Dear Dr Affouri,

Thank you very much for the responses you address to the reviewers comments. I have studied them carefully and see that you intend to change many points in your paper. I am now waiting after the new version of your manuscript which will show all the modifications done in it.

Please post a revised version of your paper accordingly to your proposition.
Don’t forget I would like to see your corrections in track change mode directly in the manuscript.

After reading your corrected manuscript, I would probably send this new version to one or two reviewers for an additional evaluation.

With my best regards

Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout

Dear authors,

We have now recieved the reviews concerning your paper. Both reviewers (especially two of them) made important comments about your manuscript that may be surely taken in consideration in a new version. I am strongly recommending you to reply quickly to both reviews and justify your response to all comments.

Please prepare a revised version of your paper accordingly. In the revised version,
I would like to see your corrections in track change mode.Please, don't forget to send, with your revised version, a replies to all the comments explaining how you have modified your manuscript.
With the new manuscript and your response, I will decide if your paper will be need again other reviews.

Waiting after your new version
Best regards
Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout

Dear author,

I have read your response to reviewers’ comments and have a carefully look on the changes you propose in your manuscript. It appears that many comments have not been done in the manuscript even you respond in your letter.

So I want you make the corrections requested by the reviewers. You wrote you agreed but did not change in the manuscript at the end. Especially, there are several remarks that have absolutely to be taken into account and I will be watchful about that before taking a final decision on your paper (acceptance, other review requests, rejection):

1- The reviewers underlined problems in the structure of your paper. They asked you to modify the organization by moving some paragraphs. Corrections are not only remove and added some rare sentences or correct some typographic or language errors. Especially as pointed by the reviewers, some paragraphs are not related to the discussion but to the results. So please, move all descriptions of data in results. For example,
paragraphs 6.1, 6.2 and probably part of 6.3 are related to results and not to discussion.
This will helps to clarify your manuscript.

2- As underlined by report 1, you have to present in the methods all types of data you use on the core and do not present data that will not be described in the results and used in the discussion. Ex: XRF data

3- In the response to reviewer 3 you add some information on the core but you did not write anything in the text. For example, explanations on the upper centimeters or on the grain size may be helpful. Why didn’t you add that in the text?

4- The true discussion is definitively too short and still more after moving what is relevant to results. This have been underlined by reviewers in the two rounds of reviews and I agree with that. You have to develop and debate on what your work is interesting and brings concerning the flood reconstructions comparing to previous works and not only in the studied area but in a larger context in Tunisia and in Mediterranean. In addition, it will be useful and essential to develop in the discussion how your work helps to understand local and regional climate changes, especially on what concerns extreme events, through such floods analyses.

5- One of the reviewers ask you to gather the figures 9 and 12. I agree with that. Why did not you do that? You write you agree and you did not change that!!!

6- It is not acceptable to produce figures with a so bad resolution as what is offered in the corrected manuscript. Please take care about what you sent. Furthermore, the characters in many of them are too little and often unreadable. Some figures are blurred with unreadable legends. Please enlarge the characters in the maps and correct the readability and sharpness of all figures.

Now I urge you to have an in-depth reading your document, associated reviews and responses done and then carefully revise the manuscript.
Waiting after looking a corrected version of your manuscript. I will state on this new files and decide if it will need other reviews.

Best regards

Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout

Dear authors,

Thank you for your response and documents sent to Climate of the Past.

I have read the new version of your text and all the response you did to the reviewers.
It seems that all corrections requested have been done now and that you follow the remarks of reviewers especially concerning the organisation of the paper and the extension of the discussion.
Nevertheless some amendments are needed again before a complete acceptance of your document.
In acknowledgements, please do not forget to thank the reviewers. They took time to read your paper and provide comments. Thank you.

1- The text will benefit by a reading by an English native could be done before acceptance. I propose some primary corrections.

Line 50: please verify Raji et al, 2014. It does not exist in the reference list
Line 69: add and before “is constituted”
Line 70: there is no Figure 1 B
Line 71: replace as following by as follows
Line 137: replace for by from “the connection...”
Line 154: add “on” before “the BL12-10...” and correct the sentence “Each sample....”. Perhaps it will be better to write something like “sieved through a 1cm mesh” at the end.
Line 213: delete these before “three groups” and add an “s” a to “follow”
Line 262: write “The same distribution”
Line 285-287: please write a single sentence
Line 287: delete thus as the prevalence of these elements is not a consequence of what you say in the previous sentence
Lines 292 to 294: Rephrase from “silicon... to 1989)” it is not clear. You explain that you may have two origins first and choose the second why?
Line 297: write Ca is high in the marine samples
Line 298-299: “both.... Material” and (not but) ”also..”
At the end of the 5.1.3 we have no real conclusion after the last sentence we need more explanations!! What was the real input of this component analysis? It is not clear. And we need a sentence to link with the following paragraph or at least an opening to the paleorecord. In which way does such study will serve you for the paleoreconstruction?
Line 324: delete “we have seen that” it is not necessary for me
Line 330: replace the “:” by /
Line 341: rephrase the sentence. You can write “this study proposed the preliminary analyses performed on the first 30cm only although “the whole..... cm”
Line 342: replace made by composed
Line 351: where are represented the profiles cited in the sentence? There are not values in the Table 5. I suppose it is in figure 11 but the citation is nine lines below!!
Line359: “a similar ratio (without s) .... is applied” or “the similar ... ratios ....were”
Line 361-363; is it necessary to write “our data” you may begin directly with the measured elemental....ratios...show ....and the mud.....12a)Line 371 to 374: could you please link the two sentences as one is the conclusion of the other.it is what I have understand. Or link the second to the third, it will be easier to follow.
Line 381: do not mark an automatic wrap return and continue the previous paragraph. Or you have to do the same thing at line 387 and 407. Perhaps the best thing will be to have a unique paragraph on the flood chronology. Without auto-wrap, it is not so long to read.
Line 394-398: rephrase the sentence and simplify the text.
Line 401-405: it will be better to link the sentences as at that time the facts shown appear not complementary to end in your conclusion.
Line 410: write “El Bibane flood record shows”... instead of “the results”
Line 418: add at the beginning “moreover these data demonstrate that...”. And in the next sentence “Thus the association....”
Line 425: I suggest “Lagoon records shows that such costal environments...” and place “despite the importance of these topics in Mediterranean coastal areas” at the end if you want.
Line 433: delete “despite ...topics” and begin you sentence with “such...”
Line 438: verify the references. There are no Medhiou et al 1997 and medhiou and Jedoui, 2000.
Line 456: I think that it will be better to mark “Afouri et al., data in progress” instead of “in prep”
Sometimes the citations of legend are Fig. sometimes fig., please use the CP.

2-In the figures.
I saw that the quality is considerably improved than in you previous versions. Nevertheless it remains that you have to take into account that the figures will not be published al in full page and will be largely reduced in the published document produced after acceptation.
So it is very important to enlarge the characters in figures to be sure that they will be readable after reduction. It is particularly important in the maps where the names of the localities sometimes cited in the text are definitively too little. See figure 1, 2, 3 and 7.
• On Fig. 3 and 5 what did you represent by the numbers around the map (570900 to 72000 and
3640000 to 3740000). I think that they represent the latitudes and longitudes. Please write them in a classic format, I never saw such format in papers. Take care about the all numbers and names if the figure is in reduced format
• Figure 6 is was not labelled in your document
• Figure 7: that one could be probably one conserved in full page, but enlarge text and the legends
too, you have the place to do that on each small maps. There no indications of the number of the
samples on the maps on this figure and you only put the location of five samples on Fig.4. so we have not the link with the Table 3.
• Fig. 9: Names are still fuzzy
• There was not the name on the fig 12. On it, you have some indications in landscape and some
indications in portrait. Could you please put the legend of the stratigraphy near the log and all the
names. Same remark for the fig 1

I am waiting after your new version. Please considered that the final decision of acceptance will be
done only after reconsideration on your new version.

Best regards
Nathalie Combourieu-Nebout