May may concern is the novelty of the Study. As I mention in comment 11, in general, although the presentation of the method and the description of research objectives are well crafted and easy to follow, I do not see a significant novelty in the method or in the objectives necessary for the HESS journal. The identification of vulnerability factors that the authors used in their questionnaire is built on a “Review paper” that the authors have published recently (Stenfors et al., 2024) and basically come from other studies. The Review paper is an important contribution to the field, but this current manuscript (User-validated…) does not add much to our understanding of the identified vulnerability factors identified in the Review paper. Even the area that they have studied here is a part of the study area in the Review paper. I believe the authors could have already included the results of this current manuscript in that review paper to show an empirical example of vulnerability factors identified by other studies and avoid salami-slicing their well-presented research. I noticed the manuscript lacks a section detailing the design and classification process for the survey questions. This study could stand alone as a robust paper if it included a more sophisticated analysis in the questionnaire design phase. For example, the questions could be categorized independently of any prior knowledge of vulnerability factors. Methods such as PCA could then be applied to validate how respondents' answers align with the categories you've identified.

 My detailed comments and suggestions:

1. I suggest shortening the title: "Drought Vulnerability Factors in Forested Cold Climates: Multi-Sectoral Insights from Sweden".
   
   As for the term user-validated, it could be slightly misleading if the validation is based only on survey responses. Typically, user validation implies that users have actively confirmed the factors' relevance or usefulness through direct engagement or testing. If respondents simply provided perspectives, terms like user-informed and stakeholder-informed might better reflect that the factors are shaped by input across various sectors.
2. Line 21 (Abstract): I recommend removing 'Northern Europe' from the sentence, as the study site is specifically in Sweden. Referring to Northern Europe implies a broader region, which may encompass different socio-hydrological contexts that are not representative of your study area.
3. Line 25 (Abstract): I recommend removing the word 'successfully' from the sentence. Identifying vulnerability factors from surveys is not something that implies success or failure. It's more about conducting a thorough analysis rather than achieving a specific outcome. A more neutral phrasing would improve the clarity and objectivity of this statement and throughout your entire manuscript. Also, I believe that using the term “investigation” instead of identification is more suitable for the concept of “vulnerability factors” in this study as you investigated these factors through surveys. In your Discussion, line 531, you have correctly used the term “investigation”.
4. Lines 44-45: When you mention that “there is currently…”, I expect to see some current literature supporting your argument. Do we know that since 2013 and 2018 there has not been any consensus to define drought vulnerability?
5. Line 57: I suggest defining cascading effects before giving the examples.
6. Line 91: As mentioned in comment #1, I suggest replacing “user-validation” with terms like “user-informed”.
7. Line 128: Typo: Divided?
8. Line 171: Try to be consistent with the orders throughout the manuscript, i.e., susceptibility, coping, adaptive. This may sound trivial, but it helps the readers to follow the rhythm of your story more easily.
9. Table 1 caption, refer to my previous comment. Also, I suggest changing “based to” to either “according to” or “based on”.
10. Table S3: Please correct the caption, Societal v factors.
11. Method Section: In general, although the presentation of the method and the description of research objectives are well crafted and easy to follow, I do not see a significant novelty in the method or in the objectives necessary for the HESS journal. The identification of vulnerability factors that the authors used in their questionnaire is built on a “Review paper” that the authors have published recently (Stenfors et al., 2024) and basically come from other studies. The Review paper is an important contribution to the field, but this current manuscript (User-validated…) does not add much to our understanding of the identified vulnerability factors identified in the Review paper. Even the area that they have studied here is a part of the study area in the Review paper. I believe the authors could have already included the results of this current manuscript in that review paper to show an empirical example of vulnerability factors identified by other studies and avoid salami-slicing their well-presented research. I noticed the manuscript lacks a section detailing the design and classification process for the survey questions. This study could stand alone as a robust paper if it included a more sophisticated analysis in the questionnaire design phase. For example, the questions could be categorized independently of any prior knowledge of vulnerability factors. Methods such as PCA could then be applied to validate how respondents' answers align with the categories you've identified.
12. Section 3.1 can be summarized into one or two figures (pie chart, donut chart, bar chart, …). I find it redundant to report all the percentages of the answers in a text, mentioning only the important numbers is sufficient.
13. Table 3: I believe it would make more sense if you reported the percentage instead of the number of respondents here. For example, for the environmental sector, 23% (8/35), 40% (14/35), and 37% (13/35) of the respondents have limited, moderate, and high drought experience respectively. I suggest this because the number of participants varies among sectors and it’s hard to compare (similar to point size in Fig 2). Maybe, considering this suggestion not only in this table but throughout the manuscript could deliver more understandable information, and could shorten your text by avoiding the reports of fractions of the total numbers (e.g., rating x out of y).
14. Table 4: The order of presentation for the main 3 categories is also important to be consistent throughout the manuscript and in any supplementary materials, e.g., Sectoral, Societal, Governance.
15. Section 3.2 is also a detailed report of all the numbers in Table 4. The table alone has all the information. I believe you could focus and elaborate only on important and meaningful numbers or percentages.
16. Line 364: I suggest using the present verb form when reporting the rates: “tend”
17. Line 366: “medium to high”, or “medium and high”?
18. Section 3.3 is the most important part of your manuscript and is very well presented. I, particularly, like Fig 2 as it is very informative and comprehensive and summarizes your entire study at one look. However, I believe you can talk a lot more about these results. For instance, when it comes to the environmental sector which has a lot of participants, the impact score of susceptibility and coping capacity varies more among the factors compared to adaptive capacity.
19. Like Fig 2, Table 5 is also very informative and important to convey the message of this study.
20. Line 439, missing pronoun: "As “it” was seen …"
21. Section 3.5: For place of employment, generally, there were no significant differences between factor ratings. When it comes to governance factors, I understand why this difference does not exist (maybe because of the generally unified policies in Sweden and the low population density of the country). But can you elaborate on the potential reasons why for sectoral and societal factors, occasionally, there is no significant difference in the place of employment?
22. Tables S6 and S7 are important parts of the study, and I believe that they can be summarized in two figures and shown in the main text.
23. Line 531-532: User validation => User-information
24. Line 532-533: I suggest citing different articles here that assessed drought vulnerability instead of your own paper, which is a review, not an assessment.
25. Discussion: There are important messages pointed out by the authors in the Discussion, e.g., in Lines 584-585, they put the study results in a broader context and highlight the importance of climate region in the vulnerability factors assessment. However, most parts of the Discussion are a summary of the results that were already mentioned in the Results section or a self-citation to the authors’ review paper. For example, in lines 589-596, the authors mention that there are significant differences in factor ratings between forestry and other sectors, “which may be an indication that such factors are of differing importance for the sector.” Firstly, this is already mentioned in the Results section, and secondly, yes, a significant difference in factor ratings between sectors means different importance of that factor between the sectors which is not something new to us!

This article presents a survey with 102 respondents in different societal sectors in Sweden who are asked to rank drought vulnerability factors identified in a conceptual framework of the authors’ design. The article is clearly structured and well written. Not being expert in quantitative social science methods I will not discuss the statistical analysis of the responses, but assuming that the calculations are correct the paper still has some major weaknesses in need of address before publication. 

Firstly, further clarification of the logic underpinning the claim to have achieved user-validation of the drought vulnerability factors is needed. The authors present the result of a survey, this is an unusual approach to user-validation, a term currently commonly used in the context of software usability testing. In the software contexts it is clear what is meant by “user”, but what do the authors of this paper mean?  Also, is the term “validation” associated with the rather straight forward approach of software usability or with the philosophical discussion of validity as a criterium for claiming scientific truth? In addition to clarifying the semantics of the notion In-depth discussion about how the survey questions capture the perceptions of adequacy and appropriateness of the drought vulnerability factors among the selected users is also needed. It would be helpful to know what the questions in the survey were.  The authors should also explain how inference was made from the survey responses to the validity of the drought vulnerability factors more extensively. 

Second, the authors must explain the contribution to knowledge intended by this article. The article is very descriptive, after stating that the purpose is to validate a particular conceptual framework for drought vulnerability the survey answers are accounted for in detail.  But there is no explanation of why this is important to others than the authors. The lack of clarity about the contribution to knowledge becomes obvious in the discussion section where the authors summarise what has been presented in detail in the results and repeat what has already been said. There is no discussion about how the findings may impact on the existing body of knowledge. The authors should explain what this study means for the knowledge about drought vulnerability. What does the conceptual framework applied do that has not been done in previous research? Have they learnt anything that would challenge previous research findings? Does the study indicate that existing theory should be modified? What is the reader supposed to take away from this article? This must be stated much more clearly.

The manuscript investigates drought vulnerability factors identified in previous literature and claims to conduct a "user-validation" approach through a survey targeting stakeholders from several water-dependent sectors. The study explores an interesting and relevant subject, providing insights into the most critical drought vulnerability factors according to stakeholder perceptions. However, there are areas where the manuscript could benefit from significant improvement to enhance clarity, accessibility, and overall scientific impact. Below, I provide general and specific comments to help improve the manuscript.

General Comments

Novelty and Scientific Contribution

• Objective Clarity: The manuscript lacks a clear statement of its primary objective. The introduction suggests the paper provides a comprehensive analysis of drought vulnerability factors for water-dependent sectors, but this was already achieved in the previous paper (Stenfors et al., 2024). Based on the rest of the manuscript, the study appears to focus on user perceptions of these vulnerability factors rather than formal validation.
• Recommendation: Revise the stated purpose of the work to reflect its actual contribution, emphasizing the user perspective as a preliminary step toward more elaborate validation efforts.
• Terminology: The term "user-validation" is misleading. It may be more accurate to describe the work as "user perception analysis" of drought vulnerability factors. This distinction does not diminish the importance of the findings but ensures accuracy in describing the study's contribution.
• Overlap with Previous Work: The first stated objective, as identified in the introduction, repeats the findings of the previous paper. Consider removing or reframing it to avoid redundancy.

Specific Comments Introduction

1. Currency Conversion

• When using currency, such as SEK, convert it to USD for broader accessibility. Include a footnote with the conversion rate used, e.g., "Currency as of December 2024: 1 USD = 11 SEK" (adjust the exchange rate accordingly).

1. Conceptual Model

• Clarify why the conceptual model for drought vulnerability is critical. Include hints about its practical applications by addressing questions such as:
• Where and how can this model be applied?
• For whom is this model designed?
• A clear justification will help guide the readers through the manuscript's importance.

Methods

1. Statistical Tests

• Provide references or examples of studies that used the Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon Rank-Sum tests to justify their application. This is particularly helpful for readers unfamiliar with these methods.

1. Regional Terminology Consistency

• Use consistent terminology when referring to the study region. For example, decide whether to refer to it as "Nordic countries" or "forested cold climates" and apply the same phrasing throughout.

Discussion

1. Depth of Discussion

• The discussion section currently reads as a summary of results. Include deeper analysis of the findings and their implications, specifically:
• Why is the conceptual model important?
• How can the user perspective on drought vulnerability factors contribute to water management or other real-world applications?
• What distinguishes this study from previous research beyond the study region?

1. Comparisons to Previous Studies

• Instead of merely comparing the number of factors identified in other studies (e.g., Moshir Panahi et al., 2023; Ahmadalipour & Morakhani, 2018), highlight similarities or differences in specific vulnerability factors. This will add depth to the discussion.

1. Definitions of Key Terms

• Define terms such as adaptive capacity, coping capacity, and susceptibility, especially if they were included in the survey. Clarifying these terms will improve understanding and enhance the manuscript’s accessibility.