PONE-D-24-10904Quantifying the availability of seasonal surface water and identifying the drivers of change within tropical forests in CambodiaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mamalis,

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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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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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: Yes

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: Reviewer Comments

Introduction

• The introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the importance of surface water and the threats it faces globally. However, it could benefit with a more detailed and articulate explanation of the study's objectives in the context of broader literature.

Materials and Methods

1. Study Area:

The description of the study area is good and detailed. However, the author should provide more details about the climate of the study area, for example, different graphs and values on the average monthly and yearly rainfall, temperature, and humidity. Since rainfall is an important part of the study, different graphs of the historical average monthly, yearly, and seasonal rainfall would be beneficial.

2. Data Analysis:

The authors have not mentioned if any other image pre-processing is carried out besides cloud masking. It would be beneficial to mention if any other image pre-processing was carried out.

The authors should also mention why Landsat was used, instead of other sources of satellite images, like Sentient 2.

3. Implications for the giant ibis:

The authors should consider providing more explanation on how the spatial regression approach using INLA modeling accounts for spatial autocorrelation and the choice of covariates in the model.

Results

• It would be recommended for the authors to carry out a trend analysis of precipitation, to see if there is any trend in precipitation if it is decreasing, and how this could be affecting the surface waters.

• Additionally, it is recommended the authors provide more detail on the statistical methods used to analyze the data, including any assumptions made and how they were validated.

Discussion

• It is recommended that the authors reference similar studies and make comparisons with similar studies.

• Also, the authors should provide the uncertainties and limitations of the study.

• Additionally, the authors should provide a conclusion section, providing a summary of key findings and including recommendations for future studies, including how the findings could inform conservation strategies or management practices.

Overall Comment

Overall, the paper is well-written and can be accepted for publishing after making a few changes. Importantly the authors need to give more details in the Study area and methods section and give some reference to other studies in the results and discussion. Additionally, the authors need to include conclusion and recommendations sections.

Reviewer #2: The general approach of the paper is very interesting and well thought. However, I would need to be able to see the code of the analysis to recommend acceptance. Without google earth engine, this seems not possible. I would therefore recommend that the authors publish the code in an open access repository.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Quantifying the availability of seasonal surface water and identifying the drivers of change within tropical forests in Cambodia

PONE-D-24-10904R1

Dear Dr. Mamalis,

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.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Bijeesh Kozhikkodan Veettil

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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 #1: 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 #1: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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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 #1: 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 #1: Yes

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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 #1: (No Response)

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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.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

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