Piuro Landslide: 3D Hydromechanical Numerical Modelling of the 1618 Event
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please see comments in the attached pdf file. Major revisions are suggested.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
Thank you very much for the article entitled “Piuro Landslide: 3D Hydromechanical Numerical Modelling of the 1618 Event”.
The work is very interesting and points out the role played by geological elements in the 1618 Piuro landslide triggering and to validate the proposed scenario for this event. However, there are some minor issues concerning the layout and the aim of the paper not discussed and/or presented properly. Please note my comments in the attached pdf document.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
I think the authors did a nice job presenting a case study of a historical landslide under a "forensic" point of view in the sense that they focused on reconstructing, in a data-scarce situation, the predisposing factors, trigger and dynamics of the event, by merging physical data and historical accounts. The manuscript is interesting and well written, and certainly insightful.
I have some comments that the authors could consider to enhance their discussion.
- The Piuro Landslide occurred in the XVII century during the coldest (and wettest?) times of the Little Ice Age. I think some consideratins could be made in this respect:
-- the return period of a hydrometeorological even in the past decade might be very different from that of an event of the same magnitude four centuries ago. Can the authors discuss, based on available literature, to what extent the return periods may have changed owing to the different climatic situation?
-- considering a colder climate compared to the current one, and considering that hydro-mechanical parameters of geomaterials are temperature-dependent (see recent works by M. Loche et al.), do the authors expect that the different thermal conditions in the slope may have played some role in the event and/or that model results could be corrected to account for the different temperatures in the past (compared to now and compared to laboratory conditions during mechanical testing)?
- The authors chose values / range of values for the parameters used in the models, in some cases in the light of lab-scale experimental results. Can the authors discuss possible issues in upscaling lab-evaluated parameters to a slope-scale model? Can the authors discuss possible roles of uncertainties/heterogeneities (owing to a small number of lab tests and/or potential lack of representativeness of the landslide mass/basal layer/bedrock?
- The Piuro landslide was a large and (perhaps) long-runout event. In large landslides, thermal weakening of the basal shear zone is a possibility. Have the authors considered it or can they discuss reasons for excluding it?
Author Response
Please see the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
