PONE-D-22-16261Characterisation of meteorological drought at sub-catchment scale in Afghanistan using station-observed climate dataPLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The manuscript entitled " Characterization of meteorological drought at sub-catchment scale in Afghanistan using station-observed climate data” assessed the spatiotemporal of drought characteristic (distribution, frequency, severity and duration) over different sub-catchment of Afghanistan using Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) at different time scales. The paper is written well and investigated an important topic related to Afghanistan where such studies are very rare.

Reviewer #2: Comments to Authors

The manuscript “Characterisation of meteorological drought at sub-catchment scale in Afghanistan using station-observed climate data” presents an interesting research which is of importance to the area of study. I have the following comments and suggestions for the authors.

I suggest the authors add some numerical results such as some significant SPEI values obtained in the study area.

Introduction

Paragraph 1: Authors should highlight other drought occurences and their impacts in Afghanistan.

Paragraph 4: remove dimensional from the sentence.

In the second to the last paragraph, the authors discussed the constraints faced by the previous studies to include use of use of out-of-date long-term historical data; use of gridded global datasets at 0.5o (or ~ 50km) resolutions. Can the authors justify how these are constraints especially since some studies have used data of such resolutions and others have found gridded data sets to be able to replicate observed data sets. The following studies are examples

Changing characteristics of meteorological droughts in Nigeria during 1901–2010, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2019.03.010

Comparison of precipitation projections of CMIP5 and CMIP6 global climate models over Yulin, China, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03823-6

Study area and data

Description of study area

Remove ‘at’ from “Afghanistan is located at in southern-central Asia (Figure 1).”

Figure 1 shows there are no existing gauge stations in most of the south of the study area, which may result into some catchments not having any stations within them. How were the authors able to capture the precipitation characteristics of the areas especially since the authors consider interpolation and use of gridded data sets as limitations in the introductory section?

I suggest some part of section 2.2.3 like the Hargreaves and Samani method especially the equations described be moved to the methodology section as they are more of method than data.

Also, why did the authors choose the Hargreaves and Samani method of estimating the PET since the Penman-Monthieth method is always recommended for SPEI calculation and since there can be significant differences amongst the SPEI series estimation by the different PET methods in some regions; like larger in semi-arid to mesic regions and smaller in humid regions.

Discussion

How has the authors tried to reduce the possible uncertainties reported in this section?

It would be interesting if the authors could add a paragraph or two discussing our the droughts in the country has affected agricultural output in the region.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Submitted filename: Characterization of meteorological drought at sub-catchment scale in Afghanistan using station-observed climate data.pdf

Characterisation of meteorological drought at sub-catchment scale in Afghanistan using station-observed climate data

PONE-D-22-16261R1

Dear Dr. Yun Chen,

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,

Weili Duan, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The original reviewer rejected or did not accept the review. I checked the response letter and the revision, and the existing problems have been dealt with very well. Personally, it could be accepted.

Reviewers' comments: