PONE-D-24-07720Forecasting for Haditha Reservoir Inflow in the West of Iraq Using Support Vector MachinePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sulaiman,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

1. Please modify the objective section for a clear understanding i.e novelty part should be clearly mentioned.

2. There are so many techniques in the recent world for the assessment; why does the author use a specified classical model for research purposes? Is there any specific reason for this? Suggest to add Hybrid model/ensable model.

3. Author must add statistical components/parameters of collected data in the study area section.

4. Equation 9-12; please add a recent citation for reference purposes. [Ex; 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.131042, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141069, 10.1016/j.engappai.2023.107559]

5. Here author must be mentioned where they got the data and what is the span of the used data. Is there any specific reason for that?

6. Comparison statement (compare with other research articles) must be added in the result and discussion section to better visualize the proposed research.

7. Author must add future scope in the last portion of the manuscript.

8. Advantages and limitations of the proposed model must be added.

9. For better analysis of the result author must add a Histogram plot, box plot, and Taylor diagram

10. Author must provide a flow chart, pseudo code, and architecture of proposed models.

11. Author must provide a parameter table for clear understanding.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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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: No

Reviewer #3: No

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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: I am glad that the authors effectively addressed my concerns and challenges in their research work. The authors' ability to provide timely and satisfactory responses to my queries reflects their strong commitment to adhering to scientific principles and conducting reliable research. This dedication benefits the scientific community and enhances our understanding of the subject matter. Therefore, based on the authors' satisfactory response, I find this version of the article to be acceptable.

Reviewer #2: Abstract is acceptable, however the authors should highlight the importance of their findings.

The introduction section should cover many recent studies. The authors should refer to studies related to application of AI in water resources management.

The objectives of the study should be clearly presented.

Fig. 1 The location of the study area should be improved.

Fig. 2 Time series of daily river discharges. If possible avoid using excel in plotting the figures.

Figure 3 and 4 should be under results section.

All the figures are generated from the software so should be presented in better way. The current way is not acceptable.

Conclusion needs to be revised and discuss the findings and also the limitations of the study.

Reviewer #3: In the submitted paper, the authors utilized a single model called SVR for forecasting inflow in the Haditha Reservoir. They employed two kernels, namely linear and Gaussian kernels, and concluded that the linear kernel performed better.

Here are my comments:

� The significance of the paper is very limited.

� I have come across several published papers in recent years that have employed more advanced models to forecast inflow in the same case study of the Haditha Reservoir. Therefore, your model is not novel, and there are already numerous papers addressing this topic [1]–[3].

[1] M. F. Allawi, I. R. Hussain, M. I. Salman, and A. El-Shafie, “Monthly inflow forecasting utilizing advanced artificial intelligence methods: a case study of Haditha Dam in Iraq,” Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk Assess., vol. 35, no. 11, pp. 2391–2410, 2021, doi: 10.1007/s00477-021-02052-7.

[2] M. M. Hameed, M. K. AlOmar, A. A. A. Al-Saadi, and M. A. AlSaadi, “Inflow forecasting using regularized extreme learning machine: Haditha reservoir chosen as case study,” Stoch. Environ. Res. Risk Assess., 2022, doi: 10.1007/s00477-022-02254-7.

[3] Z. Abd Saleh, “Forecasting by Box-Jenkins (ARIMA) Models to Inflow of Haditha Dam,” J. Babylon Univ. Eng. Sci., vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 1675–1685, 2013.

� The literature review and introduction in the paper are weak.

� The methodology has a potential flaw in that the comparison is limited to only one model, which may lead to misconceptions. When the objective is to achieve accurate predictions, it is important to consider a broader range of model cases rather than restricting the comparison to just a linear kernel and a radial basis kernel. This approach could create the impression of cherry-picking results to emphasize significant improvements derived from a particular model.

� The research seems to focus solely on presenting statistical results without providing sufficient elaboration in interpreting those results.

� Based on the data presented in the study, it is unclear what constructive contribution the researcher aims to make to the field of hydrology. The research only showcases the performance of the predictive model without offering any meaningful addition or contribution to the discipline of hydrology or water resources.

� Considering the results presented in Table 3, it is questionable why only one input lag is used. In time series data, forecasting usually requires multiple input lags to capture the complex relationships between these lags and future inflow.

� The paper utilizes non-meaningful statistical analysis parameters (see Table 3 and 4). For instance, RMSE and MSE are used, but it is known that RMSE is the square root of MSE. Hence, this information is redundant.

� The statistical analysis is insufficiently robust.

� There is a significant discrepancy in the results, as evident from the third and fourth figures.

� There is no discussion section.

� According to Figures 4 and 5, the best model is not suitable to forecast the majority of inflow values, particularly those that deviate significantly from the mean inflow. Also, this indicates that classical statistical assessments are inadequate.

� The paper's organization and graphical figures are of low quality.

� There is no validation assessment included.

� The conclusion and recommendation section lacks strength.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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PONE-D-24-07720R1Forecasting for Haditha Reservoir Inflow in the West of Iraq Using Support Vector Machine (SVM)PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sulaiman, 

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.

• Kindly add more chart for better analysis 
• Compare the result with previous study.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 16 2024 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.

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• 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: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Dr. Sandeep Samantaray

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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PONE-D-24-07720R2Forecasting for Haditha Reservoir Inflow in the West of Iraq Using Support Vector Machine (SVM)PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Sulaiman,

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.

1) Comments from PLOS Editorial Office: We note that one or more reviewers and the Academic Editor have recommended that you cite specific previously published works in an earlier round of revision. As always, we recommend that you please review and evaluate the requested works to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. It is not a requirement to cite these works and you may remove them before the manuscript proceeds to publication. We appreciate your attention to this request

2) Please ensure that all figures are of sufficient quality for publication. We note that Fig 4 and Fig 5 need updating before potential publication, as these look like screenshots with poor resolution. Furthermore, Fig 1 appears to contain copyrighted material.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 14 2024 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.

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• 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: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Hanna Landenmark

Staff Editor, PLOS ONE

on behalf of 

Sandeep Samantaray

Academic Editor, PLOS ONE

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Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for the revison.

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Forecasting for Haditha Reservoir Inflow in the West of Iraq Using Support Vector Machine (SVM)

PONE-D-24-07720R3

Dear Dr. %Sulaiman%,

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,

Dr. Sandeep Samantaray

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Thank you for the revision. 

Reviewers' comments: