Degradation Risk Assessment: Understanding the Impacts of Climate Change on Geoheritage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is generally well presented and described. However, I have a few corrections (see annotated pdf) and some concern on the terminology in Table 1 and the criteria for risk assessment exposed in section 3.1 and table 2.

Fig. 2 is not cited in the main text. Place a cite in lines 168-169

I have several concerns on Table 1 and associated text in the following sections:
(1) I do not agree with such a term/definition scheme, I think there is some misleading concepts:
Vulnerability cannot be defined as a risk but s factor of risk, together with hazard and exposure. See e.g. CRICHTON, D. (1999): The Risk Triangle. In Natural Disaster Management. Jon Ingleton (Ed.), Tudor Rose, London.
(2) I would suggest to include an example of each concept as you have done with "anthropogenic vulnerability" (mining, quarrying, collection). This will help disambiguating "natural vulnerability" from "fragility" and "anthropogenic vulnerability" from "public use".
(3) within "anthropogenic vulnerability" I would consider not only that related to economic values but also to scientific value, i.e. sampling for scientific purposes which is sometimes unfortunately performed by geoscientist, the so called geovandalism (MacFadyen, 2010; Druguet et al., 2013). This also concerns lines 257-262 of the manuscrip and Table 2. 
- MacFadyen, C.C.J., 2010, The vandalizing effects of irresponsible core sampling: a call for a new code of conduct: Geology Today, v. 26, pp. 146-151.
- Druguet E, Passchier CW, Pennacchioni G, Carreras J, 2013, Geoethical education: a critical issue for geoconservation. Episodes 36:11–18.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for the comments and suggestions provided for the improvement of our manuscript. We have taken them in serious consideration and revised the manuscript accordingly. With reference to the requested revisions, we are replying below (highlighted in red).

Fig. 2 is not cited in the main text. Place a cite in lines 168-169. This work proposes an inventory for northern Malta, isn't it? Is there a mistake in the quoted reference?

Figure 2 is now cited in the main text. The work cited is now correct and contains part of the unpublished work on the Maltese geosites inventory.

I have several concerns on Table 1 and associated text in the following sections:
(1) I do not agree with such a term/definition scheme, I think there is some misleading concepts:
Vulnerability cannot be defined as a risk but s factor of risk, together with hazard and exposure. See e.g. CRICHTON, D. (1999): The Risk Triangle. In Natural Disaster Management. Jon Ingleton (Ed.), Tudor Rose, London.

In order to fulfil the request, we have substituted the term “risk” with ‘sensitivity’. Nevertheless, we must say that we used the term “risk” because it was also referred in papers on this topic such as García-Ortiz E., Fuertes-Gutiérrez I., Fernández-Martínez E., 2014, Concepts and terminology for the risk of degradation of geological heritage sites: fragility and natural vulnerability, a case study. In our manuscript we used “risk” as a generic term, not exclusively related to hazards due to natural disasters.

(2) I would suggest to include an example of each concept as you have done with "anthropogenic vulnerability" (mining, quarrying, collection). This will help disambiguating "natural vulnerability" from "fragility" and "anthropogenic vulnerability" from "public use".

In order to fulfil the request, we added examples for ‘public use’. On the table we didn’t add any example for natural vulnerability and fragility because the examples depend on the physical characteristics of the geosite. For example: regarding the public use, vandalism is a damage for every geosite. Regarding natural vulnerability and fragility, the examples depend of the physical composition of the site.   

(3) within "anthropogenic vulnerability" I would consider not only that related to economic values but also to scientific value, i.e. sampling for scientific purposes which is sometimes unfortunately performed by geoscientist, the so called geovandalism (MacFadyen, 2010; Druguet et al., 2013). This also concerns lines 257-262 of the manuscrip and Table 2. 
- MacFadyen, C.C.J., 2010, The vandalizing effects of irresponsible core sampling: a call for a new code of conduct: Geology Today, v. 26, pp. 146-151.
- Druguet E, Passchier CW, Pennacchioni G, Carreras J, 2013, Geoethical education: a critical issue for geoconservation. Episodes 36:11–18.

Thank you for sharing with us these precious references. In order to fulfil the request, we added (in line 268) ‘comprising damages undertaken in the name of scientific advancement by irresponsible scientist’. We decided to not add a third parameter because it was already included as private interest.

We would like to thank you for your precious comments and points of discussion. Thank you for the corrections on the english language and style reported on the pdf version.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript covers an interesting topics that is necessary to develop within geoheritage and geoconservation studies and activities. Based on the detailed review and previously used criteria in sevreal assessment methods, authors presented and applied a modified method for assessing geosites from the degradation point of view in Malta archipelago.

This method, if applied in different ambients, has a potential to become an important part of any geoconservation strategy, so the contribution both to scholars and practitioners is very important.

I have only serveral points to clarify and discuss:

• line 222 - I understand why the fragility was excluded from the assessment, but for a reader who is not familiar with geoheritage and geoconservation, it would be desirable to justify the exclusion of fragility criteria from the assessment method in more detail
• line 245 - the value 0 given to sites affected by no natural processes - I think that this is practically impossible, because natural processes always somehow affect a geosite (even if situated in such extreme conditions like Maltese seashore) - please justify this criterion and its scoring
• line 253 - how do you define "proximity"? Is it similar to the "human proximity" criterion?
• in some aspects, the anthropogenic vulnerability and public use overlap - e.g. private interest (fossil collecting) may overlap with degrading use. Please, specify in more detail why did you decide to use such division (maybe the "public use" could be included in anthropogenic vulnerability? - just a point for discussion)
• Table 3 - classification of the risk level (low - average - high - very high) - this is based on the expert estimation? Or does this classification come from any statistical approaches?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for the comments and suggestions provided for the improvement of our manuscript. We have taken them in serious consideration and revised the manuscript accordingly. With reference to the requested revisions, we are replying below (highlighted in red).

line 222 - I understand why the fragility was excluded from the assessment, but for a reader who is not familiar with geoheritage and geoconservation, it would be desirable to justify the exclusion of fragility criteria from the assessment method in more detail

In order to fulfil the request, the text (line 222) was modified as following, in order to clarify the concept: ‘In some cases, geosites are important due to the evidence of the natural process involved in their creation. The constant activity as geosites may lead to evolve more complex features and increase their value until the construction of new landforms. It is also an ethical issue to stop the activity of natural processes and interrupt the natural evolution of the sites.’

line 245 - the value 0 given to sites affected by no natural processes - I think that this is practically impossible, because natural processes always somehow affect a geosite (even if situated in such extreme conditions like Maltese seashore) - please justify this criterion and its scoring

As reported in the main text (line 249) ‘The value of 0 is given to the sites affected by no one extrinsic natural process’ meaning that 0 is given to sites that are affected by natural processes (of course), but when this natural process is involved in its creation. In our case, we gave the score 0 to geosites when the natural processes involved are only the ones involved in the creation of the geosite and when other possible acting natural processes were irrelevant (as roots development on a sinkhole).

line 253 - how do you define "proximity"? Is it similar to the "human proximity" criterion? In some aspects, the anthropogenic vulnerability and public use overlap - e.g. private interest (fossil collecting) may overlap with degrading use. Please, specify in more detail why did you decide to use such division (maybe the "public use" could be included in anthropogenic vulnerability? - just a point for discussion)

The two categories don’t overlap because the anthropogenic vulnerability is always connected to the recognized value of the geological characteristics of the geosite. In the case of public use, the public is not aware of the geological value of the geosite.

Table 3 - classification of the risk level (low - average - high - very high) - this is based on the expert estimation? Or does this classification come from any statistical approaches?

The classification is based on experts’ estimation. In order to fulfil this request, we added this information (line 305).

Reviewer 3 Report

Areas of historical or cultural value are often areas that need to be preserved, in this way the article makes an important contribution to the knowledge of possible environmental impacts with climate change in the preservation areas of the Island of Malta. English is very good, the methodology is correct, current and relevant references.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for the comments provided for our manuscript.