Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors should try to make much better their figures,  provide a review of previous works, discuss their results and compare them with the previous works. Also they should present their field observation. Also the authors should try to make their work more interesting for general readers. Right now it is like a case study.

My detailed comments are as follow,

 

 

1)    Instead of saying 5 . 12 Wenchuan Earthquake please mention 12 May 2008 Wechuan Earthquake everywhere in the manuscript. It recommend in one place authors mention the magnitude of the Wenchuan Earthquake.

2)    Quality of Figure 1 should be greatly improved. First it should have a subpanel which show the location of the study area on a larger area covering the Far east region and secondly the Figure should also have a frame with latitude and longitude labels and a scale. Also quality of the labels for the geographical regions should be improved. Please also mention a reference for your image. At the moment still I am struggling to find where is Niumian valley and what is position relative to the causative fault ? I suggest to enlarge the figure so it covers the epicenter and also the trace of the causative fault.

3)    It is necessary to show location of Yingxiu--Beichuan fault zone in one of your figures.

4)    On line 62 what do you mean by stratum development.

5)    On line 64 “ valley. since 1169, some shallow focus earthquakes of high intensity have broken out in “ it should be Since 1169. The sentence also need some references for the number of earthquakes happened in the region.

6)    Figure 2 also need a frame with latitude and longitude labels and also a scale.

7)    On line 50 et al. should be etc

8)    Despite many previous works on debris flow in Wenchuan earthquake, the introduction part of the manuscript does not refer to them. I suggest that the authors concisely review previous works on debris flow of Wenchuan earthquake in the introduction segment.

9)    On line 63 “upper Triassic(T3) have widely exposure” Please change widely to wide

10) On line 85 et al. should be etc

11) Please describe in detail what characteristics of the stratum lithology makes the region susceptible to land slides and flow debri.  (Line 80)

12) I suggest to present Figure 3 as simple 2D plot. The 3D effect is not necessary. Since the debris flow occurred during 2008 to 2013, it is required to show the statistics for the period. I suggest that the authors add the date of occurrence of debris flow on this same plot to allow reader make a connection between the two.

13) Line 101 “thus” does not mean, probably it is “this”.On line 136 authors say “The debris flow disaster occurred on August 14, 2010 … is investigated in this paper” So I suggest this very important point to be emphasized throughout the manuscript including abstract and introduction part.

14) There are no detail about field observations evidences that the authors mention in the manuscript. The field observation are critical for determination of the parameters required in the used parametric equations used for evaluation of characteristics of the debris flow.

 

15) There is no discussion section. I suggest the authors try to extensively compare their results with other works in the region.

Author Response

Manuscript 2061178 Response to Editors and Reviewers

Dear editors and reviewers:

Thank you for your and reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Characteristics, dynamic analyses and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County” (ID: 2061178). Those comments are all valuable and so helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied carefully the comments and made corresponding answers and corrections which we expect to meet the approval. The revised contents are marked in red in the ‘Revised Manuscript with Changes Marked.docx’. Also, the point-by-point explanations to the comments, suggestions and questions are listed as below.

 

Q1. Instead of saying 5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake please mention 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake everywhere in the manuscript. It recommends in one place authors mention the magnitude of the Wenchuan Earthquake.

Answer: This comment was supplemented according to the reviewer's suggestions, as detailed in the lines 19, 45 and 130 of the revised manuscript. And we have increased the earthquake level in it so that readers can understand.

 

Q2. Quality of Figure 1 should be greatly improved. First it should have a subpanel which show the location of the study area on a larger area covering the Far east region and secondly the Figure should also have a frame with latitude and longitude labels and a scale. Also quality of the labels for the geographical regions should be improved. Please also mention a reference for your image. At the moment still I am struggling to find where is Niumian valley and what is position relative to the causative fault? I suggest to enlarge the figure so it covers the epicenter and also the trace of the causative fault.

Answer: Thank you for your professional suggestions. We redraw Figure 1 in the revised draft, added a subpanel with a larger area, added latitude and longitude labels and scales, update the image quality and adding a fault zone. We marked the location of the epicenter in Figure 2.

 

Q3. It is necessary to show location of Yingxiu--Beichuan fault zone in one of your figures.

Answer: Thank you so much for your suggestions. We have added the location of the Yingxiu-Beichuan fault zone in Figure 1.

 

Q4. On line 62 what do you mean by stratum development.

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. According to the relevant data, the development of strata is used to describe the occurrence, development and existence of a geological phenomenon or geological body. (Shi Wei. Engineering Geology [M]. Beijing: Science Press, 2007) What is explained here is the landform of Niumiangou valley formed by the activity of Yingxiu-Beichuan fault zone.

 

Q5. On line 64 “ valley. since 1169, some shallow focus earthquakes of high intensity have broken out in “ it should be Since 1169. The sentence also need some references for the number of earthquakes happened in the region.

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. We have modified the format problem (Line 76, Page2). The number of earthquakes that occurred in the area was obtained by querying the database, and the data also appears in other articles. (Lan Jian, Chen Xiaoli. Evolution characteristics of landslides triggered by 2008 Ms8.0 Wenchuan earthquake in Yingxiu area [J]. seismology and geology, 2020,42 (01): 125-146.)

 

Q6. Figure 2 also need a frame with latitude and longitude labels and also a scale.

Answer: We appreciate your suggestions. We have updated the information of Figure 2, and added latitude and longitude labels and scales to Figure 2.

 

Q7. On line 50 et al. should be etc.

Answer: Thank you so much for your advice. We corrected this error in line 53 of the revised manuscript.

 

Q8. Despite many previous works on debris flow in Wenchuan earthquake, the introduction part of the manuscript does not refer to them. I suggest that the authors concisely review previous works on debris flow of Wenchuan earthquake in the introduction segment.

Answer: Thank you so much for your suggestion. We have added other researchers ' research work on Wenchuan earthquake debris flow in the introduction part, which improves the readability of the article.

 

Q9. On line 63 “upper Triassic(T3) have widely exposure” Please change widely to wide.

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. We corrected this error in line 93 of the revised manuscript.

 

Q10. On line 85 et al. should be etc.

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. We corrected this error in line 96 of the revised manuscript.

 

Q11. Please describe in detail what characteristics of the stratum lithology makes the region susceptible to land slides and flow debri.  (Line 80)

Answer: Thank you very much for your professional comments and suggestions. We have described the features that make the area vulnerable to landslides and mudslides in detail in lines 98 to 104 of the revised version.

 

Q12. I suggest to present Figure 3 as simple 2D plot. The 3D effect is not necessary. Since the debris flow occurred during 2008 to 2013, it is required to show the statistics for the period. I suggest that the authors add the date of occurrence of debris flow on this same plot to allow reader make a connection between the two.

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. We have changed Figure 3 to 2D in the manuscript. We tried to add the date of the occurrence of the debris flow to Figure 3, but the results are very complex and cannot highlight the information expressed in the graph, so we did not add the date of the occurrence of the debris flow in the modified Figure 3.

Q13. Line 101 “thus” does not mean, probably it is “this”. On line 136 authors say “The debris flow disaster occurred on August 14, 2010 … is investigated in this paper” So I suggest this very important point to be emphasized throughout the manuscript including abstract and introduction part.

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. We have corrected this error in line 118 of the revision. And we have ' The debris flow disaster occurred on August 14, 2010 ' this information has been added to the introduction part of the revised draft.

 

Q14. There are no detail about field observations evidences that the authors mention in the manuscript. The field observation are critical for determination of the parameters required in the used parametric equations used for evaluation of characteristics of the debris flow.

Answer: Thank you very much for your professional comments and suggestions. We agree that field observations are very important for evaluating the parameters of the debris flow characteristics, but if the details of the field observations are added to the manuscript, it will have an impact on the structure of the manuscript, so we present the details of the field observations in the computational part of Section 4 in the form of data.

 

Q15. There is no discussion section. I suggest the authors try to extensively compare their results with other works in the region.

Answer: We appreciate your suggestions. We have added a section comparing our work with other scholars to the conclusion part of the revised draft to enrich the structure and content of the paper.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of the article "Characteristics and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County”

Presented in a review article, "Characteristics and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County" is devoted to the description of the results of original research.

1. Overall assessment of the work

1. The article title and abstract are appropriate. The purpose of the article and its significance is stated clearly. The content of the manuscript corresponds to its title, as well as the profile of the journal as a whole.

2. The style of presentation of the material is characterized by literary and scientific literacy of the text, terminological clarity and legibility for a potential professional audience.

3. The structure of the article corresponds to the APA-style: there is an introduction to the state of the problem, the objectives of the study are described, the research program (sample, methods and stages of the study), the results of the study and their description, discussion of the results, conclusion are described in detail.

4. The information presented in the review part of the manuscript (introduction, description of the relevance and objectives of the research, as well as discussion of the results) is relevant: the text and the list of references contain references to modern (not older than 5 years) research in this field, analogues and prototypes of the conducted research, problem reviews in leading specialized peer-reviewed scientific journals.

5. The study methods are sound and appropriate, the writing is clear and concise.

The conclusions or summary are accurate and supported by the content. The article is of interest to members of the education research community

6. The research material and methods correspond to the set goals and objectives. The results obtained were checked for the normality of the variation series, the criteria of statistical significance and the level of reliability were adequately selected, and the methods of multidimensional statistics were used. The structure and size of the surveyed sample allowed us to obtain statistically reliable results.

7. Graphic materials (figures, tables, etc.) are presented in sufficient quantity and readable.

2. Comments and recommendations. There are no fundamental comments.

3. Final Conclusion. I believe that the article "Characteristics and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County" has significant scientific and practical significance. The article meets all the requirements for scientific articles, as well as international standards of bibliographic and abstract databases. It can be published”.

 

Author Response

Manuscript 2061178 Response to Editors and Reviewers

Dear editors and reviewers:

Thank you for your comments to our manuscript entitled “Characteristics, dynamic analyses and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County” (ID: 2061178). Those comments are all valuable and so helpful for revising and improving our paper. Thank you for your support and affirmation of this manuscript. Thank you for your high evaluation of this article, we will continue to work hard! At the same time, your high evaluation gives us the confidence of writing, we are very grateful to you. We look forward to cooperating with you again. We sincerely hope this manuscript will be finally acceptable to be published on MDPI.

 

Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

December 19, 2022

Dear Authors:

This manuscript entitled “Characteristics, dynamic analyses and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County” presents an analysis of debris flow characteristics related to events that occurred after an earthquake event, in Niumiangou valley of Sichuan province. The authors also provide an attempt to evaluate debris flow hazard for these events.

The manuscript does not provide a sufficient contribution to understanding the debris flow dynamic, but it seems to be an application of the literature formulas. It is not clear what is the contribution to the scientific community of this study. Also, the attempt to hazard estimation presents, in my opinion, some problems. You have simply calculated the weight of several parameters about debris flow occurrence that is equivalent to a susceptibility and not to a hazard.

In my opinion, the manuscript, in its actual form, is not ready for publication in an international journal as Applied Science and requires improvements. Comments are reported below:

Even if I am not an English-native speaker, I would recommend an English edit to improve sentence structure and terminology.

 

The structure of the manuscript needs to be improved. It is not present a real introduction. The authors directly describe the geographic and then geologic and geomorphological setting of the area in which debris flows occurred. Data and methods used should be listed. It is not clear what is developed in this study and what is derived from previous studies. Please split the text and move it to the appropriate section considering a general structure like: i) Introduction, ii) Description, iii) Method, iv) Results and Discussion, v) Conclusion.

 

Discussion section is absent. It is not clear what is the utility of this study, what the authors would demonstrate. The Authors should better clarify what contribution the paper brings to the scientific community.

 

The references need to be generally improved considering both methodological and phenomenological contributions from all over the world.

 

Once addressed these limitations, the manuscript can be reconsidered for publication in Applied Science MDPI. To facilitate this process, I attached an annotated manuscript with specific comments.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Manuscript 2061178 Response to Editors and Reviewers

Dear editors and reviewers:

Thank you for your and reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Characteristics, dynamic analyses and hazard assessment of debris flows in Niumiangou valley of Wenchuan County” (ID: 2061178). Those comments are all valuable and so helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have studied carefully the comments and made corresponding answers and corrections which we expect to meet the approval. The revised contents are marked in red in the ‘Revised Manuscript with Changes Marked.docx’. Also, the point-by-point explanations to the comments, suggestions and questions are listed as below.

 

Q1. magnitude? (On Line 19 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. We increased the magnitude of the earthquake in line 22 of the revised version, and we changed ' 5 · 12 ' to ' 12 May 2008 ' to enhance the reader 's understanding.

 

Q2. Delete in Niumiangou valley (On Line 24 of the original manuscript).

Answer: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We have removed ' in Niumiangou valley ' from the revised manuscript' (On Line 25)

 

Q3. Delete disasters (On Line 31 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you so much for your suggestions. We believe that using disaster will emphasis that these debris flows will cause much destructive damage and harm. We think mudslides cause only damage. So, we think it should not be deleted.

 

Q4. Delete which in (On Line 32 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. We modified this in line 33 of the revised manuscript.

 

Q5. maybe you would say rain triggered? (On Line 24 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. Our intention is to describe here that ' rainstorm-viscous-type debris flow ' is this type of debris flow, not that the rainfall during that period caused the debris flow.

 

Q6. can you provide a range? (On Line 30 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your suggestions. Our parameters here are not a range, but the results of our fourth section of dynamic analysis and calculation. We show the calculation results in tabular form in Section 4. If we put the results in the summary, the summary becomes very verbose.

 

Q7. It is totally absent an introduction about debris flow and the common approaches in debris flow hazard studies. You should also introduce the method used for hazard estimation with advantages and disadvantages respect to other methods. (On Line 42 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you so much for your advice. The debris flow risk assessment method we use is refereed to Reference [35,36], because these two references are standard norms. If readers have questions about the method, they can find the answer in the Reference [35,36]. Because this manuscript belongs to the research type rather than the review type, if we describe the risk assessment method too much in the introduction, the focus of the article will change and interfere with the reader 's thinking.

 

Q8. 5.12 magnitude (On Line 42 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you so much for your suggestion. The ' 5·12 Wenchuan earthquake ' here refers not to the ' Wenchuan earthquake with a magnitude of 5·12 ' but to the world-class disaster-Wenchuan earthquake that occurred on May 12,2008. In order to make it clear to readers what we mean, we changed it to ' 12 May 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake ' in the revised manuscript. (On Line 45)

 

Q9. when it occurred? (On Line 42 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. The earthquake occurred on May 12, 2008.

 

Q10. in what time interval? (On Line 47 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. The earthquake occurred on May 12,2008, we put the detailed time of other earthquakes in the second paragraph of Section 3.1, so there is no detailed description here.

 

Q11. The resolution of this and of previous image is very poorly. Please, make a unique and clear image. Text formatting needs to be changed (On Line 78 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your professional comments and suggestions. We redraw Figure 1 in the revised draft, added a subpanel with a larger area, added latitude and longitude labels and scales, updated the image quality and adding a fault zone. And in Figure 2 we added latitude and longitude labels and scales.

 

Q12. It is not clear what do you mean. I think it was true also before the earthquake... (On Line 98 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. Here we want to emphasize the it is the data that shows the degree of dry and wet after the earthquake is obvious, not that before the earthquake is more obvious than after the earthquake. We have no intention of making a comparison here.

 

Q13. I think the monitoring time is too small to derive robust statistic about maximum rainfall. You could say: in the monitored period the maximum is... (On Line 103 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. We modified this in line 119 of the revised manuscript.

 

Q14. you use many time the same term (On Line 109-112 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your professional comments and suggestions. We modified this in lines 126 and 129 of the revised manuscript.

 

 

Q15. Comment 15: why 8 14? I simply do not understand what do you mean with this numbers. (On Line 139 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. We appreciate your suggestions. The ' Niumiangou valley 8·14 debris flow ' in our manuscript means the debris flow disaster that occurred in the Niumiangou valley on August 14, 2010.

 

Q16. you repet Niumiangou valley 8 14 debris flow too many times. (On Line 162 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. We use this phrase to emphasize that the debris flow disaster we studied in this section is a debris flow disaster that broke out on August 14,2010, not a debris flow disaster that occurred at other times in the Niumiangou valley.

 

Q17. Delete of the Niumiangou valley 8 · 14 debris flow disaster in Niumiangou valley, (On Line 204-205 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your comments. We modified this in line 220 of the revised manuscript.

 

Q18. why? Do you have analyzed the rainfall in a probabilistic way? (On Line 288 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your suggestions. Here we use the calculation method stipulated in the Reference [25]. According to the actual situation and news reports on the spot, this rainfall is once in a hundred years in the local area. So, we don 't have to calculate the probability of rainfall.

 

Q19. A discussion about the obtained results is totally absent. How I can use this hazard data? It can be useful to predict or prevent a future debris flow event? in what way? Other studies based on this approach have obtained different or comparable results? (On Line 291 of the original manuscript)

Answer: We appreciate your professional advice on our paper. We put the conclusions in line 328-335 of the revised manuscript. The conclusion we get is consistent with the Section 4, which once again proves that the debris flow disaster in Niumiangou valley on August 14,2010 is a large debris flow disaster. And we compared the results we got with the debris flow happened in Niumiangou in other time, and it proves that it is a large-scale debris flow disaster, consistent with the actual situation.

Q20. Hazard is commonly defined as the probability that an event with a certain magnitude can be occur in a time interval. In the applied formulation, no indication to return time of the event is done. I suppose you have calculated a susceptibility of analyzed debris flow and not the hazard. (On Line 292 of the original manuscript)

Answer: Thank you very much for your professional comments and suggestions. What we mentioned in the manuscript is hazard assessment rather than hazard. Hazard assessment is an important part of management toxicology. The purpose is to determine the potential harmful effects of chemicals and environmental factors on human life or health, or on ecosystems and the environment. The National Science Council (1983) and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (1984) proposed that the risk assessment includes both qualitative and quantitative stages. Hazard qualitative evaluation is hazard identification, which reviews the existing toxicological and epidemiological data of a chemical to determine whether it can cause damage to human health, focusing on mutagenicity, carcinogenic and teratogenic effects, and damage to important organs such as the nervous system, liver and kidney. It now evolves into a hazard assessment for humans. In short, we analyze the hazard to local people from the debris flow disaster of August 14, 2010. Instead of your expression ' we want to analyze susceptibility to mudslides' The hazard assessment can more clearly show the risk of debris flow.

 

Q21. Modify the structure of the article

Answer: Thank you so much for your advice. The structure of our manuscript corresponds to the APA-style: there is an introduction to the state of the problem, the objectives of the study are described, the research program (sample, methods and stages of the study), the results of the study and their description, discussion of the results, conclusion are described in detail. Therefore, we write the manuscript accordingly. Corresponding to the title, our idea is that the structure and logic of the current article are perfect.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I am happy to say that the authors did follow all of my comments and did properly revised the manuscript. So I think the paper is acceptable for publication in Applied Sciences.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, 

thank you for your explainations on some points of my review. In my opinion, the manuscript can now be accepted for pubblication in Land MDPI.