Sea Level Rise, Land Subsidence, and Flood Disaster Vulnerability Assessment: A Case Study in Medan City, Indonesia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors, 

I have the opportunity to revise your manuscript. The overall object of the research is clear and of scientific interest. Nevertheless, in my opinion, before being published the paper needs to be revised in some parts. First of all, in the present form, the Introduction section is highly focused on the description of the study area characteristics. I suggest rewriting the introduction to focus on the relative sea level rise issue at the global and local scale and on the state of the art of methodological approaches currently available to define flooding scenarios. Furthermore, I suggest including a study area section before the Material and Methods section. 

For what concerns the method description, I had difficulties for understanding how the the vertical deformation velocity is calculated from leveling measurements. Is the in situ trend calculated from 2010 to 2023?

In addition, I suggest moving the highest tide event that occurred during September 19–23, 2016 in the discussion section, since the results section should provide only the outcomes of your analysis. At the same time, I suggest improving the discussion section by comparing your results with similar studies carried out in other coastal areas. By way of example, several recent studies analyze the impact of land subsidence on the coastal inundation process for several coastal plains in the Mediterranean areas (e.g., Italy), where high subsidence rates have been calculated from InSAR data analysis. 

Another weak point that I can highlight in the paper is the lack of considerations of future sea levels expected as a consequence of ongoing global warming. I suggest including both data and comments on this last aspect. It should be useful to provide a table showing local and global trends estimated by both satellite altimetry and tide gauge as well as expected future projections available under different climate scenarios.

I hope that my suggestions and comments will allow you to increase the overall quality of your manuscript. 

kind regards

Author Response

I have attached the revision

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript aims to identify terrain displacement in part of Indonesia by using Sentinel1 SAR data, GPS measurements, and leveling and to measure water level by tide gauge and satellite altimetry datasets. Then, the authors explored the impact of land subsidence and sea level rise on the flood hazard occurrence in the study area. However, the connections between each part of the methodology are poor and are not well structured.

Generally, the whole manuscript emphasizes the domestic side of hazards in the study area. Most of the references and research (introduction and literature review) focus on flood hazards in Indonesia. In my opinion, it will decrease the interest of international readers. The manuscript lacks comprehensive reviews on recent international and global related studies, especially on methodologies. The level of novelty in the methodology is not clearly defined. It's written as a case study in Indonesia or a report (with too many pictures) by using ordinary and common methods (i.e., SNAP toolbox) and technologies (i.e., GPS and tide measurements, etc.). I feel it needs major corrections before proceeding for publication.

1)    Revise the Title; it is too long “Multi-Sensor Satellite to Assess Sea Level Rise and Land Subsidence Impact on the Flood Crisis on the East Coast of
North Sumatra and Medan City, Indonesia.”

 

2)    Comparing with dozens of present similar studies (e.g., https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/9/959 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969717332825) explain to readers what the novelty of your research is.  The objectives of this research should be well identified in the Introduction and discussed at the end of the manuscript. 

 

3)    Typo errors are in the manuscript, check the whole manuscript,  accordingly: 

E. g.,  

line 97: caption of figure 2. "studi", also figure's numbers are not correct, there are two figures 2 and 3.

 

line 99: ...  used used... 

 

4)    Figure 3. is more of an obvious simple leveling/surveying method illustration, and it is not recommended for a scientific paper. 

 

5)      Abstract - This section does not reflect the whole manuscript, comprehensively. From this, it's not clear what datasets and methods you used. It is just an elaboration on the title of the paper without informative details. Improve it accordingly. 

6)    Try to start with global challenges rather than locals, use some words to encourage international readers to read your research. Emphasis on the hazard as a global issue (then explain the domestic issue in the Introduction not in the Abstract). 

 

7)    The keywords must include some words related to the specific methodology for the purpose of being found via search engines. 

 

8)    Introduction - Again, some first statements of this section must be on global and international interest and not the domestic hazard in Indonesia. This paragraph is more suitable for the Study Area section. 

 

9)    Once an abbreviation is defined, try to avoid repetitive definitions in the next paragraphs/the rest of the manuscript: e.g.,  lines 65&70 same abbreviations. Check the whole manuscript for this. 

 

10) The datasets were not defined precisely; readers expect to see the whole used datasets and their characteristics (e.g., date of acquisition, resolution,...) in the first paragraph or one table. 

 

11)  The time span between the GPS measurements (2023), tide gauge measurements (2016, figure 4), and the Sentinel products is not feasible. It is difficult to find all related subjects to the datasets briefly. 

 

12)  The methodology - The different phases were not followed consecutively. Refine the methodology.

13)  Conclusion – This section should still be refined to reflect the result obtained and how well the problem(s) has been resolved or what solution (or recommendation) the research proffers, and future research.

 

 Thank you

Comments on the Quality of English Language

3)    Typo errors are in the manuscript, check the whole manuscript,  accordingly: 

E. g.,  

line 97: caption of figure 2. "studi", also figure's numbers are not correct, there are two figures 2 and 3.

 line 99: ...  used used... 

 

Author Response

I have attached the revision

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I regret to inform you that I am not able to provide a review this time around as a result of an improper answering style. It is not an academic answer to the comment sheet. The authors wrote "We have corrected" in response to my comments. While the authors should explain their answers and different fonts or colors must be used to highlight the changes in the revised version. Each response should clearly explain the change made and where that change can be found in the revised manuscript (i.e., page number, paragraph, or line). As a reviewer, I spent my time reading the whole manuscript, once, and now I expect to easily find where the changes had been made. It is not possible to search through the whole manuscript, one by one, and find the corrections.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We have attached a file to respond to input from reviewers.

Best regards,

Jonson

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The comments were addressed, correctly.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses in the re-submitted files. Best regards, Jonson

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf