Stochastic simulation of reference rainfall scenarios for hydrological applications using a universal multi-fractal approach

Ramanathan, Arun; Versini, Pierre-Antoine; Schertzer, Daniel; Perrin, Remi; Sindt, Lionel; Tchiguirinskaia, Ioulia

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6477-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 24

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6477-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-6477-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 24

Research article

|

22 Dec 2022

Research article |

| 22 Dec 2022

Stochastic simulation of reference rainfall scenarios for hydrological applications using a universal multi-fractal approach

Arun Ramanathan, Pierre-Antoine Versini, Daniel Schertzer, Remi Perrin, Lionel Sindt, and Ioulia Tchiguirinskaia

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Dec 2022)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 22 Nov 2021)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on hess-2021-580', Anonymous Referee #1, 03 Jan 2022

The manuscript presents a stochastic approach to generate an ensemble of reference rainfall scenarios (giving a desired rainfall amount P, rainfall duration D and return period T). This approach is based on multi-fractal theory, which is parsimonious and easy to apply. While this research topic is generally relevant for the readership of HESS, there is still a bit of issue which needs to be addressed. Please find the attached comments. Those comments should be addressed before considering publishing this article.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-580-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Arun Ramanathan, 10 Jan 2022
  
  We thank the referee for meticulously reviewing our manuscript and providing several constructive suggestions. We are especially grateful for the referee’s positive feedback. In the supplementary document attached here, we provide our detailed response to the referee’s supplementary comments and also mention how we plan to address these issues in a future version of this manuscript.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-580-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on hess-2021-580', Anonymous Referee #2, 21 Feb 2022

Overall review comment:

This paper presents the use of universal multifractal to generate ensembles of rainfall time series that recreates the Intensity (I), Duration (D), and Frequency (F) of rainfall time series, commonly used in the design of storm-water infrastructure. This paper may become an essential contribution to the literature body of stochastic simulations of rainfall time series. However, I found two pitfalls in the paper: (1) There is no clear definition of the research gap (including connections to previous works), and (2) Even though the paper assesses their methodology, the discussion about the results is almost non-existent. I hope my comments provide a road map to improve the important contribution done by the authors. See the attached file for a detailed description of my concerns.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-580-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Arun Ramanathan, 21 Mar 2022
  
  We thank the referee for reviewing our manuscript and providing several constructive suggestions. We are especially grateful for the positive feedback. In the attached Supplement document, we provide our detailed response to the detailed description of the reviewer’s comments and also mention how we plan to address these issues (especially regarding research gap definition and result discussion) in a future version of this manuscript.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-2021-580-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (02 Apr 2022) by Nadav Peleg

AR by Arun Ramanathan on behalf of the Authors (13 May 2022) Author's response Manuscript

EF by Polina Shvedko (16 May 2022) Author's tracked changes

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (25 May 2022) by Nadav Peleg

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (20 Jun 2022)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (24 Jun 2022)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (08 Jul 2022) by Nadav Peleg

AR by Arun Ramanathan on behalf of the Authors (02 Sep 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (06 Sep 2022) by Nadav Peleg

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (19 Sep 2022)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This is the second time that I review this paper. Sadly, the authors chose to ignore most of my feedback. They have stated their reasons in their rebuttal. However, I do not find their arguments particularly convincing. Since the authors and I clearly disagree about the novelty, originality and quality of this work, I do not see any point in continuing this review and kindly ask the editor to invite another, impartial reviewer to replace me and continue the review process in the best, most objective way.

For the record: here are the 4 major issues that I think need to be addressed before publication:
1. Limited scientific significance. The paper does not really represent a major contribution to scientific knowledge. At best, it represents a (moderately novel) application of UM cascades to the simulation of conditional rainfall time series. The authors have a tendency to overstate the importance of the work.
2. Low writing quality. The English is neither fluent or precise. The text is difficult to read. There are a lot of long, complicated sentences. A major effort needs to be done in terms of writing.
3. The abstract needs to be completely rewritten to clearly explain what this paper is about. It should be more concise and clearly mention the main results.
4. There should be more details about the implementation of the method to make sure people can replicate the results. Ideally, example codes and/or datasets for testing ad comparing the method should be provided. It is not sufficient to refer to previous publications. Everything should be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR).

I have many more comments. But as I said above, I think it's not worth mentioning them here since the authors and I clearly disagree on the major issues.

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ED: Publish subject to revisions (further review by editor and referees) (03 Oct 2022) by Nadav Peleg

Dear Arun Ramanathan,

As I read again the revised manuscript, I must agree with the general reviewers' comments that it is still too long, poorly written, and difficult to follow. “Scientifically”, I believe the manuscript is fine (though not very novel) but I'm not convinced a non-expert in UM (most HESS readers) would understand and be interested in reading it in its current form.
The following are some minor suggestions from my side, but I think you should revise the text considerably to improve its readability beyond my comments (see also the last reviewer's comments). I leave this to your judgment, but perhaps it would be helpful to ask a non-expert colleague for their thoughts on enhancing clarity. Please upload a revised version of the manuscript, which will be evaluated again by myself (it will not go to external review).

Sincerely,
Nadav Peleg

Specific suggestions
1. The abstract is too long and should be more concise.
2. There are many repetitions in the text that can be removed (e.g., lines 107-108).
3. Line 153. TM is mentioned for the first time. Please check other abbreviations for the same issue.
4. Appendices should be presented as supplementary information, in a separate file.
5. Table 2 can be presented in the supplementary material. Also, the table is unclear - these are thresholds for what type of design?
6. Figure 1 - consider also moving to the SI.
7. Figure 5 and in the text. I would be more specific mentioning that the simulations are all temporal and not spatial.
8. It will be beneficial for the readers to see an example of the analysis/model on GitHub or another repository as an example. In the text, you can refer to it, and simplify some of the explanations.

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AR by Arun Ramanathan on behalf of the Authors (14 Nov 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (02 Dec 2022) by Nadav Peleg

AR by Arun Ramanathan on behalf of the Authors (02 Dec 2022) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Reference rainfall scenarios are indispensable for hydrological applications such as designing storm-water management infrastructure, including green roofs. Therefore, a new method is suggested for simulating rainfall scenarios of specified intensity, duration, and frequency, with realistic intermittency. Furthermore, novel comparison metrics are proposed to quantify the effectiveness of the presented simulation procedure.