the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 14 Aug 2024
User-Validated Drought Vulnerability Factors in Forested Cold Climates: Multi-Sectoral Perspectives from Sweden
Abstract. There is a global call for proactive drought risk management, stressing the need to further our understanding of the systemic nature of drought risk. Proactive drought risk management requires not only an understanding of the drought hazard itself, but also of the underlying vulnerabilities in socio-hydrological systems. As a result, drought vulnerability assessments are increasingly conducted across the globe. However, drought vulnerability is complex and shaped by the social, ecological and hydroclimatic context. Thus, understanding how vulnerability is manifested depending on regional, sectoral or societal differences is crucial. Yet, a detailed overview of drought vulnerability factors relevant for socio-hydrological systems in specific climate regions and ecozones, is currently lacking. Therefore, a first ever attempt was made to identify user-validated drought vulnerability factors, relevant for water-dependent sectors and societies in forested cold climates. User-validation was performed through an online survey conducted in Sweden, Northern Europe, targeting stakeholders from seven water dependent sectors, working in authorities, private and public enterprises, NGOs and trade associations. Respondents were asked to rate a comprehensive list of vulnerability factors, connected to sectoral and societal vulnerability as well as governance, based on their impact on drought risk in their sector as well as for society as a whole. The study successfully identified several relevant drought vulnerability factors for the climate region, as well as the relative impact of each vulnerability factor on drought risk in sectors as well as society. Results showed that the relevance and impact of individual vulnerability factors differed for different sectors, where the forestry sector especially stands out compared to other sectors. Furthermore, the results indicate regional differences in societal vulnerability factors. The substantial list of vulnerability factors found to be relevant by the respondents, demonstrate the complex nature of drought risk, as well as the importance of adopting cautiousness when selecting generic vulnerability factors for applied vulnerability assessments. Furthermore, the results provide a comprehensive guide to both sectoral and societal drought vulnerability in socio-hydrological systems located in forested cold climates.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1988', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Oct 2024
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May may concern is the novelty of the Study. As I mention in comment 11, in general, although the presentation of the method and the description of research objectives are well crafted and easy to follow, I do not see a significant novelty in the method or in the objectives necessary for the HESS journal. The identification of vulnerability factors that the authors used in their questionnaire is built on a “Review paper” that the authors have published recently (Stenfors et al., 2024) and basically come from other studies. The Review paper is an important contribution to the field, but this current manuscript (User-validated…) does not add much to our understanding of the identified vulnerability factors identified in the Review paper. Even the area that they have studied here is a part of the study area in the Review paper. I believe the authors could have already included the results of this current manuscript in that review paper to show an empirical example of vulnerability factors identified by other studies and avoid salami-slicing their well-presented research. I noticed the manuscript lacks a section detailing the design and classification process for the survey questions. This study could stand alone as a robust paper if it included a more sophisticated analysis in the questionnaire design phase. For example, the questions could be categorized independently of any prior knowledge of vulnerability factors. Methods such as PCA could then be applied to validate how respondents' answers align with the categories you've identified.
My detailed comments and suggestions:
- I suggest shortening the title: "Drought Vulnerability Factors in Forested Cold Climates: Multi-Sectoral Insights from Sweden".
As for the term user-validated, it could be slightly misleading if the validation is based only on survey responses. Typically, user validation implies that users have actively confirmed the factors' relevance or usefulness through direct engagement or testing. If respondents simply provided perspectives, terms like user-informed and stakeholder-informed might better reflect that the factors are shaped by input across various sectors. - Line 21 (Abstract): I recommend removing 'Northern Europe' from the sentence, as the study site is specifically in Sweden. Referring to Northern Europe implies a broader region, which may encompass different socio-hydrological contexts that are not representative of your study area.
- Line 25 (Abstract): I recommend removing the word 'successfully' from the sentence. Identifying vulnerability factors from surveys is not something that implies success or failure. It's more about conducting a thorough analysis rather than achieving a specific outcome. A more neutral phrasing would improve the clarity and objectivity of this statement and throughout your entire manuscript. Also, I believe that using the term “investigation” instead of identification is more suitable for the concept of “vulnerability factors” in this study as you investigated these factors through surveys. In your Discussion, line 531, you have correctly used the term “investigation”.
- Lines 44-45: When you mention that “there is currently…”, I expect to see some current literature supporting your argument. Do we know that since 2013 and 2018 there has not been any consensus to define drought vulnerability?
- Line 57: I suggest defining cascading effects before giving the examples.
- Line 91: As mentioned in comment #1, I suggest replacing “user-validation” with terms like “user-informed”.
- Line 128: Typo: Divided?
- Line 171: Try to be consistent with the orders throughout the manuscript, i.e., susceptibility, coping, adaptive. This may sound trivial, but it helps the readers to follow the rhythm of your story more easily.
- Table 1 caption, refer to my previous comment. Also, I suggest changing “based to” to either “according to” or “based on”.
- Table S3: Please correct the caption, Societal v factors.
- Method Section: In general, although the presentation of the method and the description of research objectives are well crafted and easy to follow, I do not see a significant novelty in the method or in the objectives necessary for the HESS journal. The identification of vulnerability factors that the authors used in their questionnaire is built on a “Review paper” that the authors have published recently (Stenfors et al., 2024) and basically come from other studies. The Review paper is an important contribution to the field, but this current manuscript (User-validated…) does not add much to our understanding of the identified vulnerability factors identified in the Review paper. Even the area that they have studied here is a part of the study area in the Review paper. I believe the authors could have already included the results of this current manuscript in that review paper to show an empirical example of vulnerability factors identified by other studies and avoid salami-slicing their well-presented research. I noticed the manuscript lacks a section detailing the design and classification process for the survey questions. This study could stand alone as a robust paper if it included a more sophisticated analysis in the questionnaire design phase. For example, the questions could be categorized independently of any prior knowledge of vulnerability factors. Methods such as PCA could then be applied to validate how respondents' answers align with the categories you've identified.
- Section 3.1 can be summarized into one or two figures (pie chart, donut chart, bar chart, …). I find it redundant to report all the percentages of the answers in a text, mentioning only the important numbers is sufficient.
- Table 3: I believe it would make more sense if you reported the percentage instead of the number of respondents here. For example, for the environmental sector, 23% (8/35), 40% (14/35), and 37% (13/35) of the respondents have limited, moderate, and high drought experience respectively. I suggest this because the number of participants varies among sectors and it’s hard to compare (similar to point size in Fig 2). Maybe, considering this suggestion not only in this table but throughout the manuscript could deliver more understandable information, and could shorten your text by avoiding the reports of fractions of the total numbers (e.g., rating x out of y).
- Table 4: The order of presentation for the main 3 categories is also important to be consistent throughout the manuscript and in any supplementary materials, e.g., Sectoral, Societal, Governance.
- Section 3.2 is also a detailed report of all the numbers in Table 4. The table alone has all the information. I believe you could focus and elaborate only on important and meaningful numbers or percentages.
- Line 364: I suggest using the present verb form when reporting the rates: “tend”
- Line 366: “medium to high”, or “medium and high”?
- Section 3.3 is the most important part of your manuscript and is very well presented. I, particularly, like Fig 2 as it is very informative and comprehensive and summarizes your entire study at one look. However, I believe you can talk a lot more about these results. For instance, when it comes to the environmental sector which has a lot of participants, the impact score of susceptibility and coping capacity varies more among the factors compared to adaptive capacity.
- Like Fig 2, Table 5 is also very informative and important to convey the message of this study.
- Line 439, missing pronoun: "As “it” was seen …"
- Section 3.5: For place of employment, generally, there were no significant differences between factor ratings. When it comes to governance factors, I understand why this difference does not exist (maybe because of the generally unified policies in Sweden and the low population density of the country). But can you elaborate on the potential reasons why for sectoral and societal factors, occasionally, there is no significant difference in the place of employment?
- Tables S6 and S7 are important parts of the study, and I believe that they can be summarized in two figures and shown in the main text.
- Line 531-532: User validation => User-information
- Line 532-533: I suggest citing different articles here that assessed drought vulnerability instead of your own paper, which is a review, not an assessment.
- Discussion: There are important messages pointed out by the authors in the Discussion, e.g., in Lines 584-585, they put the study results in a broader context and highlight the importance of climate region in the vulnerability factors assessment. However, most parts of the Discussion are a summary of the results that were already mentioned in the Results section or a self-citation to the authors’ review paper. For example, in lines 589-596, the authors mention that there are significant differences in factor ratings between forestry and other sectors, “which may be an indication that such factors are of differing importance for the sector.” Firstly, this is already mentioned in the Results section, and secondly, yes, a significant difference in factor ratings between sectors means different importance of that factor between the sectors which is not something new to us!
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1988-RC1 - I suggest shortening the title: "Drought Vulnerability Factors in Forested Cold Climates: Multi-Sectoral Insights from Sweden".
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