Dear Dr. Micallef and co-authors

Thank you for submission of your revised manuscript.

After reviewing this resubmission and conferring with a senior editor, we are in agreement that reviewer comments have not been sufficiently addressed in this revision. In the resubmission response, only my comments are explicitly addressed, with much of the manuscript unchanged, though reviewers have suggested clarifications throughout. Currently, I do not feel it is appropriate to send this out for re-review without further engagement with the existing reviewer comments.

I encourage you to further engage with the suggestions of the reviewers and provide full line-by-line responses to reviewer comments with a revised manuscript. If you select to not incorporate specific reviewer suggestions, please explain why in your revised response letter.

In particular, there were a number of questions from reviewers regarding the OSL dating and landscape evolution modeling, including clarification of model assumptions, the choice of parameter values, and an associated parameter sensitivity analysis, that remain unaddressed in the revised manuscript. Further items, including relevant citations for software packages used, clarification of OSL sampling locations, additional discussion of the interpretation of the geophysical data, and suggestions to clarify language, including the modification of “box canyon” to “coastal gully” for clarity should also be addressed in your resubmission.

I look forward to receiving a revision of your manuscript, including line-by-line responses to all reviewer comments, including references to the modified manuscript text.

All the best,
Claire

Dear authors,

Thank you for submission of your revised manuscript and your engagement with the thoughtful reviews that you received. I find your manuscript to be significantly improved, as did Anonymous Reviewer #1.

I have done another pass of your manuscript and have a number of clarifying questions, as well as suggestions for improving the figures throughout the manuscript. Much of this clarification is related to the calculation of the factor of safety, the associated model inputs and outputs, and how the historical datasets are being used with regard to the modeling exercise.

I have attached a commented PDF here where I have made suggestions for clarification and for improvements in the visual presentation of the manuscript. I have marked these as minor revisions because they are mostly regarding presentation, rather than analysis.

All the best,
Claire

Dear Dr. Micallef and co-authors,

Thank you for your submission the revised manuscript. I find the figures much more legible and appreciate your thoughtful clarifications throughout the manuscript. I am now recommending this manuscript for publication.

I look forward to seeing this published in E-Surf!

All the best,
Claire Masteller

Dear Aaron and Colleagues,

Thank you for working with AE Claire Massteller and her referees during the discussion and review process. Your manuscript revisions have significantly improved the paper. I am happy to follow Claire's advice and accept your manuscript for publication in ESurf in its current form.

Your manuscript will now be handled by the publishers of Copernicus. Please respond promptly to their queries and requests to help keep the time to publication to a minimum.

Please note that due to current biosafety measures and a higher than normal manuscript volume, Copernicus may need slightly longer for the processing of your manuscript.

Thanks you for submitting your work to ESurf. I am particularly glad to have good studies of groundwater and its role in Earth surface dynamics for the journal.

Best wishes,

Niels Hovius