Analysis of the risk associated with coastal flooding hazards: a new historical extreme storm surges dataset for Dunkirk, France

Hamdi, Yasser; Garnier, Emmanuel; Giloy, Nathalie; Duluc, Claire-Marie; Rebour, Vincent

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-3383-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-3383-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-18-3383-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 12

Research article

|

21 Dec 2018

Research article |

| 21 Dec 2018

Analysis of the risk associated with coastal flooding hazards: a new historical extreme storm surges dataset for Dunkirk, France

Yasser Hamdi, Emmanuel Garnier, Nathalie Giloy, Claire-Marie Duluc, and Vincent Rebour

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Final revised paper (published on 21 Dec 2018)
Preprint (discussion started on 05 Dec 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Jan 2018
- AC1: 'cover letter and point-by-point response to reviewers', Yasser Hamdi, 16 Feb 2018
RC2: 'Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Jan 2018
- AC2: 'cover letter and point-by-point response to reviewers', Yasser Hamdi, 16 Feb 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (27 Feb 2018) by Ira Didenkulova

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (02 Mar 2018) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Mar 2018) by Ira Didenkulova

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (02 Mar 2018)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General comments
The authors corrected a number of syntax errors in the new version, and answered to several questions. However, my main concerns remain, and are even amplified. To put it in a nutshell, after reading both the manuscript and response to reviewers, I realize that I am not able to answer this simple question: what is really the benefit of this paper for the scientific community? I think that this work would be helpful (and thus could be published) if at least one of the three following conditions was satisfied:
1-if the method was a first of its kind. Unfortunately, using historical information over long periods and showing that outliers are not exceptional has already be shown previously (e.g. Bulteau et al 2015, Hamdi et al 2015).
2-if the authors were really addressing " the technical feasibility" of using long-term historical information to improve the statistical assessment of extreme water level return periods, as they suggest in the abstract. Unfortunately, as I already mentioned in the first review, nothing is said about some of the main challenges for this kind of approach: how to deal with old data uncertainties? How to deal with the evolution of bathymetry, topography, land cover of the studied area? To what extent can we be sure that events which occurred hundreds of years ago are representative of the actual risk level? No new information/discussion is brought on these topics in this paper.
3-if the results were considered as "final", and could thus be used as such for coastal management in the area of interest. I thought it was the case when I first read this paper. But the authors confirmed that more historical data have been collected and were not used here because it was the "subject of a second article".
The "second article" will certainly deserve to be published, even if I would also appreciate to see a discussion on point 2. But I cannot recommend to accept the "first paper" (this one) as it is.

Specific comments
-Several syntax errors remain (e.g. "marine flooding").
-it is unfortunate that the study justifying the use of the Dunkirk site is not published. The authors might at least indicate which agency made the study, and give some details on how it was done.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (10 Oct 2018)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (10 Oct 2018) by Ira Didenkulova

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (25 Oct 2018) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (25 Oct 2018) by Ira Didenkulova

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (05 Nov 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (05 Nov 2018) by Ira Didenkulova

AR by Yasser Hamdi on behalf of the Authors (07 Nov 2018) Author's response

ED: Publish as is (13 Nov 2018) by Ira Didenkulova

Short summary

As coastal zones are densely populated, marine flooding represents a hazard threatening populations and facilities (e.g., nuclear plants) along the shore. Using historical data can significantly improve the analysis of extremes. To address this issue, 500 years of historical storms were recovered from archives and used in frequency estimations of marine flooding extremes. The new dataset provides a valuable source of information on storm surges for future characterization of coastal hazards.