Dear authors
Thank-you for your revisions following the referee comments. I am asking for some “Technical corrections”; then to manuscript should go directly to Copernicus for publication. However, I expect that copy-editing will make changes to the use of English. You should make sure that your intended meaning is kept. Thank-you for submitting to Ocean Science.
Yours sincerely
John Huthnance.

Corrections (using page and line numbers as in the revised manuscript).

Page 1.
Line 10. “. . plants . .”
Line 12. “. . techniques. Detailed . . results of”
Line 14. “. . characteristics . .”

Page 2.
Line 4. “. . ecosystems, and has . .” [only use “which” immediately after the object it refers to]
Line 5. “functions, providing . .”
Line 6. “. . resources. The scope for aquatic plants . . events has become a”
Line 15. “flats, . .”

Page 4 line 2. “. . Based on velocities in laboratory experiments for different”

Page 7 lines 6-7. According to the formulae, cf is dimensionless, therefore M has the same dimensions as g**1/2 h**-1/6 (as in page 10 line 8), therefore “25.4” has the same dimensions as g**1/2 and you must state the units used for the value “25.4”.

Page 8 lines 11-12. This sentence needs a verb. Maybe “. . present study, we use finer grid . .”

Figure 3, right-hand part. The resolution is poor, place names and measurement positions are hard to read and would be clearer in black.

Page 10
Lines 6-7. This sentence is not sensible: “. . module are set as follows: the simulation time step . . . was interpolated to match the simulation time step. . .”; the “simulation time step” is the “simulation time step” without any operation. Does it refer to two different modules? Do you mean “module” (if so, which) or “model”?
Line 8. “roughness and is . .” [only use “that” immediately after the object it refers to]

Page 11 line 8. Delete “movement”.

Page 13.
Lines 5-7. Better “. . Fig. 8 show the flow field . . spring tide. During the flood tide . . tidal current well offshore is northeastward. The main flow”. [Move explanation of the figure to the figure caption, see below for Figure 7 and Figure 8 captions].
Line 14. Better “. . from southwestward to southward. East . .” [As for lines 5-7, better to make clear that these are directions towards which the current flows].

Page 14.
Line 1. You need to say something in the text about what salinity measurements were made for this comparison.
Figure 7 caption. “Flow field during neap tide, interpolated to a regular grid for clarity”

Page 15.
Figure 8 caption. “Flow field during spring tide, interpolated to a regular grid for clarity”
Line 12. “. . number 120/032. . .”
Line 14. “Radiometric Calibration tool” needs a reference.

Page 18
Line 3. This is the first appearance of “Manning’s coefficient nv”. It needs relating to τb. Also it is confusing to call both M and nv “Manning’s coefficient”
Line 6. For consistency here and with line 5, m = dv**-2.
Line 18. “. . there is asymmetry between flood and ebb . .”

Page 19
Lines 5-6. Re-order: “Fig. 14, the velocity of G1 displays double humps, its peak depth-averaged velocity can reach 0.15 ms-1. The measured data and the calculated velocity show good agreement at G1, further confirming the reliability . .”
Line 21 to page 20 line 1. “. . non-vegetated experiments at G2. . .”

Page 20
Line 2. Delete “that”.
Lines 12-14. “. . Pink Beach for 0 m3s-1 . . The salinities of G1 and G2 both reach about 32.78 psu in the case . .”
Lines 20-21. “. . concentrated seawards, the lower salinity is in the upper reach of Liao River. Therefore, the larger the river discharge, the stronger is the runoff diluting effect.”

Page 21 lines 1-2. “, and salinity is basically same in a cross section” This is not clear. Cross-section in which direction? “same” in one cross-section or do different cross-sections have the same salinity variation. Perhaps delete this clause if it does not add anything to the first part of the sentence.

Page 25 Figure 20 caption. “. . with different rates of runoff.”

Page 26 line 15. “. . is low, less freshwater is mixed in and salinity is”