Study of Current- and Wave-Induced Sediment Transport in the Nowshahr Port Entrance Channel by Using Numerical Modeling and Field Measurements

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Most of the questions I posed have been reasonably answered. I undestand that sedimentological data are hard to be collected now, but integration is clear.

Figure hare clearer.

Author Response

Thank you for the reviewer's helpful comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

This could be an intersting case study which might be of interest to many readers but there would seem to be a long way to go before any reader could take away reliable information. The main conclusions and the abstract are only partly supported by the information provided but the authors could significantly improve the paper.

1. There are significant weaknesses in the english including non agreement between subject and verb (e.g. Line 72) and continuous absence of articles.
2. I suggest the authors replace upstream and downstream with updrift and downdrift as the later refer to sediment transport which is generally what authors are referring to.
3. The authors include a little too much extraneous material. For example, there is no need to talk about methods not used (ie data sets not utilized) or provide a discours on the MIKE software library.
4. The authors make far too many speculative statements which are really not backed up by their results. eg. lines 231-234 (lines 234-236 describe exactly the OPPOSITE of what is seen in the data).
5. The authors need to back up more of their statements with quantitative evidence where possible. (line 198-199 is one example of many possibilities). Don't tell us their are good correlations, tell us what the correlations are. 
6. Not clear how the authors are getting skill scores on vector quantities? Also see no report on direction skill.
7. The authors seek to validate their model but have done very little to validate the sediment transport predictions. The model shows severe coastal erosion to the west of the port. Is there any evidence to support this (maps suggest it is a zone of deposition)?
8. There is nothing in Figure 22 which supports the delivery of riverine sediment to the port. There really is no support for this claim ANYWHERE.
9. Figure 25 suggests that there is a year of sediment transport data. The authors could do a vector average of transport over the year and provide clear evidence of what the sediment transport pathways are. I do not think it will support half of their conclusions. 
10. Of the conclusions presented, 1 is circumstantial at best although data exists to prove it both from the model and the data. #6 has no evidence and 7 has very little support (not enough to really be a conclusion). 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for the insightful comment in the first and second review. It has been tried to modify the paper based on the comments. The detailed point by point response to comments, and also revised paper are attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have elected to revise the paper largely by modifying discussion and conclusions rather than performing any new analysis. While this is an acceptable strategy, it has at least two consequences which must be acknowledged. The first is that the quality of the resulting publication is significantly weakened so it is up to the editors to decide whether the submission is still of sufficient consequence to be published in JMSE. The second is that the conclusions, which are designed to be findings which can be drawn from the work provided in the manuscript, must be reduced. The authors have already acknowledged this by removal of (former) conclusion 7 but this is still not sufficient. While the authors may have expert opinions on what is happening in and around the port, they must restrict themselves to what is shown by their results. To be accepted, I would suggest the following additional modifications to the conclusion section:

Conclusion #1 -Remove this. You provided evidence consistent with this fact but by no means showing it. The closest you could come to this statement is… “A concurrent observation of winds and currents is consistent with wind stress being the dominant control over currents.” which is hardly a conclusion.

Concusion #2 The only place in the paper where current directions are shown are in figures 22, 23 and of those, a minority are going E-W. Remove sentence starting with Correspondingly.

Conclusion #5. Both Figure 19 and Figure 22 suggest you are WAY overselling this point. The only recirculation eddy in figure 19 is just North of the reclaimed section of the port which is far away from river inputs of sediment and the only predominantly eastward current in Figure 22 is T8. At best, one could write… An intermittent eddying circulation was formed directly in front of eastern section of Nowashar… Any sediment arriving in front of the reclamation land could be carried by this circulation towards…

Conclusion #6. Again, the only results which would support the 2^nd half of this conclusion is figure 22 and currents in T14, T15 provide no support for any significant transport of sediment into the harbour. The second half of this conclusion must be removed.

Author Response

Thanks for the insightful comment. As suggested by the respected reviewer, the conclusion part of the manuscript has been modified.

In addition, the English editing of the paper is re-reviewed and also double checked by the “Grammarly” package. It has been tried to modify the minor editing errors.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx