Non-Structural Flood Management in European Rural Mountain Areas—Are Scientists Supporting Implementation?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The present manuscript shows a current and scientifically soundness approach to deal with Flood Management, appropriation of alternative control measures based on nature, and the knowledge of experts in high mountains. The manuscript seems to show a robust methodological design.
- However, the presentation of the methodology and its most relevant results is not properly organized in relation to figure 2. Is difficult to follow and it's not easy to see the stages shown in figure 2 in relation to the subtitles of the methodology text.
- The manuscript is very large, shorten must need it. Also, the authors must try to summarize the tables in graphs that are easily interpretable.
- Figure 2: Methodological proceeding. The graphic should easily direct the reader to each stage within the text. Please number each box in the process flow and relate it to the titles within the methodology text. The results and discussion could well be presented in the same order of each methodological stage (box) declared in figure 2.
- Finally, a couple of specific annotations: On the Line:
• L111 the question "Are there scientific boundaries that hinder the implementation of FM?" It seems to be the main hypothesis of the work, please state it for the reader's greater understanding and show the main contribution of your study.
• L751 are the scientific boundaries supporting implementation? This is the main question of the study, please answer by confirming or rejecting your main hypothesis and listing those identified "boundaries" from most to least important.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
General issues
The paper presents an assessment of non-structural flood management in European rural mountain areas through a systematic literature review and expert survey with the aim of investigating if the scientific boundaries limit their implementation.
A large amount of literature was analysed and processed, but surprisingly only 30 usable surveys were obtained out of 200 people contacted.
The paper seems to have mainly a Social approach and I do not know if the proposed objective of the paper was achieved. In this sense, the scientific boundaries limit the implementation of non-structural FM in ERMA? Yes, no, why. Please, state it clearly!
I am not an expert in survey analysis and Delphi process, but I think it would be desirable to improve the assessment with a second round of surveys.
Minor issues
Please, explain the meaning of the letters in Fig. 9 and 10 (abc, bcd, etc)
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Congratulations on a very thorough and helpful paper! I noticed one linguistic error - when describing the experience of experts (p. 13, L 364), text refers to experts showing "several years of experience" (12+/-11.86 years) - several applies in English to "more than two, but probably less than six". Please replace it with a different word, or actual number.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Foods are the major natural hazards and knowledge about those phenomena is the key to mitigating the negative impacts of flash floods. The article links the current scientific knowledge, presented in the literature, with the expert opinion regarding the implementation of non-structural flood management measures in rural mountain areas. The paper is well written, the methodology is correct and the results and conclusions are clear and consistent. In the reviewer's opinion, the article is very valuable for the readers of the journal. I recommend the publication of the paper in this form.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
