Beach Nourishment Alternatives for Mitigating Erosion of Ancient Coastal Sites on the Mediterranean Coast of Israel
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the improved version of the article. There are some comments left. Please found them in the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
We thank reviewer #1 for his helpful comments.
Our responses on the relevant changes follow:
Extensive editing of English language and style required.
Response - It should be noted that the editing was made by English mother tongue editor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 120-128: Unclear where description of the second coast part starts.
Response - We added Figure 2 in the sentence to make it clearer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 194. Is it known what is long or/and short-term environmental impact to the native biota? Is it impact are identical to different biota type? Later you provide negative impact only for the turtles, but here they are not mentioned.
Response - In line 189 two species of turtles are mentioned since there are records of their appearance on the beach. The description of short and long terms environmental impact on the native biota in lines 194-201 refer to the biota in the Tel area. In paragraph 4.4 we distinguish between the impacts on different types of biota.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stability index calculations should be presented in the method section, but not in the result section. Now to understand how was calculated stability index we should read Pranzini et al. 2018 and 2020.
Response - We think that the Stability index calculations is part of the result section as it is the outcome of the probability approach which is represented in the method section. In lines 320-329 (now 343-357) we clarify how the calculation was made. In each row heading of Table 1 there is explanation of how the row values were calculated. The values of Sfi and Cni are explained in equation 2 and in line 326 respectively.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for the more detail description of all 4 nourishment cases. But it should be in methods section (as now from method section, it is look like you analyse only 1 pebble alternative). Where also can be described methodology for the operation and direct cost estimation.
Response - The evaluation of all four nourishment cases in paragraph 4.1 is the outcome of the Si calculation, volume of sediment and the alternatives operation cost. Therefore, we included it in the result and discussion section. We moved lines 274-278 to paragraph 3.1 in order to clarify that the pebble alternative is one of five alternatives that were evaluated in the present study. We supplied more details of the pebble alternative in paragraph 3.3 in order to support this alternative with similar experience in the Israeli coast. we also moved paragraph 4.2 to paragraph 3.4 in the method section as the reviewer suggested.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 311. Offshore Ashkelon – Operations and costs as for Ashkelon Port. Why? It is unclear why you get such result?
Response - The operations costs are similar for the two alternatives as they have the same dredging process and the similar distance from the imported area to the Tel Ashkelon beach. This estimation was given by the EDT Marine Construction operator.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 302. Detailed operations and direct cost estimation for the alternatives are as follows: in all 4 cases you provide just final cost, but how you get this numbers still unclear?
Response - All the alternatives have detailed activities, but the operators gave us the global cost for all the activities needed for each project. We mentioned the operator's reference in the specific paragraph.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 386. You provide environmental negative impacts on the turtles, based on what? Is it yours experiment results, or conclusions based on the literature?
Response - The negative impacts concerning the turtles based on the literature and on experience from other nourishment projects done on the Israeli coast. We added clarification in paragraph 4.3.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Line 396: Sediment for a soft solution for mitigating beach erosion should be derived mainly from the nourishment aims. Unclear sentence. What do you mean? How sediments can be derived from the nourishment aims?
Response - For recreational beach compatible sand with the native one is mandatory, for protecting railways or roads near the shore, gravel or other coarse sediment is sufficient, for native gravel beach, pebble with sand might be proper sediment solution. We rewrote conclusion 1 to make it clearer.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd and 3dr conclusions looks about the same. Please reword them if they have different meanings. And there are missing conclusion about the potential environmental impact.
Response – We reword the conclusion section.
Reviewer 2 Report
Although the current manuscript has improved compared to the first version, I find some aspects that can improve the present work before its publication.
The introduction is still too extensive. From my point of view, some sections could be simplified; for example, section 2.4 and 2.5 can be cut or removed.
Regarding the results and discussion, sections 4.2 and 4.3 should, in turn, be more concise and reduced. In section 4.3, most of the statements are hypotheses that are little discussed or demonstrable; you can remove some of them, or include a reference from other authors in case you want to add.
Relative to the conclusions of the work, the negative environmental impacts of pebble nourishment are not entirely clear as a definitive conclusion should be.
Author Response
We thank reviewer #2 for his helpful comments. Our responses on the relevant changes follow:
The introduction is still too extensive. From my point of view, some sections could be simplified; for example, section 2.4 and 2.5 can be cut or removed.
Response - The two sections were considerably shortened. Paragraph 2.5 includes only the present environmental situation of the discussed site.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regarding the results and discussion, sections 4.2 and 4.3 should, in turn, be more concise and reduced. In section 4.3, most of the statements are hypotheses that are little discussed or demonstrable; you can remove some of them, or include a reference from other authors in case you want to add.
Response - These two chapters were merged and concise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Relative to the conclusions of the work, the negative environmental impacts of pebble nourishment are not entirely clear as a definitive conclusion should be.
Response - We shortened the negative environmental impacts and included them in the conclusions.
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript can be accepted as it is.
Author Response
We thank reviewer #2 for his support.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Author,
Thank you fro the improved version of the article.
Author Response
We thank reviewer #1 for his support.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear author,
Thank you for the interesting historical description of your study side. But your article should be seriously rewritten. As it is now, it is unclear what was your research about. In title you pointed that article will be about beach nourishment alternatives. You named that since 2011 beach nourishment become the preferred solution for mitigating coastal erosion along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, but didn’t provide any further information why such design was taken? In method section Stability Index, coast alternatives calculations should be more specified. Also, you forget describe how will be evaluated ecological impact of the beach nourishment.
Your task is: The present study analyses sand and pebble alternatives for nourishment of the eroded beach in the vicinity of the Columns wall in Tel Ashkelon. In methods you describe nourishment methods at the Apollonia Crusader castle, also present some pictures from this side. But how your study site looked after the nourishment? Or it just the theoretical calculations? It still unclear from your article.
Result section actually are missing. This two tables just present your calculations, but not main resultas according you task. So please describe results according your task. How was evaluated …physical, economic and ecological impacts... of the beach nourishment?
Yours presented discussion is not based on you results, and present some general information on ecological parameters of your study site.
From line 363 I finally found information suitable for the result section, but no discussion related to this result. Conclusions are unclear, and they are not related to your main task. So, or task should be more specified, or conclusion written in more appropriate way.
Your article might be very interesting and valuable for the coastal engineers, but not as it looks now. I hope to see improved version of this article in the future.
Reviewer 2 Report
This article asses beach nourishment alternatives of ancient coastal sites of Israel. The work is well developed and described, it has a scientific interest, mainly of local interest, for this coastal área.
The research is interesting to publish, however, I indicate below some suggestions that can improve the current manuscript:
-The abstract indicates that is analyzed each alternative, evaluated the cost, and assessed the potential environmental impacts. Regarding environmental impacts, the abstract gives an idea that makes an assessment quantifies or analyzes this impact, but the work makes a revision of these aspects based on previous works and data or hypotheses. Objective results are hardly extracted relative to the influence on the environment.
-The introduction and Study area sections are vast, but the physical and morphological setting lacks some fundamental aspects such as Tidal range, wind, and wave climate or morphological impacts more detailed. This physical setting is essential and should be more detailed. Severe erosion of 10-20 m (shoreline has retreated) How many meters exactly? the coast south of the harbor had widened by dozens of meters?. Here more precise values ​​are crucial for a better understanding of the work.
-Figure 1 should indicate which is the nourishment study site, better located on the map. Fig 1 shows letters with several colors and sizes, which makes their understanding more confusing this figure.
-The photograph information compile in Figures 3, 4, and 5 are repeated, these 3 figures could be summarized in other one's images (For example include 2 instead of 3 figures).
-The results section must be rewritten. The information contained in tables 1 and 2 is the fundamental outcome of the research but is poorly explained in the text. The stability index (Si) definition and computation results should be very well described in this section. The Alternatives Evaluation section (Section 5.2) could become part of the results instead of the discussion.
Finally, this research should give more relevance to monitoring and field measurements, which are scarce in this area. This aspect is crucial for future strategies and decision making in this coastal sector.
Reviewer 3 Report
I have red the manuscript and I think it is a good study case that could be published after few amendments.
Here you have general and specific recommendations.
Grain size of borrow sand is well defined but no comments are done regarding borrow and native sand colour, this aspect is important and has ecological and tourist implications.
Line 41, “anthropogenic development”, please give details.
Figure 1, I guess it is “Coastal pier” and not “jetty” since it is on columns.
Line 62, erase “background”.
Line 68, 1980s
Line 93, something is missing…ancient coastal site “protection”?
Line 117, is pier
Line 137, I suggest to present a wave rose that could be inserted in figure 1.
Line 142, erase “m” after parenthesis.
Line 197, “There is also infauna in the sand”, please add something more....species, etc…
Line 209, please explain in which part of the beach samples were collected? Beach face, beach step, backshore, etc. Composite samples were obtained?
Lines 238-240, “imported” sounds strange better use “borrow”
Line 238, instead of this: “than the smallest native sand” is probably better to say “ than the smallest granulometric fraction of the native sand”.
Line 269, erase “process”.
Lines 277-278, I suggest to use “borrow” area and not “gathering” area.
Line 279, is “operations”.
Line 291 and 294, number equations
Table 1, make some adjustment in the first line to have names not cut.
Line 340, “According to (X)”..is not correctly cited.
Line 352, the concepts mentioned in this point are not totally novel….have been partially already said before.
Line 406, I suggest to say “a more stable”.
