PONE-D-23-35272In monsoon-affected India, Satellite radar provide a fine-grained understanding of seasonal surface water availability for health applicationsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. France,

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 Mar 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.

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: 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,

Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani Adnan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal requirements:

1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf.

2. Please note that PLOS ONE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse.

3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. 

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

4. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: 

 [The MonkeyFeverRisk project that led to these results is supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund and funded by the MRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/mrc/, AHRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/, BBSRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/bbsrc/, ESRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/ and NERC https://www.ukri.org/councils/nerc/ [grant numbers MR/ P024335/1 and MR/P024335/2], awarded to BVP, AV and FG. Additional support was provided from the IndiaZooRisk Project, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/councils/nerc/ through the Global Challenges Research Fund [MR/T029846/1] and by the NERC SUNRISE project [grant number NE/R000131/1]. DIK was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council as part of the NC-International programme [NE/X006247/1] delivering National Capability. ].  

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" 

If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. 

Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

5. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 

[The MonkeyFeverRisk project that led to these results is supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund and funded by the MRC, AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC and NERC [grant numbers MR/ P024335/1 and MR/P024335/2], awarded to BVP, AV and FG. Additional support was provided from the IndiaZooRisk Project, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Global Challenges Research Fund [MR/T029846/1] and by the NERC SUNRISE project [grant number NE/R000131/1]. DIK was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council as part of the NC-International programme [NE/X006247/1] delivering National Capability. 

We thank government organizations for providing permission to conduct fieldwork and Dr. Darshan, Abhijit, M Mubashira and Dr. Irfan for helping during Shivamogga field work.]

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. 

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 

  [The MonkeyFeverRisk project that led to these results is supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund and funded by the MRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/mrc/, AHRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/, BBSRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/bbsrc/, ESRC https://www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/ and NERC https://www.ukri.org/councils/nerc/ [grant numbers MR/ P024335/1 and MR/P024335/2], awarded to BVP, AV and FG. Additional support was provided from the IndiaZooRisk Project, which is funded by UK Research and Innovation https://www.ukri.org/councils/nerc/ through the Global Challenges Research Fund [MR/T029846/1] and by the NERC SUNRISE project [grant number NE/R000131/1]. DIK was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council as part of the NC-International programme [NE/X006247/1] delivering National Capability. ].

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

6. Please amend either the title on the online submission form (via Edit Submission) or the title in the manuscript so that they are identical.

7. We note that Figure(s) 1, 3, 4 and 5 in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission:

a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure(s) 1, 3, 4 and 5 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license.  

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an ""Other"" file with your submission.

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

b. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful:

USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/

Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html

NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

8. We note that Figure 2 in your submission contain copyrighted images. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright.

We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission:

a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure 2 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license. 

We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text:

“I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.”

Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an ""Other"" file with your submission. 

In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].”

b. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only.

9. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 

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

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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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: General comments

In this study, Sentinel-1 SAR data were used to map surface water areas using a Bayesian noise recognition algorithm. Results were compared with the optical Joint Research Centre (JRC) Global Surface Water product. The differences between the results from this study and several thresholding methods (e.g., manual identification) were discussed. The results show that Sentinel-1 SAR is more advantageous in high cloudiness and its higher spatial resolution helps to detect small water features. Overall, the research work is described clearly, however, there are issues that need further clarifications.

1. It’s unclear how the Bayesian noise recognition algorithm was used to map the surface water. There should be a summary of the major contribution or improvement of the proposed algorithm.

2. Although health issues such as water-related diseases are mentioned many times in the title and text, this article only implements water extraction. How to better correlate the extraction results with disease risks?

3. Is there a method flow chart that can provide a more intuitive view of the methods used? The figures are of low resolution in the main content and are difficult to read.

Detailed comments:

Introduction

L121: (< 900m2) should be “m2” .

Methods

Data sources

The source of the validation data was not mentioned.

L197 “… the histogram will shift from bi-modal to unimodal …”, suggest reading following study. It proposed an adaptive thresholding approach, and the bi-model and unimodal were automatically identified to generate different thresholds.

Chen, S.; Huang, W.; Chen, Y.; Feng, M. An Adaptive Thresholding Approach toward Rapid Flood Coverage Extraction from Sentinel-1 SAR Imagery. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 4899. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13234899

Extraction of waterbodies

L224: A new Bayesian inference approach is mentioned, which is called “a Bayesian noise recognition algorithm” in the abstract. Is there a unified name for this method?

L227: “in section 2.5” There is no such section, please check whether the expression is correct.

L244: What evidence is there that manual approach is better than the Bayesian approach during the monsoon? Why not use the more accurate method?

L251: The units for the threshold values of backscattering coefficients are not stated in many places in the article. The unit of threshold value, dB, should be added.

L268: The values in the table have no units (e.g., dB, %).

Table 3: What does probability refer to in columns 3 and 4 in Table 3? No obvious explanation is found. The content of the table is arranged in a confusing manner.

Accuracy Assessment

L286: Why are points collected along roads when using Sentinel2-MSI as reference data? What is the distance range between the collection points and roads? Is randomly selecting points a better way?

L319: “km2” There are many such formatting problems.

Reviewer #2: I’m giving my comment on the following article title “Satellite radar data provide a fine-grained understanding of seasonal surface water availability in monsoon-affected areas of India for health applications”

Comment:

1. Title should be rewrite it’s not rich

2. Line 32, it may better use sentinel-1 or Sentinel 1

3. Introduction section is very poor. Please rewrite this within 1.5 to 2 page giving all the relevant information (Novelty, limitation, application) and recent studies.

4. Why the study area is selected? put your statement in study area section.

5. Line 188, (< ~30o) degree?

6. Figure 4b where is legend?

7. All of the figure placed in low regulation and unclear. Make sure their better regulation and readable.

8. Discussion should be rewrite with concise information found from the result.

9. Rewrite the conclusion in a informative way.

10. The title suggests a focus on health issues; therefore, there is a need for greater emphasis on how the work contributes to addressing health concerns..

11. Add some recent citation

12. Enhance the quality of the writing throughout.

**********

6. 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

Reviewer #2: No

**********

[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.

PONE-D-23-35272R1Radar versus optical: the impact of cloud when mapping seasonal surface water for health applications in monsoon-affected India.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. France,

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 Nov 07 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.

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: 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,

Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani Adnan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

[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 #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #5: All comments have been addressed

**********

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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: I Don't Know

**********

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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

**********

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 #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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 #3: First off, I was not a reviewer in the previous round and did not read the previous version of this manuscript. I will only discuss the revised version.

Comments:

Generally I think the paper is well-written both linguistically and with regards to its content. I have some minor comments. If these can be addressed I'd recommend acceptance.

-Title: The impact of cloud -> 'the impact of clouds', or 'the impact of cloud cover'

-General: Is disease spread the primary interest when looking at surface water? Are there other reasons we might be interested in this? I can imagine it's also useful for agriculture, drought monitoring, leak detection....?

-Available approach discussion (from line 211 onward):

It doesn't surprise me that bimodal histogram or otsu thresholding are unsuitable, since these methods will fail if you don't have two clear populations of pixels. It does surprise me a bit that Otsu's threshold would set its threshold at the point where it's shown in figure 4c.

-Line 241: Here you state that your threshold is chosen based on whether or not there are many single pixels mapped as water. Do you think these single pixels are actually noise, or might they represent small bodies of water? Or do waterbodies below a certain size threshold not contribute to disease spread? If so, it might also be useful to use a connected components analysis and filter by size. That aside, I agree that the Bayesian approach is probably the better one.

-The Sentinel approach identifies more small waterbodies. How large or small does a waterbody have to be to contribute to disease spread? If there is literature on this it may be useful to put a reference in the discussion.

-Figure 5: What do you mean here by GCP? This is not an acronym I can find elsewhere in the paper.

-I may have missed it in this 94-page pdf, but I can't find any figure descriptions. Unless it conflicts with the guidelines for the journal I'd like to see a brief description of each figure below the figure.

Reviewer #4: I would suggest the authors to add a paragraph in the conclusion section mentioning the limitations and recommendations for future studies. Also, the authors should more clearly explain the novelty or research gap in the abstract. Other than these two points, I believe the authors have addressed the previous comments and the paper is suitable for publishing.

Reviewer #5: The manuscript has improved significantly after the 1st review. However, I have reservations still on one point raised by the previous reviewer also. The title of the manuscript and the discussion of the health related issues in the manuscript. The manuscript is supposed to provide improvements on the models for the mapping of water bodies in the cloud cover time using the SAR data. The method is somewaht improvement from the previous works. But I feel that the previous works on SAR are also quite accurate in mapping the water bodies so why this new complex method? The comparision with optical data does not make much sense here as everyone know optical data will be useless during the cloud time. This if the authors want to prove that the proposed method is more acurate than the previous method they have to compare it will the existing method using the SAR data. Further the application of the produced water map could be anything if authors what it to be only in the case of health related issues they will have to quantify the same i.e. what will be the quantitative difference when this map is used in standerd health model or if the other water maps are used. This it is recommended to remove this part completely from the manuscript.

**********

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 #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: No

**********

[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.

Radar versus optical: the impact of cloud cover when mapping seasonal surface water for health applications in monsoon-affected India.

PONE-D-23-35272R2

Dear Dr. France,

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.

An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani Adnan, PhD

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 #3: All comments have been addressed

**********

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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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 #3: Yes

**********

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 #3: 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 #3: All of my comments were addressed. There is one tiny issue in the legend for fig. 5:

Fig 5. Distribution of ground reference points (GFP) displayed

I guess this would have to be 'GRP'?

**********

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 #3: No

**********