the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A global open-source database of flood-protection levees on river deltas (openDELvE)
- 1Department of Physical Geography, Universiteit Utrecht, Postbus 80.115, 3508 TC Utrecht, Netherlands
- 2Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, 1001 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1405, United States of America
- 3Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1111, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 1Department of Physical Geography, Universiteit Utrecht, Postbus 80.115, 3508 TC Utrecht, Netherlands
- 2Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, 1001 East 10th Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-1405, United States of America
- 3Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1111, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands
Abstract. Flood-protection levees have been built along rivers and coastlines globally. Current datasets, however, are generally confined to territorial boundaries (national datasets) and are not always easily accessible, posing limitations for hydrologic models and assessments of flood hazard. Here we present our work to develop a single, open-source global river delta levee data environment (openDELvE) which aims to bridge a data deficiency by collecting and standardising global flood-protection levee data for river deltas. In openDELvE we have aggregated data from national databases as well as data stored in reports, maps, and satellite imagery. The database identifies the river delta land areas that the levees have been designed to protect, and where additional data is available, we record the extent and design specifications of the levees themselves (e.g., levee height, crest width, construction material) in a harmonised format. openDELvE currently contains 5,089 km of levees on deltas, and 44,733.505 km2 of leveed area in 1,601 polygons. For the 152 deltas included in openDELvE, on average 19 % of their habitable land area is confined by verifiable flood-protection levees. Globally, we estimate that between 5 % and 54 % of all delta land is confined by flood-protection levees. The data is aligned to the recent standards of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reuse of scientific data (FAIR) and is open-source. openDELvE is made public on an interactive platform (www.opendelve.eu), which includes a community-driven revision tool to encourage inclusion of new levee data and continuous improvement and refinement of open-source levee data.
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Joey O'Dell et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2021-291', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Nov 2021
The authors present an important and useful database of flood protection structures in levees globally. An assimilation of such data is crucial for improved understanding of global flood risk, yet is one of the few topics in our field which has not undergone meaningful recent advances in its characterisation (at least, in an efficient or somewhat automated way). While not wanting to understate the importance of the task the authors have completed, the presented science available to review is extremely minimal. It is paradoxical that the authors' work is more meaningful and important than much of the marginal advances typically presented in the modern deluge of academic papers, but the paper in its present form does not appear to be publishable in this kind of journal.
The decision is really, then, an editorial one. As a reviewer, I can not see why this wasn't simply submitted to a dedicated journal that fields papers describing datasets. If the authors want to publish in a traditional journal, they need to actually apply the data they have collected to answer a research question. One idea would be to look at recent European or global flood modelling studies by the JRC and examine how their risk estimations change when considering the information in this database.
I would also like to see the delineation of a "leveed area" unpacked further. How is this defined? If we know the location of levees, it is not straightforward to understand who they actually protect (presumably some kind of "undefended" model would be needed). If conclusions are to be drawn based upon these areas, the authors should provide more detail on how they are computed.
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joey O'Dell, 14 Feb 2022
We thank the reviewer for their review, and for their positive words about our paper. We decided to submit to NHESS because we felt the community and readership would be very interested to learn about our new research and our derived global finding on river deltas: of the deltas in our database, we find that 19% of their habitable area is confined within flood-protection levees. At the same time, we decided against including substantial new derived analyses in this manuscript because we felt it would mask the major contribution that is the openDELvE database itself. Instead, we provide database statistics and extensive methodology and focus the manuscript on a single message: openDelve. We fully agree that a decision about our manuscript at NHESS is ultimately then an editorial one.
- AC2: 'Reply on AC1', Joey O'Dell, 14 Feb 2022
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Joey O'Dell, 14 Feb 2022
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CC1: 'Comment on nhess-2021-291: openDELvE', Hamed Moftakhari, 07 Feb 2022
Here the uthors have developed and presented a very useful open-source global database that provides information on river delta levees and the area protected by them from flooding. While the database is interesting and the manuscript is well-written, I am afraid if I see any explicit research question to be explored by the authors. I mean, while the database can be beneficial for modeling and flood hazard assessment and would provide an excellnt ingredient for research projects, in this submission the scintific contribution and novelty in missing.
So, my suggestion is that authors reconsider the outlet, and consider other venues/journals (i.e. Scientifc Data https://www.nature.com/sdata/) that better suite the scope of this draft.
Also, on a very minor suggestion, I encourage to enrich your discussion in "1.2. Why levees matter" to explain the concept of levee effect and how it has been contributed to the increased exposure to flooding in the past. See this for example (https://www.pnas.org/content/103/40/14653)
- AC4: 'Reply on CC1', Joey O'Dell, 14 Feb 2022
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RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2021-291', Hamed Moftakhari, 08 Feb 2022
Here the uthors have developed and presented a very useful open-source global database that provides information on river delta levees and the area protected by them from flooding. While the database is interesting and the manuscript is well-written, I am afraid if I see any explicit research question to be explored by the authors. I mean, while the database can be beneficial for modeling and flood hazard assessment and would provide an excellnt ingredient for research projects, in this submission the scintific contribution and novelty in missing.
So, my suggestion is that authors reconsider the outlet, and consider other venues/journals (i.e. Scientifc Data https://www.nature.com/sdata/) that better suite the scope of this draft. However, I'd leave it to the editor and authors to decide.
Also, on a very minor suggestion, I encourage to enrich your discussion in "1.2. Why levees matter" to explain the concept of levee effect and how it has been contributed to the increased exposure to flooding in the past. See this for example (https://www.pnas.org/content/103/40/14653)
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AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Joey O'Dell, 14 Feb 2022
We thank Hamed Moftakhari for his review and for his positive words about openDelve. Some of the comments we also expressed by reviewer #1. To them we responded that we submitted our manuscript to NHESS because we felt the community and readership would be very interested to learn about our new research and our derived global statistics on river deltas: of the deltas in our database, we find that 19% of their habitable area is confined within flood-protection levees.
We thank Hamed also for pointing us to this interesting work on the “levee effect”. We will certainly include this in a revision because of its relevance for the paper. Four of us live behind levees in the Netherlands. It is even relevant for us.
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AC3: 'Reply on RC2', Joey O'Dell, 14 Feb 2022
Joey O'Dell et al.
Data sets
openDELvE Website O'Dell, J., Nienhuis, J. H., Cox, J. R., Edmonds, D. A., and Scussolini, P. http://www.opendelve.eu
openDELvE Research Data Store O'Dell, J., Nienhuis, J. H., Cox, J. R., Edmonds, D. A., and Scussolini, P. https://doi.org/10.34894/2WZ0S9
Joey O'Dell et al.
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