Community Preparation and Vulnerability Indices for Floods in Pahang State of Malaysia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper focuses on a relevant aspect, namely flood vulnerability in a highly sensitive area from Malaysia. The authors properly selected the applied methodology, which can contribute to widening the existing literature. However, I can make several suggestions to improve the manuscript; see below:

• Please consider rephrasing the Abstract: more details about the results might be involved. 
• The first paragraph of the Introduction provides significant statements regarding flood risk in Malaysia; however, citations are almost completely lacking. Please add current references to this section.
• The IPCC framework of climate vulnerability is mentioned in line 47, without referring to the source; please cite it.
• A general framework concerning flood risk and climate change lacks the Introduction; please consider adding a paragraph about this aspect. In the present form, the article opens "in medias res". Therefore a bit wider perspective would help readers to prepare the ground for further, context-specific paragraphs.
• Line 108-110 - citation is needed.
• The "LVI-IPCC_d" expression is a bit confusing in the 4th equation. According to the manuscript, it is "the LVI for community d using the IPCC vulnerability context." Therefore I suggest rephrasing it to "LVI_IPCCd" or simply "LVI_d". 
• Two "Table 1" can be found in the text. From line 187, it would be called Table 2 and moved to Materials and Methods. The name of the 3rd section might be modified to "Results".
• Please mention some limitations of applying composite indices like LVI in the Discussion.
• The Conclusion section in the present form is too short. Please add a summary of your results to it.
• Finally, a not compulsory remark: please consider adding Figures about the regional patterns of vulnerability components to increase the explanatory power of the paper.

Author Response

Dear Sir, 

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is interesting. Nevertheless, it needs some further improvements. In general, there are still some occasional grammar errors throughout the manuscript, especially the article "the," "a," and "an" is missing in many places; please make a spellchecking in addition to these minor issues. The reviewer has listed some specific comments that might help the authors further enhance the manuscript's quality.

1. Specific Comments

Please include a list of acronyms and abbreviations.

• Introduction
• The objectives should be more explicitly stated.
• The authors need to enrich the background further. In this regard, the following literature might be useful in this regard << Flood susceptibility modelling using advanced ensemble machine learning models>>,you may review other additional relevant references as well.
• What is the novelty of this work?
•  
• Methods
• The methodology limitation should be mentioned.
• All variables should be explained.

 

• Results
• This section is well written.
• Please check the tables and try to present the information more concisely.

 

• Discussion
• This section is well written.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Sir, 

Please see the attachment. 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thanks for the authors' answers, which were detailed. Major revision of the paper has been completely made based on my previous remarks and suggestion; consequently, the manuscript can be accepted in the present form.