Anticipated Memories and Adaptation from Past Flood Events in Gregório Creek Basin, Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The presented results are although interesting but generally expected. My recommendations are as follows.

1. Authors should show more clearly the novelty of their research. Is it conceptual or regional novelty? What is a step forward compared to previous studies (not only in your city)?
2. Why did you carry out this study among shopkeepers but not ordinary homeowners? Please explain this issue in the manuscript.
3. The manuscript lacks a section devoted to the limitations and uncertainties of the study. It is unlikely that the interpretation of Figure 4 and subsequent ones is so unambiguous. For example, you didn't take into account the annual income of each store. A shopkeeper with a higher income could/can more easily “survive” floods than his poorer colleague. Consequently, it is more profitable for the latter to either close his store or move to another place in the city. These events may well happen regardless of the "historical memory of the floods". There were/are probably few such cases, but they could/can affect your results (including clustering). Please be more critical of your approaches and results.
4. What specific recommendations could you give to the studied area of ​​the city based on the results obtained?

Additional comments:

1. Figure 2. Write the names of the main streets and indicate the location of the watercourse.
2. Line 129. "... on the extension of the floodplain ..."? In the text, you misinterpret the term floodplain. For example, in the caption in Figure 5 - "The dashed line represents the floodplain of the January 12th 2020 flood." River floodplains are relatively stable landforms. What you have highlighted in the figure with a dashed line is a flooded part of the floodplain in the city. Please use hydrological and geomorphological terms correctly! Check it out in the text as well.
3. Figure 9 and throughout the text. Water level? In comparison with what was the height of this level calculated? The creek water level during non-flood periods? Explain it in the text (Methods).

Author Response

Reviewer #1: We would like to thank the referee for the insightful comments, suggestions. The manuscript has been revised in accordance with your comments, which enabled us to improve its quality. Below you will find answers to more specific comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

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2. Figure 1- More clear

 

     

Author Response

Reviewer #2: We would like to thank the referee for the insightful comments, suggestions. The manuscript has been revised in accordance with your comments, which enabled us to improve its quality. Below you will find answers to more specific comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The topics are interesting. Some comments are listed below.

1. In Fig.2, it's suggested to use different symbols to represent the locations for different events and flood frequency. In short, one for the 2015 event only, one for the 2018 event only, and the other for both events. There is a market around the study area. Why not include the market in the study?

In addition, where is the locations of the 2020 event? Any overlaying of 2015, 2018, and 2020 events?

1. From Fig. 3, it can be told that the last questionnaire is about the information of the flood gates of 2015 and 2018 events but not the 2020 events. How do these three events compare?
2. In Fig. 4, what does the existing time equal to -1 mean? Log scale? In the y-axis, there are two 1s in the figure. Why?
3. Line 250, "being respectively 870 cm, 2.815 cm and 3.830 cm". According to the format of the paper, it should be 870 cm, 2,815 cm and 3,830 cm, apart from the survey of all samples of each event. It's suggested to compute the average or total gate heights for those who experienced the three or two events. Those groups experienced more than one flood and may increase their flood gate height accordingly.
4. Fig 8 shows the sum of the flood gates' height separated by the streets for different streets. However, since a small sample is collected for each street, it may not so be representative of the actual value.
5. The survey was not conducted immediately for the events of 2015 and 2018. Do they have a good memory of the event of 2015? Maybe it's better to compare the 2018 and 2020 events mainly. And additional information can be added for the trend for the three events.
6. Discussion is needed for future researchers. What can be improved for the future and limitations of this study? Are the results of Figure 4 similar to that of reference [7]? Do the two adopts the two variables for analysis?
7. What is the main contribution of this study? It's easy to guess that the store will increase the gate's height if the flood becomes severer. If Figure 4 is new, the authors should have more information on this figure

Author Response

Reviewer #3: We would like to thank the referee for the insightful comments, suggestions. The manuscript has been revised in accordance with your comments, which enabled us to improve its quality. Below you will find answers to more specific comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

My remaining recommendations.

1. Please write the names of the streets and the studied stream on the map in Figure 5.
2. Remove the outer frame of Figure 7.
3. In the title of the manuscript and throughout the text, write "Gregorio Creek basin" instead of "Gregorio basin". The basin is a broader concept than what refers to rivers, streams, etc.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions, I've worked and I finished according to your requests:

1. Please write the names of the streets and the studied stream on the map in Figure 5. (Done)
2. Remove the outer frame of Figure 7. (Done)
3. In the title of the manuscript and throughout the text, write "Gregorio Creek basin" instead of "Gregorio basin". The basin is a broader concept than what refers to rivers, streams, etc. (Done)

Reviewer 3 Report

All comments are addressed. 

Figure 2 shows the 52 stores interviewed by Abreu. And the authors interviewed 23 of them later. It is suggested to use different legned for the two.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions, I've worked and I finished according to your request:

Figure 2 shows the 52 stores interviewed by Abreu. And the authors interviewed 23 of them later. It is suggested to use different legend for the two. (Done)