PONE-D-23-02409Field physical model tests on the mechanism of river blocking by debris flow in the middle reaches of the Dadu River, Southwest ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fan,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Gowhar Meraj, Ph .D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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“This research was financially supported by the Sichuan Province International Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation/ Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Project (grant number 2021YFH0178, received by Gang Fan), the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment (No. SKLGP2021K008, received by Gang Fan).”

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“This research was financially supported by the Sichuan Province International Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation/ Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Project (grant number 2021YFH0178), the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment (No. SKLGP2021K008).”

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“This research was financially supported by the Sichuan Province International Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation/ Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Project (grant number 2021YFH0178, received by Gang Fan), the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment (No. SKLGP2021K008, received by Gang Fan).”

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Dr. Gang Fan,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to our journal. Your work has been carefully evaluated by two reviewers who have expertise in your research area. Based on their insightful comments and recommendations, I've decided that your manuscript requires major revisions before it can be considered for publication. Below are the key areas for improvement, as suggested by the reviewers:

1. Both reviewers noted issues with the language, readability, and organization of your manuscript. In particular, the abstract was seen as poorly organized and contained unclear expressions. I recommend that you seek the assistance of a professional editor to enhance the clarity, style, and structure of your manuscript.

2. There are concerns about the introduction, including a lack of critical review of relevant literature and an unclear statement of the research gap. Please revise this section to include a clear identification of the knowledge gaps your study intends to fill, based on an exhaustive review of related literature.

3. Your paper lacks a comprehensive discussion section. Both reviewers indicated that this section is crucial in an academic paper. Your revised manuscript should include a discussion of the achievements and limitations of your study, with perspectives on data, methods, and results. Additionally, this section should provide insight into future research or work prospects.

4. The reviewers also highlighted issues with the figures and tables included in your manuscript. Please revisit these and make necessary modifications to enhance their clarity and relevance.

5. Lastly, please revise your conclusion section to ensure it doesn't merely repeat the abstract. This section should succinctly summarize your main findings and their implications.

Please address each comment provided by the reviewers in your response letter and indicate the corresponding changes in your revised manuscript. These changes will greatly enhance the quality of your research and its presentation, improving its suitability for publication in our journal.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript and your detailed response to the reviewers' comments.

Best Regards,

Gowhar Meraj

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This interesting study investigated the dynamic processes and river-blocking modes of debris flow using field physical experiments. Although this is a very physical-intensive work, the paper is poorly written and lacks in-depth discussion.

1. Abstract is poorly organized with many wrong expressions and lacks a clear knowledge gap.

L24-25, a wrong sentence. L29-30, the logic is wrong.

L33-36, the implication is badly summarized.

2. This paper is poorly written that some paragraphs of the paper are in a lack of readability because of too redundant information and language issues. I suggest that the authors focus on the style/language and to ask a professional editor to go over the whole text.

3. Introduction would benefit from a critical review of relevant literature, identifying gaps in our knowledge and justifying their approach to the topic.

L45-L53, listing many historic stories is not good.

L57-69, these introductory content should appear in the Study area and Material.

L91-103, directly listing many references is very bad.

4. Figures 1-5 introduces the background of debris flow in the Dadu River, but this study focus on the field experiments. The relation between actual condition and experiment results should be separated. I think Figures 1-5 should be combined in one figures.

5. Figures 8b, 10b, 12b have low resolution.

6. In Figures 9, 11, 13, 14, fitting all data using the linear function is not appropriate.

7. Table 1 and Table 2 is useless.

8. Discussion is missing.

9. Conclusion almost repeats the Abstract.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript studies the mechanism of debris flow blocking the middle reaches of the Dadu River through field physical model experiments, revealing the dynamic process of debris flow blocking the river. Three types of debris flow blockage patterns were observed, providing support for understanding the mechanism of debris flow blockage and disaster prevention and reduction in the region. The specific suggestions are as follows: (1) Please add necessary references in some places, such as lines 48-53; (2) In the introduction, the summary and description of previous work, that is, the work of predecessors, lacks organization, indicating a lack of logic in the entire introduction. On the basis of summarizing previous work, deficiencies in previous research should be identified. Of course, this deficiency needs to be related to the work of this manuscript. This can lead to a more reasonable introduction to the work of this manuscript. Therefore, I suggest the author to reorganize the introduction. (3) This manuscript lacks a discussion section, which is the most important part of an academic paper. It is recommended that the author add it. The achievements and limitations of this study should be discussed from various aspects such as data, methods, and results. In addition, it is also necessary to provide several research or work prospects. (4) The language and expression of this manuscript are not very good, it is recommended to polish the manuscript. For example, in the abstract, the meaning of this sentence is not clear and needs to be modified –“The particle size and density of sand are more likely to block the river with mixed-flow-type river-blocking mode”.

In summary, my suggestion is a major revision.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Chong Xu

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review comments.docx

PONE-D-23-02409R1Field physical model tests on the mechanism of river blocking by debris flow in the middle reaches of the Dadu River, Southwest ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fan,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 16 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Gowhar Meraj, Ph .D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

The authors are suggested to provide a rigorous discussion supported by an indepth literature survey.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This study carried out field physical model tests to study the mechanism of river blocking by debris flow in the middle reaches of the Dadu River. It tried to reveal the dynamic processes of river blocking by debris flows and proposed three typical river-blocking modes of debris flow. By reviewing the revised manuscript, all the comments from previous reviewers have been fully responded and the manuscript has been revised properly. This revised manuscript could be reconsidered for publication with minor revisions. The comments on this version are as follows.

(1) The research gap is suggested to enhance in the manuscript, to address the significant importance to the disaster prevention and mitigation in the middle section of the Dadu River.

(2) Determining of geometric scale is a key factor in the design of physical model tests, so the authors are suggested to state the reason why the geometric scale was determined to be 1: 500 and its effect on the test results.

(3) The key factors that determine the specific river-blocking modes of debris flow should be discussed in the Discussion.

Reviewer #2: The author has made revisions to the manuscript, resulting in an improvement in its quality. Regarding the discussion section, however, the current discussion section is too shallow and it is difficult to imagine the discussion section of an academic paper without references, which is unacceptable. Suggest the authors rewrite the discussion section. The achievements and limitations of this study should be discussed from various aspects such as data, methods, and results In addition, it is also necessary to provide multiple research or work perspectives.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Zhiwei Li

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments on PONE-D-23-02409R1.docx

Field physical model tests on the mechanism of river blocking by debris flow in the middle reaches of the Dadu River, Southwest China

PONE-D-23-02409R2

Dear Dr. Fan,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Gowhar Meraj, Ph .D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Thanks

Reviewers' comments: