Optimistic Scenario of 0.50 m Mean Sea Level Rise and Possible Environmental Impacts, Resulting from Tidal Variations, in the City of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro—Brazil

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Author,

The reviewed manuscript focuses on a representative case of the internationally appealing issue of sea-level rise and its natural and socio-economical consequences. In fact, such a densely populated and well-developed coastal zone as that of the Rio de Janeiro State can be employed for development of the relevant ideas. The manuscript is based on an accurate and rather extensive study. Importantly, it is not restricted to only modeling, but also deals with socio-economical effects and policy development. The work is generally important conceptually and practically, and it is communicated more or less appropriately. I appreciate that some original findings/interpretations are brought in correspondence to what was written by the others and in the other places of the world. After close examination, I do not see significant failures, but I specify several recommendations to improve its quality. I specially ask the author to pay attention to the style and the language.

1)      Paper type: this is NOT review, but a regular research article. Please, choose the proper label.

2)      Title: please, shorten and simplify. I’m also not sure that it is necessary to tell about the former capital – better write the city/municipality name.

3)      Affiliations: please, give in full with street address and zip code.

4)      Abstract: please, shorten substantially and focus on your findings.

5)      Introduction: state your objective and argue the choice of the study area. Do you have some data about the patterns of global climate change on the Atlantic Coast of Brazil? (these can be easily deduced from the global reports).

6)      Subsection 1.1 should become a full-sized section 2 with the same name. There, you have to characterize the area more extensively and more logically. Start with physical geography (landforms, geology, climate, hydrology, vegetation), then go to socio-economical patterns (population, industries, etc.), and finalize with telling about environmental issues and initiatives. Do not forget to cite more literature! This section can also be illustrated with some photographs.

7)      Line 126: citations are missed (where I see (citar alguns)).

8)      Materials and Methods: please, specify better all sources of your data and try to argue your methodology (why it is so?). The possible limitations of your approach should be considered either here or in Discussion or Conclusions. But they should be outlined!

9)      Discussion: a lengthy text from the beginning of this section and until “Coastal zone…” should be designated as a subsection 4.1 for better consistency, with subsequent renumbering of the following subsections.

10)  Figures 6 and 7: please, give their captions in English.

11)  The writing needs linguistic and stylistic justifications. For instance, Lines 109-114: a territory cannot be formed of Quaternary environments, it can be covered by Quaternary sediments that accumulated in particular environments.

12)  References: I strongly feel that you have to cite more articles from top international journals published after 2020. Please, cite 10-15 (or more) of such articles in different parts of the text. This may require making additions (even new interpretations) to your text.

The language and the style should be brought in order. A help of any English native speaking colleague would be suitable.

Author Response

Text type changed to article. Title changed. Address and abstract changed. General objective included in introduction. The subsection was changed, as recommended, and geomorphology was added. The climate classification was already present, as well as some socioeconomic aspects. We added a paragraph to the methodology to explain the methodological routine.

We added the subtitle "Sea level rise and its impacts" to the discussion and corrected the numbering.

Figures 6 and 7: provide your captions in English. Translated

Regarding topic 11, the idea was to talk about the coastal plains that suffer from sea level variations, and so we talked that way. We did not emphasize the territory as a whole.

We have added a few more references, mainly talking about sea level and future scenarios.

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer’s Report on the manuscript entitled:

Optimistic scenario of 0.50 m mean sea level rise and possible environmental impacts, resulting from tidal variations, in the former capital of Rio de Janeiro – Brazil

 

The authors investigated possible impacts of mean sea level rise in the municipality, biophysical and socioeconomic spheres. Though the content is significant and informative, the presentation must be improved.

 

Firstly, as far as I can see, the type of manuscript is “Article” not “Review” as you are proposing a framework in Figure 2. Is it true? Please see below. You should highlight the contributions of your work at the end of the Introduction. Later in the discussion section, it turns out that this is a review paper where you also provided comments and recommendations. Also, look for example Line 480. Please be clearer in Introduction.

 

There are many typos/grammar/punctuation issues in the manuscript that must be carefully checked and corrected. For example,

Line 18: “an” not “and”. Also, “according” not “acording”

Lines 19-20. Grammar issue and vague sentence. Please rephrase.

 

Please check that all the abbreviations are defined the first time they appear in the manuscript. I also suggest adding an acronym table at the end of the manuscript.

 

Line 86. Please highlight the main contributions of your research here, you may use bullet points.

 

Figure 1. Please add the geographic latitudes and longitudes. Typically, WGS84 is used for showing the study regions. Similarly for Figures 3 and 4.

 

Line 125. Section 1.1 Study region should move to Section 2.1 in Materials and Methods. Please see the MDPI template and restructure your manuscript accordingly.

 

Lines 153 should not it be (4)? Line 159 should not it be (5)? Etc. This section is not written well. Please modify.

 

Figure 5. I do not see (a) and (b) labelled in this figure. Please insert.

 

Please write the sentences and phrases in English. For example, Captions of Figures 6 and 7, etc.

 

It would also be nice to elaborate on ground deformation (subsidence and uplift) due to groundwater fluctuation and its impact on infrastructure, buildings, etc. See for example:

https://doi.org/10.4408/IJEGE.2021-01.S-17

https://doi.org/10.3390/su11102955

The impact of climate change on land cover around coastal regions is also interesting to be briefly discussed in the discussion section.

For example, please see also https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2023.103241

 

The reference style should be carefully changed to the MDPI format:

 

Thank you!

Regards,

There are many typos/grammar/punctuation issues in the manuscript that must be carefully checked and corrected. Please write the sentences and phrases in English. For example, Captions of Figures 6 and 7, etc.

Author Response

We have changed the introduction by including the requested information. Niterói has the first municipal climate secretariat and we thought about bringing this contribution to the city where the university is located and the second largest city in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The maps are with UTM coordinates, but the zone is informed, and this does no harm to the location. The use of Sirgas 2000 is the official reference of Brazil, defined by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, IBGE, which has the geodesy sector.

Figure 5 has been changed.

The work was not intended to take into account this variable subsidence as has happened in Indonesia or New York. There are no studies and no evidence, but it is interesting to think about including this important variable in future studies.

We have taken this approach of taking into account changes in land use, as shown in figure 5. We can propose or think of other analyses in other work. Thank you very much for the reference sent, we did not know neither the authors nor the journal.

The other changes were common to the other reviewers regarding language errors and were covered.

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript presents an interesting study on the effect on a specific coastal case of the possible rise of sea level according to predictions of environmental observatories.

The paper is well developed in terms of content and its structure is correct.

However, it does not conform to the style of the journal, according to the instructions to the authors. They should especially observe the indications on the format of the citations and the list of references.

On the other hand, regarding the content, the introduction should be revised in depth, since there are numerous errata, the most notable being the abbreviation of sea level, which appears as MmN, nmm and MSL.

As for the tables, some of them should be revised so that the numbers are correctly visible, perhaps eliminating some columns if necessary.

Also revise line 126.

Describe succinctly the syzygy the first time it appears.

English is fine, but there arre some mistakes and typos to correct.

Author Response

Changes in form have been verified.
Changes were made in the introduction and as to the abbreviations MnM ,mmm and MSL.
We changed the text talking about the syzygy.

Reviewer 4 Report

I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to review this interesting research by Fábio Ferreira Dias. I have carefully read the paper and I believe that it is an interesting study worth publishing.  Consider to include in the introduction a small section refered to international mitigation strategies or planning for the rise of sea level globaly. 

Overall, my suggestion is that the paper should be accepted after minor considerations. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your words.
We added in the introduction that Niterói created the first climate secretariat, at the municipal level, and the work aims to contribute with the survey of the problem in order to bring this discussion to the decision makers;

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have improved the manuscript, but the references and cites need to be in style MLA according to the author's instructions.

Please explain in the introduction section the sense of "optimistic scenario" according to what kind of classification corresponds and the degrees of that . I do not know if "optimistic" is better or worse that other one.

Table 1 & 2, decimal figures are indicated with . and thousends with ,. Please modify.

Table 3. Please consider to arrange for present in one page, not divided. If divided, the second page need de headers of columns.

Please modify and resubmit.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thank you very much for reading the article. Your considerations were fundamental for the final version. We have changed the references according to the norms of the journal.

We have added in the introduction what is an optimistic scenario

The tables were corrected.

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have modified and arranged the manuscript to the style of the journal, numbers and citations, as proposed in my review..