PONE-D-20-04524

The right to water: impact on the quality of life of rural workers in a settlement of the Landless Workers Movement, Brazil

PLOS ONE

Dear Mrs Neves-Silva,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Ho Ting Wong, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

I recognize that there are typos on page 2 line 54, and page 3 line 68 (the superscript 2 and 3).

On the other hand, one of the reviewers suggested that the English standard of your manuscript should be improved. Please think about what can be done to improve.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript "The right to water: impact on the quality of life of rural workers in a settlement of the

Landless Workers Movement, Brazil" provides an important analysis of water availability, access and control within the context of a settlement of Brazil's Landless Workers' Movement. This is a timely article, as there has been a paucity of scholarship on the right to water within the MST. While excellent, I believe that with moderate revisions the manuscript will be better positioned to make a contribution to the literature. First, the article is in need of greater theoretical engagement. Many of the quotes that the author(s) present are lacking in analysis. There should be greater theoretical analyses of the results, and these should be tied to the theoretical framework that is presented in the beginning of the manuscript. As part of this revision, please ensure that this paper is making an explicit contribution to theory; at present the contribution is unclear. One possibility would be to make a stronger theoretical connection to debates surrounding questions of sovereignty. The authors bring up food sovereignty, and I believe in this context it would be helpful to offer an analysis of how sovereignty over water, like over food or energy, are intertwined struggles within La Via Campesina, and how these various forms of sovereignty, and the threats to them, overlap, so that problems of water sovereignty overlap and condition food sovereignty, for example. The last comment is stylistic; while the article is exceptionally well-written, it would benefit from the careful attention of a native English speaker to ensure that the prose and arguments made are accessible.

Reviewer #2: I consider that the manuscript worths to be published. Notwithstanding, I as well consider that the following remarks should be taken into account by authors to proceed a revision on the paper, as a condition for publishing it.

There is given lot of relevance for United Nations declaration, as if from this declaration on, everybody magically has acess to water. I would like to suggest this tone to be a little bit changed.

In rural areas, water is used in a much higher quantity for agriculture rather than to be used by people. Could not agree on the expression "water is also often vital for food production". Access to water in rural areas is a duty for the State in exception situations only.

Line 83 should make reference to the 1966 Pact on Economic, Social and Cultural rights.

Line 85. I did not understand if the phrase is said by the authors of the manuscript or by Metha. Anyway, I would like to know why it wolud be impossible to separate household uses of water from productive ones.

Line 91. Is HRWS free of charge? Would people be allowed to use (and abuse) the right to water? Neither responsibility on sustainability measures nor simply a duty to pay for the services of having treated water at home?

The point, by and large, is that I did not see much relation between this introduction (from line 1 to 98) and the subject of the paper. Why the authors express so much about the International Right to Water (and many interpretations to it)? In line 88 it is said that the HRWS is "a framework of reference". How? And what is that for?

Lines 110-114 -- It would be better to say that as a hypothesis rather than as a conclusion.

Lines 122-155 -- Interviews with people should be authorised by an Ethic Committe, indicated at lin 182. I request the authors to present that authorisation to Editorial Board of the Journal as a condition for publishing the paper.

Lines 281 and 390-- I wonder if "malnutrition" could be substituted for "widespread hunger" or "starving"

Line 313 -- "be improved" instead of "improve" sounds better.

Line 325 -- "as safe" should be substituted for "safe"

Lines 328-9 -- wording should be improved

Lines 339-341. I haven't understood the relation authors want do do between caretaking practice and the right to water or the lack of water in the region. I ask authors to be more precise on it.

Line 352 -- Although it is written that "land ensures income", the paper says that it does not. Land is necessary but not sufficient (as correctly said in line 359).

Line 374 -- I guess there is something wrong here in this expression: "community undergoing investigation"

Line 397 -- Which authors have pointed that out?

Line 402 -- Why it should be understood this way? I would like to see authors' arguments on it.

Line 415 -- There as International Documents that say exactly this. See, for instance, the Vienna Declaration, adopted at the World Conference of Human Rights (2003), mainly article 5 (but feel free to quote from the first "consideranda" to articles 1-5)

Line 423 -- Do States really have any legal obligation to respect, protect and fulfill human rights? There is a lot of discussion on it. Anyway, legal obligation really starts when a State internally recognises a Human Right by positing a law by which that right shall be protected. For instance, the right to health in Brasil is respected in the terms of Law 8080 (SUS), rigth to housing in the terms of Minha Casa Minha Vida Program and so on...

Line 429 -- I did not understand "right to live on land, but also the right to land" From my point of view, in both cases is possible to fight for access to water, and in a very equivalent manner.

Lines 432-434. I didn't understand. "The use of human rights...can reduce social inequalities"? I believe that human rights can be the grounding for a public policy, but it is the publicy policy, duly implemented, the instrument that actually can reduce social inequalities. Human rights on their own cannot magically cause reduction of inequalities.

Line 449. It is clear that access to water is a fundamental factor to ensure life conditions, not only life with dignity!

In Conclusions, considering that authors want to demand for a public policy, they should at least say that rural exodus is a problem that is expensive and that the cost for keeping people in rural areas (furnishing water to them) is less expensive. You can only propose a public policy if Government understands that there is a lack of rights (and there is a lack of right to water) AND a social problem that is bigger and that need to be avoided. On the agenda setting of public policies, cf. John Kingdon or, in Portuguese, Celina Sousa.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Josué Mastrodi

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PONE-D-20-04524R1

The right to water: impact on the quality of life of rural workers in a settlement of the Landless Workers Movement, Brazil

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Neves-Silva,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 10 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Ho Ting Wong, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Regarding item 2 of the journal requirement, you are required to provide information related to the interviewers.

However, I find that the information in line 144 to 146 that you mentioned in your response are only related to the interviewees.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: Considering that the suggested revisions were accepted in the ultimate version of the submitted article, I propose the article to be published.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #2: Yes: Josué Mastrodi

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

The right to water: impact on the quality of life of rural workers in a settlement of the Landless Workers Movement, Brazil

PONE-D-20-04524R2

Dear Dr. Neves-Silva,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Ho Ting Wong, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: