Dear Authors,

The paper was reviewed by four reviewers and each reviewer found your paper interesting and worth to be published after some clarifications and improvements.
There are relevant concerns of the reviewers, which you already addressed in the authors comments.
Particular the concerns regarding the use of the Turc-Mezentsev formula, the choice of the regression type and accouting for seasonal water balance affects, among others, are important points to be clarified. Regarding your authors response I am convinced that most of the reviewers concerns will be carefully addressed in the revised manuscript.

Best regards
Ralf Merz

Dear Authors, dear Vazken,

Thank you for submitting the revised version and the authors response.
The reviewers of the original version raised important aspect which are addressed in the revised version. Hence the paper will be send out to the 3 invited reviewer of the original manuscript to see the review on the revised manuscript.
Best regards
Ralf Merz

Dear Authors
Please apologize my late reply!
Both reviewers are, in principle; satisfied with your revision. One reviewer suggest to do some minor additional changes, which are easy to do are worth doing it.
Hence I recommend to publish the paper subject to minor revision. See Comments below.

best regards
Ralf Merz


Comments;
SUMMARY & OVERALL EVALUATION:
Overall I do appreciate the modifications and clarifications made by the authors to the manuscript and I especially appreciate their comment on the similarity between the Mezentsev and the Fu parameterization of the Budyko space. As my previous comments/suggestions have been generally resolved I would have no hesitation for recommending the paper for publication once a few minor issues have been resolved.
SUGGESTED CLARIFICATIONS/ADDITIONS:
(1) I reallised that the authors did not provide a reference for the considered streamflow data. For guaranteeing the reproducibility of the presented research I would consider it essential for having the data source specified precisely (e.g. through a reference, a URL to the data centre or by naming the institution holding the data).
(2) I highly appreciate the fact that the elasticity of all catchments is now provided in the Appendix. I do however, miss information on the geographical location (e.g. coordinates of the gauging stations), which would be essential for other researchers who would like to expand on the authors findings. In addition I would find it useful if longerm mean runoff, precipitation and potential evaporation could be provided, although I acknowledge that this might not be possible due to copyright restrictions on the data.
(3) There is no reference for SAFRAN. In addition I wonder if SAFRAN precipitation is statistically interpolated (which technique) or an atmospheric reanalysis (relying on a physics based model of the atmosphere).
(4) Line 115 – 120: I find the option to refer to the discussion paper for comparison with another Epot parametrisation confusing. I therefore suggest to either (i) omit this discussion completely form the paper or (ii) provide the necessary details as supplementary information for the article.
(5) Figures 8 and 10: Please explain the colour scales (uncertainty) of the dots in sufficient detail. I suspect they indicate the relative width of the bootstrap confidence intervals but I am not sure after reading.
(6) Figure 6: paired sub-panels a&b and c&d should have Ideally the same colour scale.
(7) Figure 11: Incomplete caption. Panels c,d,e,f are not described.