for re-review.

Dear Authors,
Based on the positive feedback from one anonymous reviewer, I am recommending minor revisions to your manuscript. Please incorporate these last pieces of feedback from the reviewer. I look forward to reviewing your updated manuscript.

Dear authors,
Thank you for your changes. The manuscript reads well and the figures are stellar. The final changes you have made add additional clarity. The manuscript is now ready to proceed through the final stages of the publication process.

My best to you with your future research endeavors,
Christa Kelleher