the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 07 Oct 2025
Groundwater Maintains Lake Clusters: Groundwater pattern of the Songnen Basin from a Multi-source Remote Sensing Perspective
Abstract. Large-scale lake clusters serve as important freshwater resources in arid and semi-arid regions, but the groundwater recharge patterns sustaining these clusters remain poorly researched. The Songnen Basin, a semi-arid region in northeastern China, contains numerous shallow lakes most of which are not connected to rivers, showing complex interconnections with the groundwater recharge and storage. Here, this paper investigates the role of groundwater in sustaining the freshwater in the lake clusters of the Songnen Basin using remote sensing and isotope analysis, especially during the winter of Chagan Lake, the largest lake in this basin. Our results suggest that deep groundwater upwelling through fault zones is a significant recharge source for Chagan Lake, contributing to the frequent occurrence of stable ice-free areas. Isotopic tracers indicate that this deep groundwater does not originate from local precipitation but likely originates from external sources, potentially the Tibetan Plateau. A deep-circulation groundwater pattern is proposed, suggesting that water-conduiting channels exist under the deep lithosphere in arid and semi-arid regions. When these channels are destroyed by earthquakes, deep-circulating groundwater would rises through faults and recharges lake clusters.
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Status: open (until 26 Nov 2025)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-4263', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Oct 2025 reply
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This manuscript addresses a very important and timely topic, as surface water and groundwater interactions are still understudied in many regions worldwide. Despite the significance of groundwater discharge into lakes, which could mitigate the impact of climate change and human activity, this issue remains largely unexplored. This study represents a new approach in the field of surface water-groundwater interactions, given that the authors applied remote sensing and field methods to study groundwater discharge into lakes in the Songnen Basin. The research not only provides important new information for the local government and facilitates local water management but also presents a novel methodology that can be applied to other research areas, helping to discover patterns and trends that would otherwise remain undiscovered. Therefore, this work makes a valuable contribution to this field.
My general opinion is that the manuscript is well written, with all chapters being very informative and including relevant details. The figures are nicely edited, visually appealing, and they supplement the text well.
However, I have noticed some minor mistakes that, if corrected, would improve the quality of the manuscript.
Please consider my specific suggestions below.
In my opinion, the title of the manuscript does not reflect its content well. I would recommend modifying it if it is possible. Although two subsections are dedicated solely to the observation of Lake Chagan, the lake’s name does not appear in the title. Another thing is that ‘maintained’ might be a better word to use instead of ‘maintains’. An alternative title could be “Groundwater Maintained Lake Clusters: Groundwater pattern of the Songnen Basin from a Multi-source Remote Sensing Perspective with Special Emphasis on the Observation of Lake Chagan”
‘Surface water-groundwater interactions’ could be added to the keywords.
The captions of Figures 1, 3, and 6 are too long, in my opinion. They contain information that is not strictly related to the photos/plots and that is not necessary to understand what the figure represents. I suggest removing them to shorten the captions.
Fig. 1. I suggest removing Lines 81–83, 89–92; Fig. 3. I suggest removing Lines 167–171, 173–174, 177–180; Fig. 6. I suggest removing Lines 392–396.
In several cases, there was no space between the value and its unit. Please correct this typo. Here is a list of typos that I noticed. There might be more. Line 292: measures(,; Line 315: 2,500m long and 300m wide; Line 317: 2m3/s; Line 362: 120cm; Line 366: 1.8m; Line 367: 7.0m; Line 375: 7m; Line 378: 1.4m and 4.65g/L; Line 427: 132m and 121m; Line 428: 150m; Line 433: 1000m; Line 439: 0.8m3/s; Line 492: 2783m; Line 529: 3,000km
Other typos and minor mistakes: Line 118: Songnen basin (instead: Basin); Line 147: use the Passive form instead of ‘We will report..:’; Line 188: lake s (instead: lake’s); Line 201: In with uppercase (instead: in); Line 208: Songyuan City (instead: Songyuan city.. region); Line 318: the Songyuan city (instead: Songyuan city or the Songyuan city region); Line 319: qualitative (instead: quantitative); Line 338: 15000 (instead: 15,000); Line 349: in the Songnen (instead: Songnen Basin); Line 349-352: remove ‘and’ from the beginning of the sentence; Line 360: either field capacity or soil(‘s) water holding capacity; Line 356: especially in the Chagan Lake region (missing ‘in’); Line 365: total dissolved solids with lowercase; Line 459: ‘s’ is missing – Plateau’s; Line 378: TDS peak instead of peak TDS; Line 479: either Ra-226 or 226Ra (superscript); Line 622: use the Passive form instead of ‘We will introduce..’; in Fig. 3. (b): title of the Y axis should be written with uppercase (The area..) and km2 with lowercase
A general remark is that, in my opinion, Lake Chagan is the correct wording of the lake’s name (instead of Chagan Lake). Could you please double-check this and correct it?
The journal’s guidelines for authors recommend using en dashes (–) when writing about ranges, e.g. Line 372, 373, 442
Check the journal’s guidelines on the use of hyphens e.g. 20-cm depth interval in Line 587
Line 150, Line 181, and Line 197 could be subsections instead of being highlighted by bold (according to the journal’s guideline, three levels of sectioning are allowed).
Regarding the structure of the manuscript, I would suggest following the traditional narrative and bringing the Methods chapter before the Results chapter. That would help to understand the results better.
Could you add citation(s) to Lines 475–477? Remains debated by whom?