Statistical characterization of environmental hot spots and  hot moments and applications in groundwater hydrology

Chen, Jiancong; Arora, Bhavna; Bellin, Alberto; Rubin, Yoram

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4127-2021

Articles | Volume 25, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4127-2021

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-4127-2021

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

Articles | Volume 25, issue 7

Research article

|

19 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 19 Jul 2021

Statistical characterization of environmental hot spots and hot moments and applications in groundwater hydrology

Jiancong Chen, Bhavna Arora, Alberto Bellin, and Yoram Rubin

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Final revised paper (published on 19 Jul 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 15 Jul 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Reviewer comment on Chen et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 30 Dec 2020
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Jiancong Chen, 19 Mar 2021
RC2: 'Review of hess-2020-343', Anonymous Referee #2, 27 Feb 2021
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Jiancong Chen, 19 Mar 2021

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (21 Mar 2021) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Jiancong Chen on behalf of the Authors (23 Apr 2021) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 May 2021) by Nunzio Romano

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (02 May 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (26 May 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors response document and revised manuscript together helped me to better understand the work and to improve the manuscript. I thank them for that. In reading through the paper again, I must say I enjoyed it a lot more than the first time through. That may be due, in part, to being familiar with it, but I think the authors responses and edits helped a lot. While I don’t fully agree with everything, I think that’s okay, we don’t need to agree on everything. For example, I think I differ (maybe philosophically) from the authors in that I still see their framework as fundamentally binary that doesn’t treat HSHMs in a continuous perspective. I realize that it is probabilistic and probabilities are continuous, but they are probabilities of a binary state as opposed to a continuous state. I am not suggesting the authors make any changes to their framework, I think it is valuable and will push the field forward, and I look forward to further discussion in the literature on how to keep improving our understanding and quantification of HSHMs. I have only a few minor suggestions provided below.

Line 115: I think Eq. 1 is saying that a HSHM can be trigged be either high concentration or high reaction rate. I am wondering if it’s necessary to have a co-dependence between concentration and reaction rate? That is, if concentration is high, but reaction rate is low, then there won’t be a HSHM, yes? Is that correct, or do the authors see it differently? It feels like the condition might require high concentration and high reaction as opposed to needing only high concentration or high reaction rate? At minimum, it’s worth adding a couple sentences summarizing the logic of the setup and what deviations might be possible. Or maybe this is an issue of not really clearly defining what the authors mean by a HSHM prior to arriving at Eq. 1. I re-scanned the material above Eq. 1 and I didn’t see a super clear definition. They lead off the paper talking about rates, so that’s where my mind is. If the authors define changes in concentration alone (with out any change in rate) as a HSHM, it would be good to define that, potentially around Eq. 1.

Line 192: “interested” should be “intersected”?

Line 377: The term “obviating” is used here, but I think the authors mean “requiring” yes? Or I may be deeply misunderstanding what they are driving at (i.e., if uncertainty obviates (i.e., removes) the need for stochastic modeling, I am confused).

Fig. 5: I think there may be an error in the figure legend for e = values for dashed lines?

Line 510: I don’t understand the second bullet. Could it be removed? Seems duplicative with other bullets?

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (28 May 2021) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Jiancong Chen on behalf of the Authors (04 Jun 2021) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (06 Jun 2021) by Nunzio Romano

AR by Jiancong Chen on behalf of the Authors (12 Jun 2021)

Short summary

We developed a stochastic framework with indicator random variables to characterize the spatiotemporal distribution of environmental hot spots and hot moments (HSHMs) that represent rare locations and events exerting a disproportionate influence over the environment. HSHMs are characterized by static and dynamic indicators. This framework is advantageous as it allows us to calculate the uncertainty associated with HSHMs based on uncertainty associated with its contributors.