Method for Delineating the Formula Limit of the Continental Shelf under the Maximum Area Principle Constraint

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please take into consideration the attached comments in the PDF file and the following suggestions/questions to further enhance the quality of your work:

- Line 64-69: How does the ellipsoid-based method correct for the errors introduced by planar projections?

- Line 160-163:  What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method (FOS+60 nautical miles vs. 1% sediment thickness) and under what circumstances a state might prefer one method over the other?

- Line 168-169: How reliable is the sediment thickness grid data?

- Line 257: It wasn't clear how and why does the binary search method improve computational efficiency in this context?

- Line 306-310: The text states that only corner points are used for computational efficiency in fully available grids. Can you explain why corner points are sufficient and how this choice impacts the accuracy of the delineation?

- Line 456-457: Could you please discuss how the proposed methods ensure compliance with UNCLOS. What specific articles or guidelines of UNCLOS are addressed by these techniques?

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

All the comments regarding the quality of the English language are addressed in the manuscript.

Author Response

All  comments are addressed in the attachment in ascending order by line number.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors

I would like to thank the authors for their work and results.

The main criticism of the work relates to the need to clarify from the beginning of the article the main terms involved in the study (e.g. “foot of the continental slope”) and to maintain their description from a real point of view, in this case, the geological significance in defining the continental shelf area for a coastal country.

The tables and some of the images are unclear.

Suggestions for changes can be found in the attached PDF.

Best regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

All  comments are addressed in the attachment in ascending order by line number.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is technically sound and discusses the range of issues involved in establishing the limit of the continental shelf. . Although I admit I didn’t completely finish slogging through the math in the section 2.2.1 after Equation 6, I trust the logic. The method would be a good tool if automated, but I believe the authors are obliged to add a section to discuss if such (false?) accuracy is justified (or possible?) given, for example, the various ellipsoids that could be used and their approximation to the geoid. (Table 1 claims one part in 200 million and Table 4, claims an accuracy to one part in 15 billion, or one part in 77 million, line 446). This is a firm, objective approach, but such precision may only be worth the effort in the case of serious disputes or exceptionally rare resources and may be compromised by the choice of “buffers” (line 107 et al.), ”delamination accuracy” (line 271) and practical map accuracy. Why does the boundary have to be minimally convex?  Surely, we can handle concavity, and  I can’t help but wonder if judicious  choices (e.g line 411) might adequately replace the need for involved computations. 

Author Response

All  comments are addressed in the attachment in ascending order by line number.

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

No more comments or suggestions from my side.