Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

thank you for your study dealing with the Statistical Methods for the Landslide Susceptibility MappingThe article is interesting and innovative, especially from a methodological point of view, by comparing three different susceptibility methodologies.

Minor changes are required. I would like to request you to consider the following comments in the attached pdf in the revised version of the manuscript. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the time you have spent reviewing our manuscript and your kind words about our work.

We really appreciate the valuable feedback and suggestions you made and have incorporated them, which we believe have improved the manuscript.  

We have strived to incorporate all your suggestions and made point-by-point changes. These changes are highlighted in yellow colour and our responses are submitted as comments in the manuscript.

Please find the manuscript in the attachment.

We look forward to the next course of action.

 

Kind regards,

Authors of geosciences-963510

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of the manuscript submitted to Applied Science titled: ”Landslide Susceptibility Mapping using Statistical Methods along the Asian Highway, Bhutan”.
The paper deals with landslide susceptibility mapping using various methods. The paper appears interesting, but the presented methods are not a new method but can be presented as a comparative study in Asian Highway. Generally, experiment is designed and performed correctly. However my main criticism is represented by small number of landslide conditioning factors. In my opinion, author could include much more landslide conditioning factors.Moreover, other criticism goes to the language. Some sentences are difficult to understand. Authors should consider improvement of English and writing style.
In the present form, the paper needs of a major revision before to be considered for publication in Geosciences
Minor observations are reported in the attached pdf file.

Reviewer

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking time to review our manuscript. We really appreciate all the valuable feedback and suggestions you made and have integrated them, which we believe have improved the manuscript.  

We have strived to incorporate all the suggestions and changes that you advised and have highlighted them in green colour in the attached manuscript. Our responses are submitted as comments. Kindly find time to review the changes we made.

We would also like to submit our response to the major comments that you have highlighted to provide more insight into our work, as below:

We look forward to the next course of action.

 

Thank you again,

Kind regards,

Authors of geosciences-963510

 

Point 1: The paper deals with landslide susceptibility mapping using various methods. The paper appears interesting, but the presented methods are not a new method but can be presented as a comparative study in Asian Highway.

Response 1: Thank you for your comment. As you noted, the study is focused on gathering insights into the applicability of the methods for a mountainous road.

Point 2: Generally, experiment is designed and performed correctly. However, my main criticism is represented by small number of landslide conditioning factors. In my opinion, author could include much more landslide conditioning factors.

Response 2: Unfortunately, in Bhutan where the study area has been taken up, even to these days, technical data are not readily available. All the available data from open sources and governmental agencies were used in the study thus limiting the landslide conditioning factors. We have done our best to include all the critical factors in the study.  The study highlights the usefulness of the methods to analyse landslide susceptibility for an area with limited data.

Point 3: Moreover, other criticism goes to the language. Some sentences are difficult to understand. Authors should consider the improvement of English and writing style.
Response 3: We humbly accept that our command of the English language is not up to the international standards. We have therefore sought external help to improve the manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

V

Review of the manuscript submitted to Applied Science titled: ”Landslide Susceptibility Mapping using Statistical Methods along the Asian Highway, Bhutan”.

The paper deals with landslide susceptibility mapping using various methods.

In the revised version of the manuscript the following minor errors appeared, which should be corrected. Since the author has not provided comments-free version of the manuscript, the following minor changes are presented below:

 

Point 1 :

Line 311 Various studies have shown different patterns depending on the interval of the class.Some studies have shown higher susceptibility closer to roads

You can add the reference of:  Pawłuszek, K.; Marczak, S.; Borkowski, A.; Tarolli, P. Multi-Aspect Analysis of Object-Oriented Landslide Detection Based on an Extended Set of LiDAR-Derived Terrain Features. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2019, 8, 321.

 

Point 2 :

Figure 1- to save the place maybe it is better to place figure a and b side by  side?

I see that you have two various rasterà basemap and the data close to the road, can you mark the boundary of you study area (region close to road) as you made on figure 3.

 

Point 3 :

What represent white-blue raster? Elevation? It should be clarify in the caption or in the legend. You can write that you study area is superimposed on elevation data.

Point 4 :

General comment to figures: you can make the grid and coordinates only on the two sides eg upper and left or down and right. You don’t need to place coordinates from four sides. It will save your space and increase readability.

 

Point 5 :

Still there are some language errors which should be checked before acceptance. For instance your landslide conditioning layers should be called as: “Distance to roads/roads distance“ not distance from roads, the same with fault distance etc.

 

Point 6 :

Line 118, what do you mean by “corrected DEM”?

Line 142 “The proximity of drainage streams also results in saturating the area and causing landslides.” Please confirm it with some reference, maybe

1. Pradhan; H.J. Oh;M. Buchroithner,Weights-of-evidencemodel applied to landslide susceptibilitymapping 523 in a tropical hilly area. Geomatics, Nat. Hazards Risk 2010, 1, 199–223

Please check it

 

Point 7:

Table 3 should be moved to appendix A, it will increase readability of the paper

Point 8:

Line Should be  Oreńczak, not Ore’nczak

In the present form, the paper needs of a minor revision before to be considered for publication in Geosciences

 

Reviewer

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you again for your valuable input and suggestions to further improve our manuscript.

We have made all changes as you kindly advised. We would like to submit our response (in red) to your comments below:

We appreciate your time and support with our manuscript.

 

Kind regards,

Authors of geosciences-963510

 

Point 1: Line 311 Various studies have shown different patterns depending on the interval of the class. Some studies have shown higher susceptibility closer to roads. You can add the reference of:  Pawłuszek, K.; Marczak, S.; Borkowski, A.; Tarolli, P. Multi-Aspect Analysis of Object-Oriented Landslide Detection Based on an Extended Set of LiDAR-Derived Terrain Features. ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2019, 8, 321.

Response 1: Added the suggested reference after reviewing it.

Point 2: Figure 1- to save the place maybe it is better to place figure a and b side by  side? I see that you have two various rasterà basemap and the data close to the road, can you mark the boundary of you study area (region close to road) as you made on figure 3.

Response 2: We have placed the figure side by side and also marked the study area boundary as suggested.

Point 3: What represent white-blue raster? Elevation? It should be clarify in the caption or in the legend. You can write that your study area is superimposed on elevation data.

Response 3: We have indicated the elevation in the legend to explain the  “white-blue raster” as suggested and also changed the caption accordingly.

Point 4 : General comment to figures: you can make the grid and coordinates only on the two sides eg upper and left or down and right. You don’t need to place coordinates from four sides. It will save your space and increase readability.

Response 4: We changed the figures as recommended

Point 5 : Still there are some language errors which should be checked before acceptance. For instance your landslide conditioning layers should be called as: “Distance to roads/roads distance“ not distance from roads, the same with fault distance etc.

Response 5: We have tried to improve the readability after incorporating your suggestions.

Point 6 : Line 118, what do you mean by “corrected DEM”?  Line 142 “The proximity of drainage streams also results in saturating the area and causing landslides.” Please confirm it with some reference, maybe: Pradhan; H.J. Oh;M. Buchroithner, Weights-of-evidence model applied to landslide susceptibility mapping 523 in a tropical hilly area. Geomatics, Nat. Hazards Risk 2010, 1, 199–223. Please check it

Response 6: Corrected DEM was acquired from the Ministry of Works and Human Settlement. The agency has processed the original DEM by correcting of vertical errors with using topographical data. Since the correction of DEM was not processed by us, we didn’t elaborate it in text.

Also added the reference as suggested.

Point 7: Table 3 should be moved to appendix A, it will increase readability of the paper

Response 7: We moved the Table to appendix and cited accordingly as suggested.

Point 8: Line Should be  Oreńczak, not Ore’nczak.

Response 8: Thank you for pointing out the mistake. We changed it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf