the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
A regional scale approach to assess non-residential buildings, transportation and croplands exposure in Central Asia
Chiara Scaini
Alberto Tamaro
Baurzhan Adilkhan
Satbek Sarzhanov
Zukhritdin Ergashev
Ruslan Umaraliev
Mustafo Safarov
Vladimir Belikov
Japar Karayev
Ettore Fagà
Abstract. The Central Asia region encompasses a wide variety of climatic areas and geological settings. It is therefore prone to multiple hazards which can affect different parts of the region, including transboundary areas. Floods and landslides are increasing in number and intensity due to climate change, while earthquakes are a well-known threat for the region. Knowing the location, type and characteristics of exposed assets is paramount in order to develop disaster risk reduction strategies. Floods, landslides and earthquakes can affect a wide range of exposed assets in the region, but past research efforts were mostly focused on residential buildings. Here, we develop the first regionally-consistent exposure database for selected asset types (namely, non-residential buildings, transportation and croplands) in Central Asia. We assembled the available global and regional datasets together with country-based information provided by local authorities and research groups, including reconstruction costs. The exposure database provided here supports further analysis to integrate data from national and sub-national projects and support regional-scale disaster risk reduction strategies.
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Chiara Scaini et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2023-95', Filippo Gatti, 26 Jul 2023
This reviewer endorses the article for publication with very minor revisions: please add the latitude/longitude grid in the figures, other than the scale bar.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2023-95-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2023-95', Anonymous Referee #2, 03 Aug 2023
This paper builds a regional exposure database for several types of critical infrastructure in Central Asia, including industrial, commercial buildings, education and healthcare infrastructure, as well as transportation networks (roads and railways) and crops. The dataset is transboundary as it covers the five central Asian countries that were formerly part of the USSR, and is meant to assess damage to several hazard types including flooding, earthquakes, droughts, etc. This database uses a variety of data sources, several of which have to be spatially disaggregated using assumptions that are reasonable and clearly laid out.
The writing is clear, the presentation and technical work within are high-quality. Aside from a few minor queries regarding data access and presentation (see below), the major obstacle to publication is a lack of explanation on scientific context and literature aside from the central Asia context. The developed database is multi-hazard, multi-asset, and transboundary: how does that compare with existing databases, e.g., developed for other places? In other words: is the paper just a case-study whose experience is disconnected from that of building multi-layer exposure databases in other regions? Authors should bear in mind the journal’s Aims & Scope, which does “not encourage” “localised case studies with no broader implications (in other words, ask yourself, what would someone else in another region learn from the case study that you have done; what is the broader context?).”
For the paper to fit the journals Aims & Scope, authors need to rethink (and largely rewrite) three sections:
- Introduction: authors should review literature on making exposure layers for several types of critical infrastructure: what is considered together and for what reasons? How is their database more comprehensive? Or what obstacles does it overcome that other multi-layer database of critical infrastructure didn’t have to deal with? Note this is more than just adding a paragraph to pay lip service to what exists: authors need to review exposure databases for the different layers, the multi-layer efforts, and actively situate this work within this literature, independently from the Central Asian context.
- Discussion: it is nice to see authors discuss some of their assumptions there. But these are learning points for other researchers that would want to put together similar databases somewhere else, and for these reasons, the discussion should explain how similar or different the authors’ assumptions were from what is done for other exposure databases (and what are reasons that motivated different approaches). In other words: authors need to confront each point they make with the existing literature.
- Conclusions should summarise in a few sentences what the paper adds to the broader literature.
After that, it could be relevant to spend a bit of time to see whether the new information added to the paper could improve the abstract.
A few queries on data presentation / availability / access:
Section 2 text should comment on Table 1 in greater detail. This is true in particular for national and sub-national data. Personal communication sources (institution or public servants) should be mentioned, because local partners must be credited; alternatively, a clear explanation should be provided as to why they cannot be named. The number of oblasts per country should be given to give a better idea of the granularity of the data.
In Table 1, what is missing is a year tag for each data source.
On a related note, it would be good to provide a map of the region including the countries and their names.
Data availability: is there no way to make the resulting dataset available along with the publication of the paper (rather than to wait for publication by the World Bank)? As things stand, the paper discusses an unpublished database…
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2023-95-RC2
Chiara Scaini et al.
Chiara Scaini et al.
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