The manuscript is relevant to the journal, and although the research questions are important, it has the following shortcomings before it is accepted for publication. 

1. Line 24 talks about testing or simulation for different combinations defined. Section 3.1 says optimization results. There are no details on optimization, such as which algorithm was used, different solutions from optimization, and so on. 

2. The introduction section could discuss the recent studies on Forecast-informed reservoir operations (FIRO), highlighting the novelty

3. Table 1 - the category shorthands are not described 

4. The appendix figures have not been referenced and discussed

This study investigates if small reservoirs provide significant benefits when they are managed using operational forecasts. It builds upon two recent studies with the same sets of reservoirs located in Germany, and with very similar methods (operation rules, simulated streamflow). The materials and results are well described and discussed. I just have minor points that are detailed hereafter.

Main comment

There are many references to Ho and Ehret, 2025; Ho et al., 2025 (l. 109-110 for catchment selection, l. 147-149 for simulated streamflow, l. 183 for the forecast operation model). It can be explained by the fact that most of the methods and materials in this study have been developed in these two papers. However, in my opinion, any paper should be self-contained. At many places in the manuscript (e.g. 147-149), it seems expected that the reader knows the previous papers. I strongly recommend limiting the references to these studies, especially for technical aspects. For example, section 2.7.2 should describe the perfect-knowledge scenarios used in this study, and not the differences with the previous papers. Another example, at l. 160, it is mentioned that the irrigation demand time series were already derived in Ho et al. (2025) and it is also indicated that more details can be found in this paper (e.g. l. 165-166), which gives the impression that this paragraph is not sufficient to understand what AID represents. Beyond presentation aspects, it also gives the impression that this study is too incremental compared to Ho and Ehret, 2025.

Minor comments

• Title: I do not think that “re-purposed” needs a hyphen (actually it is written without a hyphen at l. 13). I recommend replacing “floods, farms, and (low) flows” by “high and low flows” for the sake of concision.
• l. 16: “small-to-midsize”: I suggest providing a range of sizes.
• l. 49: Otherwise -> different.
• l. 50: “much more easily adapted to local conditions and can be managed locally” seems redundant.
• l. 58; missing space before “remain”.
• l. 83: “,,”.
• l. 200: What is the consequence of multiplying arbitrarily by 5 ? If it has no consequences, I do not understand why it is needed. If it has consequences, then it should not be arbitrary, isn’t it ?
• Figure 3: I would add a circle in the legend along with the triangle.
• l. 261: I miss a presentation of the experiments here, and a general presentation of Figure 4. I would also remind the reader what a viable parameter set is.