Dear authors,
We have now received two reviews, two very detailed answers by the authors, and two modified versions of the manuscript which drastically support the improvement of the manuscript and suggest acceptation of the manuscript subject to minor, mainly technical, corrections.
The authors should certainly state again, though they build their work on a long history of use of non-Newtonian rheology for debris slurries, that material resistance to the flow, expressed by the rheological law, is only one aspect of the physics of these events. Debris flow slurries can be simulated only by rheological models or by fluid-solid interaction models and that according to the type of events, the objective of the modelling or the scale of analyses, both approaches may be valid. In this sense, I wuld suggest that the, still somehow provocative, manuscript by Iverson (2003, 3rd DFHM Conference) on the debris flow rheology myth might be cited.
Further, references to more or less recent works on either experimental analyses of different material rheologies of slurries or based on real observations might reinforce the broad overview (e.g. state of the art) carried out by the authors on which rheology to choose. A selection of possible relevant manuscripts might be :
Bisantino T, Fischer P, Gentile F (2010) Rheological characteristics of debris-flow material in South-Gargano watersheds. Nat Hazards 54(2):209–223.
de Haas, T., L. Braat, J. R. F. W. Leuven, I. R. Lokhorst, and M. G. Kleinhans (2015). Effects of debris flow composition on runout, depositional mechanisms, and deposit morphology in laboratory experiments, J. Geophys. Res. Earth Surf., 120, 1949–1972.
Iverson, R.M., 2003. The debris flow rheology myth. In: Rickenmann, D., Chen, C.-L. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Debris flow Hazard Mitigation: Mechanics, Prediction and Assessment, Davos. Millpress, Rotterdam, pp. 303– 314.
Jeong SW (2014) The effect of grain size on the viscosity and yield stress of fine-grained sediments. J Mt Sci 11(1):31–40.
Malet, J.-P., Remaître, A., Maquaire, O., Ancey, C., Locat, J. 2003. Flow susceptibility of heterogeneous marly formations. Implications for torrent hazard control in the Barcelonnette basin (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France). In: Rickenmann, D., Chen, C.-L. (Eds): Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Debris-Flow Hazard Mitigation: Mechanics, Prediction and Assessment, Davos, Switzerland, Millpress, Rotterdam, 351-362.
Yang H, Wei F, Hu K, Zhou G, Lyu J (2015) Comparison of rheometric devices for measuring the rheological parameters of debris flow slurry. J Mt Sci 12(5):1125–1134.

Thanks for considering NHESS for publishing this very interesting analysis.

Best regards,
Jean-Philippe Malet

Dear Authors,

Thanks for clarifying all pending issues, and providing a detailed answer to all questions raised by the reviewers.

I consider the manuscript publishable as is, and leave it to the Copernicus office for pointing some possible adjustments in the format of the manuscript.

Best regards,
Jean-Philippe Malet