Slope Hazard Monitoring Using High-Resolution Satellite Remote Sensing: Lessons Learned from a Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript assesses the feasibility of monitoring slopes in US highway I-77 with Synthetic Aperture Radar. The authors propose tips on how to take advantage of spaceborne remote sensing techniques to monitor slope failure. I found that this study is well-motivated, the workflow is robust, and the conclusion and implications are insightful. Therefore, I see that this work well merits publication after minor corrections, mainly on presentation, as enumerated below.

1. Abstract does not contain the conclusion of this work. The authors need to describe conclusions (e.g., answers to questions in line69-72) in the Abstract for more readability.

2. The authors gave an overview of MTInSAR and the monitoring of US highways. However, the authors do not argue much about previous achievements on slope monitoring by SAR. There should be many studies on slope monitoring with SAR, so the authors should describe more about previous studies in the Introduction to demonstrate the importance of this study and justify the methodology the authors take in this study.

3. In Section 4.2.4, the authors conclude that the L-band SAR is the best to monitor slope instability. L-band is indeed more coherent than C- and X-band satellites, but the spatial resolution of L-band is worse than C- and X-band satellites. Isn't the spatial resolution the matter in this argument?

4. The resolution of Figures 14 and 15 is rather low, and labels are hard to see. Improve these figures for more visibility.

Author Response

Please see the attached pdf for the detailed response. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper provides a procedure to monitor highway slope by using InSAR technology. The manuscript was written well and clear. However, the current version is more than an engineering technical report rather than a scientific article. One of the important parts of a scientific article is to provide discussions on comparing the findings with literature in DISCUSSION. Thus, authors may add more discussions for extending their findings and comparing them with recent literature, for example, talking more about its applicability, implications, and limitations.

Author Response

Please see the attached pdf for the detailed response. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

This manuscript treats an interesting issue, but only concerning “monitoring projects that involves a section of the U.S. highway and the adjacent slopes”, and slightly in contrast with respect to the ambitious title “slope hazard monitoring using high resolution satellite remote sensing: towards a practical and complete solution”.

I would have expected more case studies to make a more general vision to the slope hazard monitoring. Furthermore, several actions extensively explained in the text about the choose of type of satellite and MTInSAR processing/interpretation are already well known in the scientific community that works in slope monitoring by InSAR data. Please in the new version highlights the novelty and the focus of the manuscript.

I suggest to the authors to choose if addressing the manuscript to a review of the slope hazard monitoring by satellite data (for US highway or more general), therefore showing different cases, or to bet on the description of a case study as the US highway I-77 Virginia.

In addition, please re-organize the text (the AoI and available data are not results) and check the readability and the completeness of the figures (sometimes the images and writes are too small, the north arrow or the coordinates are missing, etc).

Author Response

Please see the attached pdf for the detailed response. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper proposes a highway slope monitoring project for a section of US highway in Virginia with the InSAR technique.

Results are fantastic !!!!

moderate English check (use impersonal form instead "we" and check some spelling - plurals, etc. -)

-- Abstract

Use impersonal form instead "we ..."

Line 2.- "This articles...." -> "This paper..."

Line 16.- Remove caption 1.1

Line 34.- Remove caption 1.2

Line 56.- "we ..." use impersonal "This research ..."

Author Response

Please see the attached pdf for the detailed response. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

The Authors discussed about a highway slope monitoring project for a section of US highway I-77 in Virginia with the InSAR technique.

In my opinion the paper has been structured in a clear form. 

There can always be a little fine-tuning of the grammar and sentence structure, but these minor English corrections, although should be addressed, should also not hinder the paper from publication.

I am comfortable saying the paper is in a publishable form. 

Author Response

Please see the attached pdf for the detailed response. Thank you!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the clarifications about the address of the manuscript and the effort for the required modifications. I would to suggest to change again the title to better explain the aim of the manuscript. The new title is too similar to the previous and it doesn’t perfectly reflect the target of the manuscript.

In addition, I don’t understand why you inserted a graph of the number of articles published on MDPI journal. According me the analysis is statistically sound if all the journals are considered. Please clarify and you can chose to improve the analysis or remove the graph.

The figures were improved, I have only one suggestion to simplify the comprehension of the Figure 11. Move the letters “a, b, c, d, e and f” into the images and describe the images by a label in a box or in the caption. In the actually version is simple to confuse the two captions below the couple of images a and b for example.

The same for figure 12, remove the text below the images, add the letter “a and b” in the figure and use the caption. Please check all the images

In Figure 19, please modify the arrows.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please see the attached PDF for a detailed response to your comments. Thank you. 

Regards,

Yuxiao QIN

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf