Monitoring of the reconstruction process in a high mountainous area affected by a major earthquake and subsequent hazards

Tang, Chenxiao; Liu, Xinlei; Cai, Yinghua; Van Westen, Cees; Yang, Yu; Tang, Hai; Yang, Chengzhang; Tang, Chuan

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1163-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1163-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1163-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 4

Research article

|

29 Apr 2020

Research article |

| 29 Apr 2020

Monitoring of the reconstruction process in a high mountainous area affected by a major earthquake and subsequent hazards

Chenxiao Tang, Xinlei Liu, Yinghua Cai, Cees Van Westen, Yu Yang, Hai Tang, Chengzhang Yang, and Chuan Tang

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Final revised paper (published on 29 Apr 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 10 Sep 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Oct 2019
- AC1: 'Reply to referee 1', Chenxiao Tang, 07 Nov 2019
RC2: 'Review on nhess 2019-202, Monitoring of the reconstruction process in a high mountainous area affected by a large earthquake and subsequent debris flows, by Chenxiao Tang et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Nov 2019
- AC2: 'Reply to referee 2', Chenxiao Tang, 18 Dec 2019

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (05 Jan 2020) by Sven Fuchs

AR by Chenxiao Tang on behalf of the Authors (19 Jan 2020)

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (29 Jan 2020) by Sven Fuchs

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (03 Feb 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (17 Feb 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review on nhess 2019-202, Monitoring of the reconstruction process in a high mountainous area affected by a large earthquake and subsequent debris flows, by Chenxiao Tang et al.

The authors present a multi-temporal study on an area near Chengdu, China, affected by earthquakes and subsequent gravitational mass movements such as landslides of different types and debris flow hazards. The main aim of the work is related to dynamics in elements at risk exposed, and the economic impacts caused by a hazard chain (from earthquake to mass movements). The authors show how planned reconstruction may result in high loss in cases were relocation places are not chosen in an optimal way, and how subsequent hazards following a major hazard as trigger may affect the overall risk in the case study region.

In my first assessment I stated that the overall topic is of considerable interest to the readers of NHESS as it is one of only few studies related to a quantification of hazard chains and underlying dynamics, including values at risk. As such, it would be good to see such material published, nevertheless, there are major shortcomings that need to be addressed before the material may become acceptable for publication. While the authors addressed some of my comments – some of them rather short in a very brief manner – others were not sufficiently taken into consideration. A good example is the last sentence in the abstract (mirrored also in the answers to the referees, by the way), were the authors stated that “Recommendations of when and where to rebuild was proposed based on the results”, while it remains unclear what exactly this sentence means (what has to be rebuilt when and where?); the original point of criticism was related to the overall gap in the question what international readers would “learn” when going through this case study.

More precisely, I kindly asked the authors to better introduce their topic of multi-hazard risk already in the introduction, by telling potential readers the importance of multi-hazard and risk studies. Simultaneously, I asked the authors to extent their review to the broader context of international sources, and I gave some hints based on a sample of potential works – these were the only ones the authors finally included somewhere in their manuscript! As such, the entire section 1.1. should be re-organised (and extended) so that the readers are guided towards the overall problem settings of the specific case study. This also implies definitions, to give an example, it is not clear what the authors understand as vulnerability or exposure – both is needed to introduce materials given in section 1.2.

With respect to the maps, I asked the authors to add north arrow, scale and measured grid – not only to Figure 1 but to all Figures.

I also questioned the overall material in terms of references (“In many phrases, authors provide facts, information, or ideas, but without supporting sources as to where those ideas or facts came from.”) – as such I am wondering a bit that we can still find paragraphs such as for example in section 3.3., lines 318-338, were sources for the facts and figures are still not given (is this a result of own data analysis or the analysis of interviews with the locals?) – authors are kindly requested to carefully go through the manuscript and check this again. The same is valid for the entire section 3 as well as section 4.2 – authors are kindly requested to provide information were facts and figures come from.

Moreover, the manuscript needs proofreading by a native speaker, so that many linguistic expressions become better understandable – to give an example, in line 524 authors conclude section 4 with the sentence “The economy of the Longchi watershed is not likely to be fully recovered before the reopening of the nation park” – should this be the national park? The term “earthquake-hit” could be replaced by “earthquake-prone”, “to delay reconstruction and wait for environment to recover to an acceptable point” could be replaced by “to stop further development during reconstruction until major secondary processes have deactivated, moreover, it has to be discussed on a governmental level which acceptable hazard levels need to be considered when inhabiting such fragile mountain environments”, just to provide some examples.

So I once again would like to suggest revisions so that the material becomes more accessible and statements and conclusions reproducible and comprehensible. As a result, material presented in the conclusion would also better fit to the sections 3-5. I strongly encourage the authors undertaking major revisions so that the material becomes more accessible because according to my opinion the overall study is definitely worth being published and discussed with the broader scientific community.

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (18 Feb 2020) by Sven Fuchs

Dear authors

Thank you very much for re-submitting your manuscript for consideration in Natural Hazard sand Earth System Sciences.

I sent out your piece of work to the two previous referees for comments. As you can see, both comments go in the same direction, while one of them is a more comprehensive than the other. Based on these comments and based on my own judgement, I have decided that the manuscript needs another major revision and as such another round of reviews. Please be aware that NHESS receives much more manuscripts than the journal can accommodate, and therefore it is of particular importance that you follow CAREFULLY the reviewer comments. Please be also aware that – should the improvements not be substantially this time – I still reserve the right to reject your manuscript.

Firstly, I kindly ask you to consider ALL of the reviewer comments with the same rigour. Both of the referees argued that the manuscript needs a revision with respect to the overall accessibility and reading fluency. This specifically includes the introductory section (section 1.1), as mentioned in both of the comments of referee #2. The current version, however, still lacks in organisation and proper referencing.

Secondly, lots of the material presented is not supported by either references or an indication whether or not it is a result of your own studies, examples include section 3 (from where exactly do you see that the reconstructed houses are governmental?). Also, to give another example, information in Line 141 is fragmentary: “The earthquake triggered a total of 1597 landslides in the watershed, which crashed four hostels, killing ten.” Here information is missing: “resulting in ten lives lost” or similar could be an alternative sentence; moreover, it is not clear from which source the number of landslides comes from. Moreover, information such as the “national park was closed due to high landslide threat” need proper referencing. Further, “In May 2009 the 7.3 km long Longxi tunnel (Figure 1) was completed for the Duwen Highway, which greatly helped disaster relief and reconstruction by reducing travel time greatly” – apart from the grammatical issues, which is the source here to prove that this road section “greatly helped” disaster relief and reconstruction? These examples (and there are many more in this manuscript) illustrate nicely what was originally mentioned by the referees as the manuscript needs to be re-organised and “in many phrases, authors provide facts, information, or ideas, but without supporting sources as to where those ideas or facts came from”. Please carefully solve this issue!!!

Thirdly, if referees kindly ask you to add information to Figures, such as the mentioned measured grid and the north arrow, why did you not follow this request throughout the entire manuscript? Your figure captions and table headers are exceptionally short and need to be made such that your figures and tables are self-standing. In other words, if a reader were to read the figure caption and the table header, look at the figure and the table, but not have the rest of the text from the paper, would they be able to understand what is written?

Fourthly, as indicated by referee #1, the manuscript would gain in a discussion section where most of the findings are mirrored against the material from other studies published (the international literature requested by the referees) – here it is also highly recommended not only to follow those works exemplified by the referees but also to search own ones (and to my knowledge there are many available even with one of the co-authors as contributor), please carefully re-check available literature.

Finally, I kindly would like to ask you for a proof reading of your manuscript – at the moment, many sentences are not written in a style formal enough to be suitable for a scientific journal like NHESS. I am not saying the English must be grammatically perfect, but at least to a level that the reviewers (and myself) can understand what is being said scientifically. Moreover, you are kindly requested to carefully consider the author guidelines when preparing your manuscript, this also includes the reference list which is NOT yet formatted according to the NHESS style.

Once again, please take these concerns serious. I am looking forward to receiving your revised piece of work as soon as possible. Should there any questions arise please feel free to contact me at any time, and please assure that all the co-authors have seen and approved the new manuscript version before re-submission.

Kind regards,
Sven Fuchs (Editor NHESS)

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AR by Chenxiao Tang on behalf of the Authors (13 Mar 2020) Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (24 Mar 2020) by Sven Fuchs

AR by Chenxiao Tang on behalf of the Authors (30 Mar 2020) Author's response Manuscript

Short summary

Recovering from major earthquakes is a challenge due to a destablized environment. Over 11 years, we monitored a region hit by the Wenchuan earthquake, finding the loss caused by postseismic hazards was more than that caused by the earthquake. The main reason was a rush in reconstruction without proper hazard and risk assessment. It was concluded that postseismic recovery should consider not only spatial but also temporal dynamics of hazards as well as possible interaction among hazards.