Dear Eszter Szűcs et al.

Thank you for the submission of your manuscript “Evolution of surface deformation related to salt extraction-caused sinkholes in Solotvyno (Ukraine) revealed by Sentinel-1 radar interferometry”.

As you know, your paper got two reviews, both suggesting major revision. I have looked at your reply letters and see that you have taken considerable efforts to carefully address all the concerns of the reviewers and have added geophysical inversions to have better insights into the mechanisms responsible for sinkhole growth in the area. Therefore, I would like to invite you to submit a revised version of your manuscript. In addition to the concerns of the reviewers, please also include in the discussion part of your revised manuscript some discussions/advices about potential risk in the study area.

I look forward to seeing the next version of your paper and will send it out again to the previous reviewers.

Regards
Mahdi Motagh
NHESS Guest Editor
[Professor of Radar Remote Sensing, GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences]

Dear authors

Thank you for the submission of the revised version of your paper“ Evolution of surface deformation related to salt extraction-caused sinkholes in Solotvyno (Ukraine) revealed by Sentinel-1 radar interferometry” to NHESS. Two reviewers have already evaluated the quality of the revised manuscript. One of them was satisfied with the quality of the revised work, while the other still has some major comments on it, which need to be addressed in another round of review. I also had a look over your paper and have the following comments on it. Therefore, I would like to invite you to submit a revised version of your manuscript.

Editorial comment:
The paper needs to be restructured before publication. The discussion part of the paper is too short and is focused only on monitoring aspect of the work. There is no discussion about modeling results. The discussion about source modeling needs to be shifted from the result section (page 12, 13) to the discussion section and to be elaborated more there. The same problem exists for the conclusion, which is focused only on monitoring aspect of the work.

The InSAR profiles plotted in Fig. 15 are continuous. I assume that the authors have done interpolation between InSAR points falling into the profiles plotted in Figs. 9-10. Please use original InSAR observations with their corresponding error bars, and not interpolated ones, for comparison with modeling. Due to a large InSAR data gap, in particular along profile AB, interpolation fails to represent the true behavior of the real data here, which may contribute to the large discrepancy that is observed currently between modeling and AB profile in Fig. 15. Please address this in the revised version


Best regards

Mahdi Motagh

Dear authors,
Thank you for submitting the revised version of your manuscript. I still have some minors comments on your paper. Please kindly address them before the final publication.

Minor comment:
page 2 : Fig.1 illustrates the most recent deformation
I would change: Fig. 1 illustrates the most recent sinkhole developed in the area in 2012

Page 3: The Solostuyno salt diapir.......
please polish the sentence. It is not grammatically correct (In general, I would recommend polishing the manuscript by a native speaker or a professional service)

Material and Methods
In this section we only see description about InSAR analysis. Later in the Result section (section 4), we again see switching to methodology for the source moldeling. I would recommend bring the theoretical aspect of the modeling to the Material and Methods to have a coherent result section (section 4) before Discussion.

Page 7. Time-series of Sentinel-1 ....... deformation beneath the city of Solotvyno
Do you mean south of Solotvyno? The deformation zone seems to be outside the city. Anyway, please indicate the location of the city in Fig. 4 for a better clarification

I look forward to seeing the revised version of your manuscript

Best regards

Mahdi Motagh

Dear Eszter Szűcs

I am pleased to inform you that the revised version of your paper nhess-2020-84 can now be accepted for publication in the journal NHESS -- Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. Please inform your co-authors of the editorial decision.

You will soon be contacted by the journal publication office for the preparation of the final version of your paper. Please respond promptly to the requests of the publication office, as this will condition the time of your publication, and read carefully any copy-editing recommendations that they make. Let me remind you that final publication of your paper on the journal web site is subject to the payment of the appropriate service charges.

I take this opportunity to thank you and your co-authors for having selected NHESS -- Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences for the publication of your scientific work.

Sincerely,

Mahdi Motagh