An index of floodplain surface complexity

Scown, M. W.; Thoms, M. C.; De Jager, N. R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-431-2016

Articles | Volume 20, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-431-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-431-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 1

Research article

|

26 Jan 2016

Research article |

| 26 Jan 2016

An index of floodplain surface complexity

M. W. Scown, M. C. Thoms, and N. R. De Jager

Download

Final revised paper (published on 26 Jan 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 30 Apr 2015)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC C1842: 'An index of floodplain surface complexity', Janet Hooke, 28 May 2015
RC C1872: 'Review Scown et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 31 May 2015
AC C2317: 'Authors' response to reviews', Murray Scown, 30 Jun 2015

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (17 Jul 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

AR by Murray Scown on behalf of the Authors (21 Aug 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (07 Sep 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

AR by Murray Scown on behalf of the Authors (09 Nov 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (19 Nov 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

AR by Murray Scown on behalf of the Authors (19 Nov 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (20 Nov 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (23 Nov 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (27 Nov 2015)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

An index of floodplain surface complexity
Scown et al.

Abstract: Line 20-25 & line 28-30: Maybe reduce to: “Relationships between FSC, VSG, SPO and selected hydrological drivers were investigated, but no significant relationships were identified.” In any case, the listing of all the non-significant drivers is unnecessary.

The first paragraph in the Introduction is too general and could benefit from a more precise description of the problem. For example:

Page 3, Line 3: What does “evolutionary” refer to?

Page 3, line 4: “Complexity” of what? Topography, ecology, …? Please try to be more specific

Page 3, line 6: What does “levels of productivity” refer to? Productivity of what?

Page 3, line 6: Remove “nonlinear” as this seems unnecessary here

Page 3, line 8: “temporal variations” of what?

Page 3, line 14: What does “features and conditions” refer to to?

Page 3, line 17: “Spatial organization” of what?

Page 3, line 18-19: I don’t understand this sentence. What features and what global controls?

Page 5, line 22: DEM already defined on page 4.

Page 5, line 28: “Permanently” rather than “Premanently”

Page 5, line 30: What is the reason that detrending is necessary?

Page 5, line 31: I don’t think “comparisons” is the correct term - ‘differences’ or ‘similarities’ ‘between floodplains’ would be more accurate.

Page 8, line 21: Remove “also”

Section 5 Discussion. This is a very long section. Please add some sub-headings to help structure the section better. Also, I think the section could be shortened considerable by trying to summarise the significance of the results without the extensive references to other studies. The context of the study should be made clear in the introduction so it is clear what is being investigated, and not retrospectively.

Page 14, lines 8-14: Most of this paragraph seems to fit better into a literature review, and the last three lines could be incorporated in the next paragraph.

Hide

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (27 Nov 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

AR by Murray Scown on behalf of the Authors (01 Dec 2015) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 Dec 2015) by Thomas Kjeldsen

AR by Murray Scown on behalf of the Authors (11 Dec 2015)

Short summary

An index of floodplain surface complexity is developed in this paper and applied to eight floodplains from different geographic settings. Floodplain width and sediment yield were associated with the index or with sub-indicators, whereas hydrology was not. These findings suggest that valley and sediment conditions are important determinants of floodplain surface complexity, and these should complement hydrology as a focus of floodplain research and management.