Estimation of the return period of rockfall blocks according to their size

De Biagi, Valerio; Napoli, Maria Lia; Barbero, Monica; Peila, Daniele

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-103-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-103-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-17-103-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 1

Research article

|

30 Jan 2017

Research article |

| 30 Jan 2017

Estimation of the return period of rockfall blocks according to their size

Valerio De Biagi, Maria Lia Napoli, Monica Barbero, and Daniele Peila

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Final revised paper (published on 30 Jan 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 05 Jul 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Discussion on "Estimation of the return period of rockfalls according to the block size"', Anonymous Referee #1, 25 Oct 2016
- AC1: 'Reply to Anonymous Referee #1', Valerio De Biagi, 07 Nov 2016
RC2: 'Estimation of the return period of rockfalls according to the block size', Didier Hantz, 28 Oct 2016
- AC2: 'Reply to Dr Hantz', Valerio De Biagi, 07 Nov 2016

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by Editor and Referees) (15 Nov 2016) by Thomas Glade

AR by Valerio De Biagi on behalf of the Authors (21 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (28 Nov 2016) by Thomas Glade

RR by Didier Hantz (03 Dec 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The most important remarks and comments have been taken into account in the revised manuscript, but some minor revisions are still necessary. They are listed below. Moreover, some minor corrections suggested in the pdf of the first version are still necessary.

1. In their interactive comment, the authors intend to mention the studies of Rosser et al. (2005), Abellan et al. (2010) and Dewez et al. (2013), but they mention only Dewez et al. in the new manuscript (line 13, page 4). Rosser et al. are also forgotten in the reference list.

2. At the end of section 2 (page 5), when discussing the influence of the lithology, it should be mentioned that the deposits surveyed by Hantz et al. (2016) consists is a limestone deposit (page 5, line 7).

3. Page 9, line 25, the term bedding should be replaced by foliation, which is convenient for metamorphic rocks.

An error in Equation (5) must be corrected (lambda is missing):
Replace "(1- FV(v)) = 1/T" by "lambda (1- FV(v)) = 1/T".

Page 7, line 25 and 28, "half the annual mean frequency" must be replaced by "half the return period". Moreover, it should be mentioned that t/n* is a good estimate of the return period only if n* is high enough (with n* = 1, the return period may be strongly underestimated if the observed period is short!).

Page 8, line 13: Equation (10) isn't the cumulative "density" function but the cumulative "distribution" function.

Page 12, line 7: "the block" is the beginning of a new sentence.

Page 12, line 4: Replace "with the dominant bedding planes orientation of the foliation N140/50" by "with the foliation plane N140/50".

Page 13, line 5: "detach from" should be replaced by "stop on", because all the blocks which detached from the slope are not surveyed, but only those which have reached the observed area.

Page 14, line 9, replace "colleauges" by "colleagues"

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by Editor) (09 Dec 2016) by Thomas Glade

AR by Valerio De Biagi on behalf of the Authors (12 Dec 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (27 Dec 2016) by Thomas Glade

AR by Valerio De Biagi on behalf of the Authors (10 Jan 2017)

Short summary

Rockfall is an highly destructive and unpredictable natural phenomenon. The design of protective structures needs a design falling block. Nowadays, the size of this block depends on the designer's personal judgement and expertise. We propose a statistical methodology to evaluate the return period of a given falling volume from observations and records in historical catalogues. This would allow us to implement modern reliability-based design approaches in protective engineering works.