Dear authors,

as you have seen, the three reviewers in general highly appreciate the objective of your work. They also agree that the manuscript is well written and logically structured. I largely agree with this assessment. However, the reviewers also provide a list of excellent comments and suggestions, which I strongly encourage you to address in detail. While quite some of the comments and concerns are mostly misunderstandings, which can be easily clarified in the manuscript, other may need some more attention. In particular, it will be good to provide some more in-depth tests of your assumptions, as for example suggested by reviewer #3. While it is with currently available observation technology essentially not possible to directly observe SR at scales large than the plot scale, the estimates of your analysis could be easily tested (or at least plausibility-checked) against estimates derived from the calibration of a hydrological model for a few contrasting locations across your study area.

I am looking forward to receiving a revised version of your manuscript.
best regards,
Markus Hrachowitz

Dear authors,
based on the assessment of one additional reviewer and my own reading of your responses and the revised version of your manuscript, I think you have done a good job in addressing most of the points raised by the reviewers. The reviewer has provided a few additional suggestions. Please also address and incorporate these in a further minor revision.
Best regards,
Markus Hrachowitz

Dear authors,
thank you for the additional revisions. I am glad to accept the manuscript as is for publication in HESS. Congratulations on a very interesting contribution!
Best regards
Markus Hrachowitz