Remote Sensing and Geophysical Applications in the Dead Sea Region: Insights, Trends, and Advances
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe title is "Remote Sensing Applications in the Dead Sea Region", but it including many geophysical works, suggest the authors change the title to contain this field.
Although the dead sea is well known, most people didn't know the detail and its environment, suggest the authors add a paragraph to introduce the basic information including a map and the history of research and hazard development.
As a hazard is threaten the society, it not only need know its distribution and developing trend, but also people need to know how and what is the controlling factors cause this hazard. Unfortunately, the authors didn't provide this information at all, it's just the summarize of the Remote Sensing technology.
Another part neglected by the authors is the engineering measure for prevention and mitigation, the monitoring and early-warning is an effective way to reduce the hazard, but sometime it also need engineering work to deal with the already occurred disasters.
A little hint, the Artificial Intelligence including the Machine learning, they are not the parallel.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1,
Happy New Year! Thank you for reviewing our paper and for your invaluable feedback.
We've addressed all your comments, and you’ll find the responses in the attached PDF.
Wishing you a joyful and successful 2025!
Best regards,
Damien Closson
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript offers an in-depth review of remote sensing applications in the Dead Sea region, focusing on subsurface dynamics, geohazards such as sinkholes, and environmental changes. It highlights the integration of remote sensing technologies like satellite imagery, airborne LiDAR, InSAR, drone photogrammetry, and ground geophysics to study these processes in one of the world’s most active and sensitive environments. While the study provides valuable insights, it would benefit from incorporating specific examples and quantitative results to better showcase the significance of the research and its potential impact.
The literature review is comprehensive but lacks a critical assessment of the existing methods used in the region. It would be strengthened by addressing the limitations and challenges of these approaches, such as usability and reproducibility.
The methodology section provides useful details about the technologies applied, but it could be improved by discussing how issues like data noise, decorrelation, or environmental instability are handled in practice. This would add depth and clarity to the research process.
In the discussion, the authors effectively explore the practical applications of remote sensing for identifying geological hazards and environmental shifts. However, more data or case studies are needed to support their arguments, particularly in connecting these findings to broader issues such as policy or industrial practices.
The conclusions offer a balanced overview but could benefit from more tangible recommendations for future studies or policy implications. Strengthening the analysis, offering more quantitative support, and highlighting the unique contributions of the research would improve the manuscript, making it a valuable addition to the field.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
Happy New Year! Thank you for reviewing our paper and for your invaluable feedback.
We've addressed all your comments, and you’ll find the responses in the attached PDF.
Wishing you a joyful and successful 2025!
Best regards,
Damien Closson
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Geosciences Editorial Office
Thanks for nominating me to review the “review” article with title: Remote Sensing Applications in the Dead Sea Region: Insights, trends and Advances
The review addresses the up-to-date application of satellite and ground-based techniques to portray the sinkhole phenomena along the Dead Sea region. Applying well-known techniques presents some environmental challenges. The Dead Sea area has unique environmental characteristics that make such a case study rare throughout the world. Therefore, to give more importance to the review article, there are some comments and recommendations that may give more importance to the article.
1- The sinkhole detection problem is more attractive worldwide than the Dead Sea area, therefore, It is recommended to modify the title of the review to: Sinkhole investigations utilizing the RS techniques along the Dead Sea regions, Insights, trends, and Advances.
2- There are many repeating sentences and even paragraphs along the text, which negatively affects the “review” quality.
3- It is better for the readers to unify the discussion strategy for each method, starting with the meaning, spatial and temporal resolution, the possible resources or how you can acquire the data sets, the processing framework and the possibility of integrating with the other methods for maximizing the befits. This can be applied to the three “review” sections: Satellite, ground base, and the integration of different techniques.
4- It is better for readers to support your discussions and demonstrate case studies with an outline figure that can show the ability of the technique and method to resolve the problem.
5- Challenges and Future Directions: it is recommended to give an outline of the utilization of 3D and 4D ground-based techniques in addressing the spatial and temporal sinkhole event.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3,
Happy New Year! Thank you for reviewing our paper and for your invaluable feedback.
We've addressed all your comments, and you’ll find the responses in the attached PDF.
Wishing you a joyful and successful 2025!
Best regards,
Damien Closson
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis is a good review, what I suggest to improve the quality and readibility of the manuscript adding some figures (for instance map of the area and some examples of dta processed) and to rewrite the conclusions in a more effective and incisive manner. This surely helps the readibility by non expert in the field or in the area readers.
Along with the text I noticed repetitions of concepts and sentences, please cut these repetitions.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 4,
Happy New Year! Thank you for reviewing our paper and for your invaluable feedback.
We've addressed all your comments, and you’ll find the responses in the attached PDF.
Wishing you a joyful and successful 2025!
Best regards,
Damien Closson
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe new added figure 1 lack of scale bar, and should give its data source and taking time.
If I wrote this article, I will give some suggestions for the Dead Sea's problems or discussing the effects of current mitigations, this is not the suggestion.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your thorough review of our manuscript, and the insightful comments provided. In the attachment, we address each point raised and outline the revisions made to the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Damien Closson & Djamil Al-Halbouni
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors made a huge effort to improve the quality and the clarity of their review.
I have some small remarks.
- Is it indispensable the systematic use of sub-paragraphs (x.x.) and sub-subparagraphs (x.x.y.)?
- Please indicates refs for Figure 1a-b and Table 1 and 2
- When in the text is indicated sentences such as "recent studies.." or analogues please refer to ref(s)
- Please reorder the reference numbers in the text and consequently in the reference list ( for instance [16] is cited after [17, 18])
- 2. Methods... --> substitute arsenal with variety
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your thorough review of our manuscript, and the insightful comments provided. In the attachment, we address each point raised and outline the revisions made to the manuscript.
Sincerely,
Damien Closson & Djamil Al-Halbouni
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
