Understanding Coastal Resilience of the Belgian West Coast

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is very interesting and has a clear potential to be published. However at this point in time is not resembling a proper scientific article. The following major revisions need to be performed. The results are rather unique and is a great benchmark study for future research on integrated coastal zones management among many other aspects of coastal and marine engineering. 

The introduction has a rather unusual non-formal writing, anyway, that is not exactly a problem, albeit the fact that there should be some attention to this, given the fact that it is a scientific article. The intro is exposed in terms of "research questions", which a nice way to mount it and very easy for the reader to follow. What is indeed a problem for the introduction is the lack of references from three points of view:

a) works performed on the topic before, even if for other regions. Also, is the 1D model enough to have a good grasp of the problem? Literature should be discussed here so that there is a proper background for the sections to come. 

b) where is the novelty of the article? The article has novelty, at the very least by addressing a very dynamic and interesting coastline of an Atlantic Nation, that can be further cited for other works related to the topic. Still the novelty needs to be made more clear in the introduction.

c) it would of great added value to link this article and state its importance for fields of neashore and coastal engineering, including, for example marine renewables, that can be of relevance to Belgium. E.g. offshore wind and wave energy and marine renewables in general, among other topics, e.g. DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2019.10.014 DOI: 10.3390/jmse9030297 or DOI: 10.1680/jmaen.2020.173.4.96

Although I highly appreciate the fact that the article is short and straight to the point, I confess that this section 2 clearly needs to be extended. What is the characteristics that define the data provided by the Flemish authorities? etc... authors need to give much more. How is the 1D model mounted, calibrated and validated?

Figure 1 needs to be enlarged.

L85-95 the study area etc could benefit from an image so that the reader can grasp a bit better the practicality of the article.

L99 - which interpolation? reference?

L183 - cubic symbol 3 needs to be formatted

L196 - offshore (correct throughout the article)

Section 3.6 several references come with number and name, year. I believe just the number or name and number would be enough. Please comply with JMSE referencing format. Some of them do not even have a referencing number.

Quality of figure 11 needs to improve.

Discussion seems to frame the results into the literature, but the article has no conclusions in it. Part of this section is in fact conclusions. So this needs to be properly separated and presented as discussion (framing these results into the state-of-the-art) + conclusion (what is a fact from this article and how it benefits future research).

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors

I have read with interest the manuscript entitled “Understanding coastal resilience of the Belgian West Coast” by  Verwaest et al.

I regret to say that the manuscript in the present form is unsuitable for publication.

The Bruun rule  (1962) is now day considered an invalid theory.  Many assumptions underlying the Bruun Rule are known to be wrong and nowhere has the Bruun Rule been sufficiently proven. ( e.g. see   Cooper, J. A. G., & Pilkey, O. H. (2004). Sea-level rise and shoreline retreat: time to abandon the Bruun Rule. Global and planetary change, 43(3-4), 157-171 and other papers published until now).

So, unfortunately, your discussion and conclusion are based on an inconsistent premise.

Moreover, another fundamental parameter (the depth of closure)  is not adequately discussed.  The depth of closure is a matter of debate in the scientific literature. There are different approaches to calculating it (you use the morphological approach).

The problem is that in the same area   different  approaches  give different depths of closure ( e.g. see  Valiente, N.G.; Masselink, G.; Scott, T.; Conley, D. Depth of Closure along an Embayed, Macro-Tidal and Exposed Coast: A Multi-Criteria Approach; Coastal Dynamics: Helsingør, Denmark, 2017; p. 185.)

In consideration of the relevance of this parameter the use of only a morphological approach, it is not enough especially if the goal is to furnish a conceptual model.

The impression of a lack of reflection on handwriting is also confirmed by the few references (18) reported despite the great literature available on these subjects.

I would like to say that the topic of your research faces an issue of great actuality surely suitable for an international audience.

Best regards

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for giving the possibility of making the review of this manuscript. I like this paper and suggest to accept it with minor revision. The main important thing are a difficulties in such research. Improving the knowledge in such area will improve possibility of coastal protection, not only for area presented in the manuscript. There are two things that should be improved in this paper. One is to add citation to the sentence "This sea level rise rate is based on projections for the Belgian coast". There is no source of data (or I miss something). Also the sentence: "decimeters per year to around half a meter per year (Table 3)." should be more precise (0.77 m is not around half meter).

There is also one issue that is not clean. Explanation of figure 9 is not clean. Also adding general information about, for example: "However, at the shallow beach, the LT-model with Bijker (1971) overestimates the sediment transport compared to the Scaldis-Coast model, which might be explained by an underestimation of the wave dissipation or an overestimation of the current velocities" and next one are not clean. It looks like the models are black boxes which is not true.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

In reviewing the manuscript with the title “Understanding coastal resilience of the Belgian West Coast”, I found several difficulties both for the organization of the text and for the discussion of the results. When I accepted the review, I thought I could observe the results of the increasingly rare topo-bathymetric monitoring and the application of a conceptual model, but I was not satisfied. The results of a monitoring would have easily made you describe the study coast (reduced to three lines in the introduction and partially visible in Figure 2). A reader unfamiliar with the Belgian coast may have serious difficulties in understanding the context. The use of a conceptual method, considered reliable, made you forget both to mention the materials you used, and even more the methods that you dispersed in the text. The result is a rather meagre paragraph on materials and methods, which you could quickly rewrite simply by reporting what was done. The subdivision of the stretch of coast into homogeneous zones represented a good solution, but then it was lost in the presentation of the results, making it difficult to read the results. The latter can be re-organized, avoiding excessive fragmentation, so as to make the conceptual model more sustainable. Giving strength to what emerged from the model could provide indications on the resilience of the study coast. Uncertain situations are to be considered, but without detracting from your research. The proposed figures and tables are useful for understanding the proposed text, even if some of them require graphic changes (lack of orientation of the coast, hardly legible text, hardly visible elements, etc.). The list of references is rather limited; it would be better to enrich it to give consistency to the results obtained. By virtue of what has been developed and trusting in compliance with what is required, I recommend major revisions.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors made efforts to address my concerns and the article is now suitable to be published.

Author Response

thank you to reviewer 1 for the support given to publish our work

Reviewer 2 Report

  Dear authors, thank you for the reply. 
 I regret to say your response does not match my requests for deepening. That is also confirmed by the unexpectedly low number of references reported despite the general and complex issue addressed in your research.
I am forced to confirm my first recommendation..

Author Response

We regret not being able to convince reviewer 2 of the value of our work as presented.    

Nevertheless we have taken into further consideration the remark of reviewer 2 about the limited value of Bruun rule. For this reason we have deleted our Bruun rule calculation results from our manuscript (former Table 3). Indeed, it could be wrongly interpreted as predictions. 

Reviewer 4 Report

I am impressed and satisfied by the authors’ substantial improvement of the manuscript “Understanding Coastal Resilience of the Belgian West Coast”. They accepted the suggestions requested, however in the revised version I would like to point out the following considerations:

line 61 is not the best expression for a scientific article

line 163 what is the number of the figure?

lines 170 and 171 it seems that table 1 has been eliminated! It could be useful for the description of bathymetric profiles ... however if it should remain the formatting of the first staff should be improved.

line 335 check the table number and improve the formatting of the table

line 374 The text is interrupted for no reason

line 378 confirm the table number

In Fig. 10 a large flattened arrow has been left, I propose to redraw it.

Author Response

I am impressed and satisfied by the authors’ substantial improvement of the manuscript “Understanding Coastal Resilience of the Belgian West Coast”. Thanks !

They accepted the suggestions requested, however in the revised version I would like to point out the following considerations:

line 61 is not the best expression for a scientific article  we deleted the sentence “we want to solve these questions”

line 163 what is the number of the figure? Figure 3

lines 170 and 171 it seems that table 1 has been eliminated! It could be useful for the description of bathymetric profiles ... however if it should remain the formatting of the first staff should be improved. in fact we did not delete Table 1, but we did delete former Table 3 with Bruun rule application results in response to a comment of another reviewer (reviewer 2) to eliminate possible misunderstanding about the application of Bruun rule

line 335 check the table number and improve the formatting of the table corrected to Table 2 and format improved

line 374 The text is interrupted for no reason we checked but could not find this issue

line 378 confirm the table number correct nr is added

In Fig. 10 a large flattened arrow has been left, I propose to redraw it. we have redrawn this arrow to improve this figure