How Is the Intensity of Rainfall Events Best Characterised? A Brief Critical Review and Proposed New Rainfall Intensity Index for Application in the Study of Landsurface Processes

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper presents a new index (termed EDf5) to evaluate the intensity of rainfall events. In particular the author has proposed an interesting method based on the rainfall depth in the wettest 5% of the event duration. This can be derived for events of any duration.

The paper has very well structured, but in my opinion results poor in “materials and methods” part. So, I strongly suggest to improve the paragraph n.2.

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for their comments. I have made some modifications of the Methods section, seeking to make the methods clearer. The changes are marked in the attached 'Document with changes marked'.

Reviewer 2 Report

The title of this paper is “How is the intensity of rainfall events best characterized? A brief critical review and proposed new rainfall intensity index for application in the study of landsurface processes.” I recommend a rejection in this paper because this study should be modified.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for their comments.

In response to the suggested changes, I have done the following:

1. Following the reviewer's suggestion, I have revised the Introduction at various places, seeking to make the presentation clearer. Changes are marked in the attached 'Document with changes highlighted;.
2. I have moved the lines suggested by the reviewer to the end of the Introduction section.
3. I have modified the Methods section to make this clearer for the reader.
4. I have corrected the missing bold text in the Table - this change seems to have appeared following submission of the paper, as it was not present in my original copy.
5. I could see no errors in the Figure legends.

Reviewer 3 Report

The main objective of the paper is good, and the paper is well written.

there are few typing/editing erros, and I recommend that the authors include a Conclusion section after the Discussion section, or replace section "4. Discussion" to be "4. Discussion and Conclusions".

Attached is a copy showing the few typing errors and my comments.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for their comments.

I appreciate the reviewer pointing to some typing errors, which have been corrected as suggested.

Also as suggested, the Discussion section has been re-named 'Discussion and Conclusions'.

Changes are marked in the attached 'Document with changes highlighted'.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The title of this paper is “How is the intensity of rainfall events best characterized? A brief critical review and proposed new rainfall intensity index for application in the study of landsurface processes.” I recommend a rejection in this paper because this study should be modified.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

This is just an error, I think. This is simply report No. 1 entered into the editorial system as a duplicate.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

I thank the reviewer once again for their comments.

I have separated the Discussion and Conclusion sections as suggested.

I have summarised the literature review concerning I30 and related indexes in a new Table 1 as suggested. The existing Table 1 has been re-labelled as Table 2 and in-text references to this Table corrected to read Table 2.

I have boosted the description of Methods in the relevant section of the paper, explaining in more detail the data processing.

I hope that this will finalise modifications to the paper.