Investigation of Barrier Island Highway and Marsh Vulnerability to Bay-Side Flooding and Erosion

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The revised manuscript is very interesting and generally complies with journal standards. The result obtained is valuable. It makes use of the scientific method and arrives at pertinent conclusions.

It would be enriching for readers unfamiliar with the study area if the authors could provide information on the communities near the roads studied.

Is there an exposed population near the hazard studied? Or are they distant from the road? Is this road a main road?

What is the sensitivity of communities and populations to damage or loss when roads are damaged?

In the context of the study, did the authors identify other vulnerabilities, which together with the one studied could make the process of adaptation to climate change in the study area more complex? If the answer is positive, questions could be left open in this respect.

Could this study contribute to risk management and coastal management programs in the studied area?

Please, In the list of references, insert [1] at the top of the list.

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for carefully considering our submission and for their thoughtful questions and constructive suggestions, which have helped us to improve the paper. We have revised the manuscript per the reviewers’ comments, and we believe that the manuscript has improved from the peer review process. Changes to the updated manuscript include text additions and edits to clarify our methodology and provide additional context about the study area. We have also revised the discussion to expand upon the novelty of this study and implications of these results. Please find our detailed responses to specific reviewer comments in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

• The title does not quite seem to match the objectives of the project as the objectives seem focused on the marsh. I would consider revising the title.
• Including more literature on barrier island vulnerability might be interesting as the literature review is primarily focused on fragility curves which does not seem to quite match the objectives.
• Figure 1: The site location box is a little hard to see in the two left figures.
  • I am not sure I quite understand the contours why are there two contours for each year?
  • It would be nice to have some indications regarding the locations mentioned in the text (Oregon Inlet, etc.)
• Why was a Gaussian distribution selected here? Are we not principally discussing extreme events (Hurricanes) which would be more realistically capturing with extreme values analysis?
• Selection 3.5: I am not sure I quite understand the fragility curves, so two set of fragility curves were developed? One for flooding and one for erosion?
• How were the marsh states selected? Was it based on previous classifications or classifications developed by the authors?
• Section 4.1: It might be interesting to have a short discussion on the influence of the road on marsh health. Is their any evidence of the road increasing erosion due to lack of room to adjust to erosion?
• Section 4.2: I know the model is described in another paper, but it would be helpful to include a little more information on the calibration and validation as well as the selection of the synthetic storms as it is not clear.
• Line 528: To me, it is not immediately clear the advantage of the fragility curves as since data already exists on road closures; were they not already closing to road during unsafe conditions?
• Section 5.3: It is a little unclear the novelty of the study as it is unclear the broad applicability of some of the conclusions. It would be helpful to expand a little further on how these methods could be applied elsewhere (or what data is necessary to apply it elsewhere).

Author Response

Thank you for carefully considering our submission and for their thoughtful questions and constructive suggestions, which have helped us to improve the paper. We have revised the manuscript per the reviewers’ comments, and we believe that the manuscript has improved from the peer review process. Changes to the updated manuscript include text additions and edits to clarify our methodology and provide additional context about the study area. We have also revised the discussion to expand upon the novelty of this study and implications of these results. Please find our detailed response to reviewer comments in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see attached

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for carefully considering our submission and for their thoughtful questions and constructive suggestions, which have helped us to improve the paper. We have revised the manuscript per the reviewers’ comments, and we believe that the manuscript has improved from the peer review process. Changes to the updated manuscript include text additions and edits to clarify our methodology and provide additional context about the study area. We have also revised the discussion to expand upon the novelty of this study and implications of these results. Please find attached our detailed responses to specific reviewer comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Review round 2 attached

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We appreciate the reviewer's timely and thoughtful review of our revised manuscript, and are grateful for the opportunity to further improve the clarity and contribution of our research. Please see our responses to the reviewer's comments in the attached PDF.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf