Coastal impacts of Storm Gloria (January 2020) over the north-western Mediterranean

Amores, Angel; Marcos, Marta; Carrió, Diego S.; Gómez-Pujol, Lluís

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1955-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1955-2020

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

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-20-1955-2020

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

Articles | Volume 20, issue 7

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

14 Jul 2020

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 14 Jul 2020

Coastal impacts of Storm Gloria (January 2020) over the north-western Mediterranean

Angel Amores, Marta Marcos, Diego S. Carrió, and Lluís Gómez-Pujol

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Final revised paper (published on 14 Jul 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 25 Mar 2020)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Review report', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Apr 2020
- AC1: 'Answers to Reviewer 1', Angel Amores, 21 May 2020
  - SC1: 'Revised Version', Angel Amores, 21 May 2020
RC2: 'review', Anonymous Referee #2, 05 May 2020
- AC2: 'Answers to Reviewer 2', Angel Amores, 21 May 2020
  - SC2: 'Revised Version', Angel Amores, 21 May 2020

Peer-review completion

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

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (21 May 2020) by Ira Didenkulova

AR by Angel Amores on behalf of the Authors (21 May 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 May 2020) by Ira Didenkulova

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (31 May 2020)

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (02 Jun 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors answered and took into account most of my comments. However, there are still remaining questions/corrections.

A/ Role of neglected processes?
Regarding the seasonal sea level close to 0 for Gloria I suggest the authors to provide this information in the manuscript.
Regarding the tide, tidal range of several tens of centimeters is not negligible when focusing on the flood itself. What was the tidal range for the Gloria event? I can understand one neglect the tide when focusing on nearshore water levels, but I still disagree with the authors when they say that tide is neglected because it is a micro-tidal environment. Indeed, water level changes of more than 10 cm can have a non-negligible effect on the coastal flood, depending on the study site (topography). Even if I understand the argument that the model results are in accordance (qualitative) with the observations for the Ebro Delta flood, I strongly recommend to take into account the tide for the Ebro Delta simulations, or at least to discuss the potential tide contribution to the Ebro Delta flood in the discussion.

B/ Model resolution for the wave setup quantification
Regarding the model resolution of the wave set-up, the authors provide a convincing answer. However, no modification has been done in the manuscript. I think that saying in few words what the authors have explained in their answer would reinforce the confidence in the modeling results. I recommend the authors to do this minor correction.

C/ Regarding my initial comment on the comparison of flood results of the Ebro Delta, the authors did not completely answer to my remark which whose the first part was : “Line 204-214: the comments on the validation/comparison of the model results in terms of flood are not really clear to me. Indeed, when I compare the Copernicus map and the model results, the model seems to provide a larger flooded surface, but predict no flood in one of the N-E area, while there was flood. This this is not clear to me why the authors seem to think that the model underestimates the flood.“ That is why also, initially, I suggested to show the Copernicus map in the manuscript.

D/ In the revised manuscript, the authors introduced SWASH as a non-hydrostatic model. This is true that it is a non-hydrostatic model. However, not all non-hydrostatic models are resolving the individual waves, as is doing SWASH. I suggest referring to SWASH as a phase resolving wave model (in comparison with spectral wave model).

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (02 Jun 2020) by Ira Didenkulova

AR by Angel Amores on behalf of the Authors (03 Jun 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (03 Jun 2020) by Ira Didenkulova

AR by Angel Amores on behalf of the Authors (04 Jun 2020) Manuscript

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Short summary

Storm Gloria hit the Mediterranean Spanish coastlines between 20 and 23 January 2020, causing severe damages such as flooding of the Ebro River delta. We evaluate its coastal impacts with a numerical simulation of the wind waves and the accumulated ocean water along the coastline (storm surge). The storm surge that reached values up to 1 m was mainly driven by the wind that also generated wind waves up to 8 m in height. We also determine the extent of the Ebro Delta flooded by marine water.