The Anthropocene in the Aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark Schelde Delta Area: Geological History, Human Resilience and Future Landscape Management

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments

 

-       Overall well written, high language level, well crafted figures

-       I am not an expert on the conservation aspects and will focus on the geological, geomporphological aspects

 

 

 

 

The review paper by Kluiving and Water aims to accomplish three objectives. Firstly, to describe the geological/geomorphological delta history of the Dutch-Flemish Schelde from the Tertiary and Quaternary periods to the Holocene era. Secondly, to examine the cultural history of the Anthropocene era that continues to evolve. Finally, to envision a future for the aspiring UNESCO Global Geopark Schelde Delta, considering various landscape management scenarios that promote both a humane economy and enhanced biodiversity.

 

The study by Kluiving is written at a high language level and showcases a thorough and comprehensive understanding of the subject matter. While the study covers various aspects of the Dutch-Flemish Schelde delta's history and future, I will primarily focus on the geological and geomorphological aspects, as my expertise lies in these areas.

 

Generally, my impression is that the review is well written and structured and brings across the main takeaway points. However, given the title of the draft I think one would expect a little bit more on the variety of geological processes rather than solely focusing on the fluvial and tidal dynamics and differences in weathering behavior of the different sedimentary deposits. On geological time scales the Dutch and Belgium river deltas all are a result of the interplay between fluvial and tectonic processes, as they represent a structural part of the European Cenozoic Rift System. Thus, I would expect a little bit more information on the tectonic framework in this region, with respect to the Quaternary-to-recent faulting history of this area. See specific comments for a few reference suggestions. 

 

Other than that I would recommend this manuscript for publication after minor revisions. 

 

 

 

Specific comments:

 

Line 13: “recent” instead of “today”

 

Line 20: add “study” after “This”

 

Line 62: “historical framework” needs additional explanation

 

Line 200: I would suggest to replace the somewhat vague term “deep time” with “geological and geomorphological”

 

Lines 220-229: support claims about Waasland cuesta with references

 

Lines 364-399: The title of this paragraph suggests a discussion on the Anthropocene landscape with respect to economic aspects, but contentwise reads more like a promotion/advertisement of a certain land/water management principle (AquaPuncture). Not sure, how this fits in the overall manuscript to be honest.

 

Line 394: sentence seems incomplete.

 

 

Line 524: Add references on fluvial processes, e.g. https://doi.org/10.1017/njg.2016.24

 

Line 526: I would suggest to add a few sentences here on the tectonic setting of the region and add references on this topic as well. Suggested references are: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-1951(99)00132-8;https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-017-1510-9; https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggv558  

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for your comments on the paper and suggestions, I made some changes to the draft paper, please see attachment, hopefully this will respond to your criticism

BW, Sjoerd Kluiving

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I have carefully read the paper and I believe that it needs a full revision concerning its structure. It was very difficult to read through the manuscript. On the other hand, the study is interesting, and it is worth publishing after rewriting.

General comments:

1.      The introduction is too long and repetitive.

2.      The manuscript is lacking of references throughout

3.      There are no figures or maps (location maps, geomorphological maps etc) to assist the reader to understand the text.

4.      The text is very complicated without references and repetitive.

5.      There are figures without meaning in the text.

6.      Discussion too large without meaning.

7.      No geological map of the study area.

Overall, my suggestion is that the paper should be rejected for publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read carefully the revised manuscript and the authors have succeed to address all the fundamental problems which the reviewers were pointed on the initial version. By this, my opinion is that the manuscript should be accepted for publication. Some minor editing is needed but everything can be addressed during the proofreading of the paper (e.g the captions on figures 2 and 8 which are not located below the figures)