An Introduction to Nuclear Industrial Archaeology

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

A very interesting review article on analytical techniques that can be utilized in characterization of potentially contaminated nuclear sites or other commercial chemical sites. The experimental techniques are described in great detail and the reader would learn a lot from the summary of the analytical techniques that can be deployed for characterization of these nuclear industrial archaeology studies. I am on board with the authors that the use of the term nuclear industrial archaeology is better in several circumstances whereas nuclear forensics does indeed bring in the 'prosecutorial' element.

Author Response

The authors thank the reviewer for their thoughts on the manuscript, and approval of the newly introduced research field of industrial archaeology, namely Nuclear Industrial Archaeology (NIA). We welcome the consensus that NIA is a more suitable term to refer to industrial, nuclear site investigations where there is no prosecutorial element present and therefore, the historic term 'nuclear forensics' does not adequately cover the scope and objectives of the scientific research involved.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article “An Introduction to Nuclear Industrial Archaeology” by E. I. Holland et al.  concerns the definition of Nuclear Industrial Archaeology (NIS) as a branch alongside the Nuclear Forensics (NF) related to the study of historical nuclear sites in an easier manner, without the many constraints normally associated to NF, and proposing a possible general toolkit of portable analyses technologies. The topic of the article is certainly of great interest to the scientific community. The manuscript is very well written, with a robust introduction and overview of the techniques that can be employed in the field for NIS analyses. Particularly, I appreciate the accuracy and attention to detail in the description of each technique, also in relation to their use in the proposed case study. There are only a few minor suggestions/revisions of the text and questions for the Authors, which I have added in the attached .pdf file.

In conclusion, I recommend the publication of the paper in Sustainability after minor revisions.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The authors appreciate the detailed review and recommendations, which all have been addressed to improve the paper. Various sections were expanded and clarifications added. A total of 12 additional references were added where previously missing in the text, taking the review recommendations in consideration. Indeed it turned out some of the DOIs fell through the bibliography, which have been re-added, and several typesetting mistakes fixed.

The authors are torn about adding the reference to the XKCD chart. Although well-known to the authors, it is felt that this chart may not be perceived as a reference of appropriate scientific quality for a review paper and therefore, instead of using the XKCD chart to contextualise the 4 mSv annual dose, another paper was substituted as reference.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf