Estimating Vertical Land Motion from Remote Sensing and In-Situ Observations in the Dubrovnik Area (Croatia): A Multi-Method Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper estimating vertical land motion by InSAR, GNSS and sea level changes, which has the following questions: First, the LOS irection deformation obtained by InSAR can be transformed into vertical direction deformation by corresponding formula, which can be used to represent vertical land motion, but this article did not convert, just use LOS direction; Second, whether the change of sea level can represent the vertical movement of the ground, how to know whether to exclude interference from other factors such as global warming; Third, this paper just list the data obtained by different methods, there is no more in-depth discussion, and lacks scientific significance; Finally, in the abstract and conclusion of the article, the language is not concise enough. Compared with areas like Beijing and Shanghai, the amount of settlement in Dubrovnik area is quite small, the probability of causing a disaster is relatively small.

1. Line11: What is the relationship between the diversity of flora and fauna and vertical land motion, why it is mentioned in the abstract, but there is no specific explanation in the full text.
2. Line 12-14:Just list the data obtained by different methods, there is no more in-depth discussion, the article has no depth, and lacks scientific significance.
3. Line 26-28: What is the link between the change of sea level and vertical land motion,it is necessary to explain this in detail.
4. Line 47-50: In this section, it is introduced that the area has frequent earthquakes, but it failed to explain how the earthquakes affect the settlement and the reasons of the settlement in Dubrovnik area.
5. Line 120-123:The change in sea level may be attributed to many reasons such as the amount of precipitation and climate change, and global warming will also cause sea level rise. How to determine that sea level changes are only due to land vertical motion.
6. Figure 1:The elements in the picture 1 are not explained clearly, such as what the pink dots represent.
7. Figure 4:Each small picture is best represented by a,b,c,d separately. In subplot 2 and 3, what is the meaning of the different colored polylines, it is best to clearly note in the figure.
8. Line164: the land subsidence of the whole area up to −5 mm/yr, which is the maximum?
9. Line 170-171: In figure 5, the base map can be replaced with satellite imagery, and the northeast of the old town should be circled on the map. In addition, the land subsidence was attributed to the artificial impact, which lacks evidence.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript ID :
Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292)

Title: Estimating vertical land motion from remote sensing and in-situ observations in Dubrovnik area (Croatia): a multi-method case study

1. Overall I find the work interesting. Abstract however needs to be more concrete.
2. The ‘Abstract’ must be revised and improved, in order to be better correlated with the content of the paper and objectives.
3. Please consider that the results should represent the most important part of the ‘Abstract’. You should address briefly the obtained results. 
4. The introduction is too short some important references are missing 
5. Discussion is expected to be more intense, focused on comparisons with other approaches and authors. It is shorter than the Conclusion.Figure 5 and 4 : try to explain more  please .
6. Conclusions need to improve your research article brings highly interesting and important data concerning estimating vertical land motion from remote sensing and in-situ observations. I do appreciate the variety of analytical instruments for the estimating vertical land motion with remote sensing applied in your project.
7. No need to add part of Abbreviations, include it in the text paper
8. The references must be prepared using instructions for authors.
9. I would like to thank the authors for the effort and scope of the article. It presents an interesting topic  to readers. Regarding the manuscript, the current form needs major revisions. Some aspects need to improve (ex. abstract, introduction, conclusion).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

First of all, I would like to thank the Editorial Board of Remote Sensing for the opportunity to participate in the review of this work, as well as the authors themselves for trusting this journal as a means of disseminating the results of their research.

The paper addresses a topic of undoubted interest such as vertical displacement analysis (VLM), presenting an interesting application case in Dubrovnik. It is evident that this is a topic that has been addressed in a large number of publications (well collected in the bibliographic references included in this paper), but that it contributes an element that in my opinion is of great interest, such as the joint analysis of different methodologies (InSAR, GNSS, sea-level differences) that provide a much more global vision of the problem. Undoubtedly, this joint treatment element gives a special practical interest to this contribution.

On the other hand, I would like to congratulate the authors on the structure of the paper, its organization, and the high quality of its presentation. It is a paper that is easy to read, at the same time that it reflects the important workload associated with it, and that in each case the necessary information is provided for the possible repeatability of the work in other study areas by the students. Remote Sensing readers.

For all the above, I consider that this work is susceptible to being published in the current format in Remote Sensing, especially taking into account the interest of the joint and integrated use of the different techniques for estimating the VLM and its presented practical application.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article has been carefully revised against the comments. The content is as follows:

First, the figures and explanations in the article have been standardized and modified, inappropriate content has been cut;

Second, the LOS direction deformation have been converted to vertical direction land motion, and given the corresponding formula;

Third, the author explains my doubts about the measurement of sea level change, that the tide gauges capture the sea level trend with integrated vertical land motion, while the satellite altimeter captures sea level that is independent of VLM, so I think the method is reasonable;

Finally, the author’s conclusion summarizes the advantages of the combination of different methods for studying vertical motion on the ground, which finally found their own reasonable positioning.

To sum up, I think the article can be published.

Reviewer 2 Report

I would like to thank the authors for the effort and scope of the article. It presents an interesting topic to readers. Regarding the manuscript, the current form accept for publication