Standing Watch: Baselining Predictable Events That Influence Maritime Operations in the Context of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have introduced a framework for assessing the impact of seasonal events on maritime operations, linking it to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This is a meaningful study and aligns with the theme of the journal. The authors propose a new risk management framework, the Seasonal Event Matrix (SEM), designed to integrate existing data and local knowledge for assessing the risks associated with maritime traffic. By collecting and categorizing data on various seasonal and predictable events, the SEM aids in better understanding risks and provides foundational information for strategy development. My suggestion is for minor revisions, with my comments as follows:

(1) Overall, the manuscript is good, but the formatting of Table 1 is very poor.

(2) It is recommended that the authors do not present tables in the form of images, such as Figures 2 and 4.

(3) The article is overly lengthy, and it is suggested that the authors condense it.

no

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing the article "Standing Watch: Baselining Predictable Events That Influence Maritime Operations in the Context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

We appreciated reading your comments

Regarding English usage and Length: We made additional editorial changes, although we could not determine what to “cut” to shorten the article for a few reasons:  Some of the article’s length is tied to the table formats, which we struggled to reformat correctly.  We also felt that due to the limited research on lining the SDG to maritime risks, we had to better disclose why this relation mattered for national and local stakeholders.  The bulk of the article’s length is related to the systemic review of the missing local elements, which could have been placed in the Appendix but did not feel “right” to the authors.  Finally, both authors work professionally in the public sector on transportation issues, so some content reflects our efforts to get this framework considered for adoption. Any further suggestions regarding length would be appreciated.  For example, we could have cut or moved the Mobile, Orleans, and Warren comparisons to the appendix. Still, we thought the “localized” information would be less obvious to the reader without putting the comparison in the text.  Also, the various footnotes that I am sure will be reduced to a smaller font in a future version.

Regarding the Tables and Figures: We presented the tables as screenshots from the Excel chart.  We did not label them as screenshots from the initial paper, but that has been changed.  Also, we tried to put them into the document as “table formatted”, but again, it did not fit, which is a challenge for all tables added to the text.  We felt that keeping the Tables consistent with the Excel spreadsheet that was available for download would provide a better relationship to the data work.  We changed the text to reflect that connection, but the figures are still screenshots due to formatting challenges with the current template.  

We could not figure out the formatting, especially the tables. I have made a note to talk to the editor about document formatting, which may be something to discuss with the editorial staff before publication.  

Again, thank you for a thoughtful review.

Reviewer 2 Report

The author believes that the occurrence of maritime incidents is related to multiple factors rather than a single factor, such as natural factors and other social factors, and carries out research on this, which is a very correct direction. However, due to the numerous influencing factors and the complex coupling relationship, it is very difficult to draw the correct conclusion and ensure the accuracy of the conclusion. The authors analyzed many factors through a series of methods. But how does the author verify the conclusion? Is it necessary to conduct an experimental demonstration, make a prediction for a certain area and then verify it?

Author Response

Thank you for the comments on "Standing Watch: Baselining Predictable Events That Influence Maritime Operations in the Context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. “

We are delighted that you did not find any significant errors in logic or construction in the paper. 

Firstly, the article is about how there is limited local baselines, despite significant investment in monitoring and reporting. 

Also, the authors do not necessarily feel that all events have multiple factors, but that there are occurrences where multiple factors can occur at the same time.  It is easy to overlook such patterns unless one was local knowledge and can assess the causality among different events.  For example, sailing in heavy weather is not recommended, but there are times this must be done.  In the case of an event, what was the cause, the failure by the vessel during the event, or the fact that the vessel was at sea at all?  This difference of first and second casual chains is important, but at the moment, there is no single framework to have that discussion in the context of navigation and SDG Goals. However, as a planning tool, most planning activities tend to focus on one event, but in reality, there is no event which is isolated from spillover from changes of a transportation network.  We also felt that taxonomies try to capture all risks, which only serves to understand the events that have the highest likelihood of occurring in a region.

As stated in your review, we agree that the next step is to look at these events in the context of quantifying risks and evaluate some experimental demonstration of how various stakeholders (shippers, carriers, pilots, and others) perception of events within the same region.  The real conclusion would be to see if this could be populated and reviewed of a different waterway/coastal region.

We readdressed your comments in the Discussion and Conclusion and were happy to hear you recommend additional work on the topic in the direction we feel the SEM model would be useful.  We did add more to clarify some of our thoughts in the literature and methodology sections, especially related to activities, conditions, events, which should provide  more insights for the reader.

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors give a motivation for the need of data on periodic or seasonal events that influence maritime operations. The article presents the approach and result of building a data base for such events. In that process, the data is reviewed by stakeholders to ensure that only relevant events are included. A classification of the registered events is annotated in the data base. This initial proposal deals with the region of the Central Gulf from the perspective and coastal areas of the United States.

The paper outlines previous research and attempts to providing data on potentially hazardous events and proposes an evolved approach based on these preceding works. The methodology is well motivated and outlined in detail.

The chosen approach focusses on a data representation that is easy to understand but contains enough information to be useful for skilled professionals to use. The events cover national risks like tornados as well es local events (e.g. Mardi Gras) that, though not imposing a threat, may interfere with maritime operations on a monthly scale (instead of annual statistics).

With the clearly outlined methodology and descriptions of constraints, like the involvement of stakeholders from federal agencies as well as local maritime specialists, the provided data can be rated by any interested person or entity and applied as it seems useful.

This transparency is clearly the strength of this paper and the presentation in an easily understandable form (the “Seasonal Event Matrix “) one major benefit of the provided data.

Author Response

We appreciated reviewing your comments, which were overall positive.  We felt that there is significant information, but that information is not accessible to non-technical researchers or experts.  We also believe that the reliance on annualized numbers may present a false understanding of changes that occur within a year, and while not recommending new data collection programs, these could be offset by simply polling local stakeholders. The focus on transparency was to highlight the usefulness of this approach to alleviate some of the gaps of published datasets while addressing local emergency and business continuity planning needs.

Thank you for understanding the merits of this approach.