This course was used by me for the "Modeling of hydrological processes in GIS" course for 4-year BSc students of speciality "Hydrology" during the fall semester of 2022-2023 at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Kazakhstan. Open source workflow was very helpful for the learning of modeling steps in RSMinerve program, also for coding develop in R-Studio. It is very well written and easy to follow. According to clear guideliness students could creat a model of Tentek River catchment (Jetisu Alatau Mt., Kazakhstan) in RSMinerve using by just HBV. I recommend this open-source course is a necessary tool for incorporating MSc and PhD courses for using other models in RSMinerve as students of these degrees are more experienced in GIS and other modeling programs.

I would like to thank the authors of the course "A comprehensive open-source course for teaching applied hydrological modelling in Central Asia" for developing a much-needed course for all students of the BSc in Hydrology of the countries of Central Asia. As a lecture teaching the course "Modeling of Hydrological processes" for students of the BSc in Hydrology at the Eurasian National University, Astana, Kazakhstan I am glad that my students can study this course on their own. The implementation of such a course into the educational process of Higher Education in Kazakhstan has begun in the last few years, since our graduated hydrologists must be able to work with various Hydrological models for effective water management between all water consumers, as well as qualitatively predict water resources due to climate change. As an educator, I am very pleased that a course like this has been developed that allows students to independently find high-quality public available data and effectively use open source watershed characterization software.

Since this academic year grad students for MS in Hydrology program have begun to study the RS Minerva program, and this course will make it easier for them to quickly master and apply in practice.