A Chronological Database about Natural and Anthropogenic Sinkholes in Italy
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear author,
This manuscript is very interesting in term of geohazard studies. The details of data collection and quality evaluation are well established. However, the manuscript is still lack of details about How chronological catalogue or database is developed and using?, What is the format of data and storage (e.g. digital form, file format, software usage. ..), How to access and sorting? Thus more details in the methods section should be added.
Figure 1. In figure caption “The sinkholes involve carbonates, evaporites and alluvial deposits, and belong to the categories of collapse, cover-collapse, and suffusion sinkholes.” The label, such as (a), (b), (c) … should be added in the figure.
Best regards,
reviewer
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: The manuscript is still lack of details about How chronological catalogue or database is developed and using?, What is the format of data and storage (e.g. digital form, file format, software usage. ..), How to access and sorting? Thus more details in the methods section should be added.
Response 1: Some additional text has been added (see section 3.3) in order to respond to the comment. As concerns access to the database, this has not yet been published in the public domain, since we are still checking some data.
Point 2: Figure 1. In figure caption “The sinkholes involve carbonates, evaporites and alluvial deposits, and belong to the categories of collapse, cover-collapse, and suffusion sinkholes.” The label, such as (a), (b), (c) … should be added in the figure.
Response 2: Labels have been added to the captions, as requested by the reviewer.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper introduces the Italian collapse database, and makes a detailed analysis on the accuracy of collapse occurrence time and database source, but there are the following problems:
- From lines 459 to 482 in the text, the classification ratio of collapse origin is inconsistent with the data in Figure 6.
- This paper should conduct an in-depth analysis and make recommendations for the Italian sinkhole database. This paper describes natural and anthropogenic sinkholes according to the inducing factors. Human factors are divided into 7 types according to the project type: hydraulic engineering, civilian building, religion, military or war, mining, transportation, and others. The above categories are not refined further, such as A3, D3, E, F3 are lacking a summary of commonalities.
- The analysis of the collapse mechanism is not in-depth enough. The article mentions that the inducing factors of collapse include rainfall, earthquake, human activities, rupture of underground utilities, collapse of cavity and infiltration, which are operated individually or combined effects of multiple factors. In fact, the collapse mechanisms involved in the above inducements are completely different. A good classification of inducing factors will help to reduce the risk of collapse and control collapse disasters.
- The chapters on the use of the database and future perspectives are insufficiently discussed from a professional point of view. For example, information involving the geological background, the specific impact of human activities, exploration technology and stability evaluation of underground cavities need more supplements.
- There are many references in the article, but some of them are not related to the content. For example, literature 114 mainly refers to the reasons why the collapse in the United States is underreported; References 122 and 123 are about the salt mines in France; literatures 127 and 128 are related to landslide disasters. In addition, literatures in Italian should be translated into English.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I read carefully manuscript number: geosciences-1658121. The paper is interesting.
I recommend publication only if the following issues can be addressed.
- Lines 39-41: With all the difficulty of predicting the occurrence of sinkholes, you can also point to the efforts that have been made to make spatial analysis and GIS based multi-criteria predictions. Cite the following references:
Gutierrez, F., Cooper, A. H., & Johnson, K. S. (2008). Identification, prediction, and mitigation of sinkhole hazards in evaporite karst areas. Environmental Geology, 53(5), 1007-1022.
Taheri, K., Gutiérrez, F., Mohseni, H., Raeisi, E., & Taheri, M. (2015). Sinkhole susceptibility mapping using the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and magnitude–frequency relationships: A case study in Hamadan province, Iran. Geomorphology, 234, 64-79.
Taheri, K., Shahabi, H., Chapi, K., Shirzadi, A., Gutiérrez, F., & Khosravi, K. (2019). Sinkhole susceptibility mapping: A comparison between Bayes‐based machine learning algorithms. Land Degradation & Development, 30(7), 730-745.
Taheri, K., Missimer, T. M., Mohseni, H., Fidelibus, M. D., Fathollahy, M., & Taheri, M. (2021). Enhancing spatial prediction of sinkhole susceptibility by mixed waters geochemistry evaluation: application of ROC and GIS. Environmental Earth Sciences, 80(14), 1-28.
- Line 84: Abandoned galleries of old water wells and dead Qanats can also be places of sinkholes. Please add these cases.
Fig 3: Classification of artificial cavities, please add Qanats to A category.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
