Dear Authors!

I am very impressed by the amount of data you have gathered on avalanche events in HMA. Your GIS based database is great and a good starting point for further studies and initiatives as you write in your manuscript. This work is of high value and very timely for the people living in these areas and their livelihood being threatened by snow and ice avalanches (and other slope and glacier hazards). 

I suggest minor revision that mostly concerns some clarifications, writing (I am not an English native speaker myself) and the use of technical terms.

Doesn’t – “does not” in several places

40: consider splitting up this very long sentence

43: since you mention avalanches for the first time here, maybe write “snow avalanches (hereafter also called avalanches)”

46: I would delete Eckerstorfer and Malnes, 2015 here, since it is not the correct paper to cite on how avalanches affect socio-economic activities. McClung’s Handbook is fine here.

55: not sure how important these past death tolls are here. Consider looking up major avalanche accidents in Asia, for example in Panjshir, Afghanistan in 2015.

78: I do not think that avalanche related climate change studies are that limited anymore. There are numerous studies from Switzerland and France that should certainly be mentioned here.

108: until here I thought your review would only concern ice avalanches. I believe you should consider giving an overview over ice avalanches in the introduction, similar to the comprehensive introduction to snow avalanches.

147: depth-hoar avalanches is not a commonly used term. Could you write “avalanches that release on the ground” or “full depth avalanches”.

Section 3.1 you are switching a bit between past and present tense. Consider writing it all in past tense.

151: it is not correct that a deep snowpack favors depth hoar growth. In fact, it is the opposite. A thin snowpack allows for a large temperature gradient between ground and atmosphere and thus kinetic growth of snow crystals into depth hoar.

156: it does not make sense that SDAs (surface layer dry slabs) occurred with a persistent weak layer. However, it makes sense that they were triggered by heavy snowfall and wind. Consider deleting the information on persistent weak layers. These would be present with FDA for example.

159: if a storm triggered 37 avalanches, it does not make sense that half of them were triggered by precipitation. What about the other half?

162: sentence is not understandable. Please rewrite.

167: please check again if these avalanches predominantly released between 25 and 35 degrees. Where these wet snow avalanches or slush flows?

172: consider splitting up this very long sentence

176: not really sure what a moist slab avalanche is. In my opinion the classification is either wet or dry.

178: we usually talk about wind-loaded slopes. Thaw avalanches is not a term commonly used. I guess you mean wet snow avalanches?

189: what do you mean by weakened layers?

195: consider splitting up this very long sentence

200: contradicting who? Your opinion?

Figure 1a: this seems to be a glide crack that precauses a glide avalanche.

Figure 1d: I wonder if the avalanche eroded the gully. Would you rather not think the gully was already there, caused by some other process?

Figure 3a: the color indicating glaciated areas is not the same as in the legend.

Figure 3b: how do I interpret the map? If a circle over an area shows 30-40 fatalities, are all of these fatalities from a single event, or the sum of fatalities from multiple events over multiple years?

Figures 3 and 4: what do you mean by “some recorded impact”?

Figure 4b: what are impacts by month?

Figure 4a: the figure is not easy to read and interpret. I am not sure there is much information to be gained from Figure 4b. maybe consider showing the stacked fatalities per year in Figure 4b instead.

Table 2: if you do not know the type of slope hazard (NA), why are these events included then in the table? Does it make sense to mention “slab avalanche” in the table? I guess its falls into the snow avalanche category anyway.

330: you initially stated that you are not considering high altitude mountaineering avalanche fatalities. However, here you have a whole section on it. I find it interesting and I think you should slightly rewrite your scope of the study in the introduction.

Section 6: interesting topic, however, very thinly described. Could you add some references here for further reading?

453: love the story about people basically growing rock glaciers. Have heard that in some lectures before!

The paper entitled «Snow and ice avalanches in high mountain Asia – scientific, local and indigenous knowledge» reviews the known avalanche events in high mountain Asia, develops a database and discusses mitigation strategies. This is a very meaningful and important contribution to a topic not yet well investigated in this region. Therefore, I would recommend this paper for publication after adding some more important sources and improving some figures as well as an extended discussion on avalanche hazard indication mapping. Her are my specific inputs:

Abstract:

L 24: you mean more densely populated right? I think the European Alps are by far more populated than HMA. You write “in the less populated European Alps” is this a mistake?

Introduction:

L75: Here I would propose to add some more important references on avalanche mapping by remote sensing as they bare a big potential for future applications in HMA: (Lato et al., 2012; Eckerstorfer et al., 2019; Bühler et al., 2009; Korzeniowska et al., 2017; Bühler et al., 2019)

Recorded snow and ice avalanches:

L250: Fig 3 is not well readable, in particular the legends must be larger.

L255 Fig 4 is also only poorly readable, the fonts must be bigger.

Discussion:

Here I miss a discussion on hazard maps and hazard indication maps. For he Alps, approaches have been developed to automatically generate hazard indication maps based on digital elevation models (Bühler et al., 2022; Bühler et al., 2018). Such approaches would be very helpful for HMA regions. Also, more simple approaches such as slope angel maps would be helpful for the planning of mitigation measures and could have a high impact. This should be discussed in more detail. Are there existing hazard indication maps for HMA? As far as I know the Aga Khan foundation is also doing hazard indication mapping for avalanches for example in Afghanistan.

References

Bühler, Y., Hafner, E. D., Zweifel, B., Zesiger, M., and Heisig, H.: Where are the avalanches? Rapid SPOT6 satellite data acquisition to map an extreme avalanche period over the Swiss Alps, The Cryosphere, 13, 3225-3238, 10.5194/tc-13-3225-2019, 2019.

Bühler, Y., Hüni, A., Christen, M., Meister, R., and Kellenberger, T.: Automated detection and mapping of avalanche deposits using airborne optical remote sensing data, Cold Regions Science and Technology, 57, 99-106, 10.1016/j.coldregions.2009.02.007, 2009.

Bühler, Y., von Rickenbach, D., Stoffel, A., Margreth, S., Stoffel, L., and Christen, M.: Automated snow avalanche release area delineation – validation of existing algorithms and proposition of a new object-based approach for large-scale hazard indication mapping, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 18, 3235-3251, 10.5194/nhess-18-3235-2018, 2018.

Bühler, Y., Bebi, P., Christen, M., Margreth, S., Stoffel, L., Stoffel, A., Marty, C., Schmucki, G., Caviezel, A., Kühne, R., Wohlwend, S., and Bartelt, P.: Automated avalanche hazard indication mapping on a statewide scale, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 1825-1843, 10.5194/nhess-22-1825-2022, 2022.

Eckerstorfer, M., Vickers, H., Malnes, E., and Grahn, J.: Near-Real Time Automatic Snow Avalanche Activity Monitoring System Using Sentinel-1 SAR Data in Norway, Remote Sensing, 11, 10.3390/rs11232863, 2019.

Korzeniowska, K., Bühler, Y., Marty, M., and Korup, O.: Regional snow-avalanche detection using object-based image analysis of near-infrared aerial imagery, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 17, 1823-1836, 10.5194/nhess-17-1823-2017, 2017.

Lato, M. J., Frauenfelder, R., and Bühler, Y.: Automated detection of snow avalanche deposits: segmentation and classification of optical remote sensing imagery, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 12, 2893-2906, 10.5194/nhess-12-2893-2012, 2012.