Reply to Comment by Darwish on “Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers and Adaptive Landscape Mitigations”
Sara S. Fouad (Technische Universität München)
Essam Heggy (California Institute of Technology, University of Southern California)
Oula Amrouni (Université de Carthage)
Abderraouf Hzami (Université de Carthage)
S. Nijhuis (TU Delft - Landscape Architecture)
Nesma Mohamed (University of Alexandria)
Ibrahim H. Saleh (University of Alexandria)
Seifeddine Jomaa (UZF - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research)
Yasser Elsheshtawy (Columbia University)
Udo Weilacher (Technische Universität München)
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Abstract
We are grateful for Darwish's interest in our paper, Fouad et al. (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883). In this reply, we show that Fouad et al. (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883) did not attribute building collapses in Alexandria solely to hydroclimatic factors, as stated in the comment. Instead, we emphasize that hydroclimatic drivers are presented as accelerators, with other anthropogenic influences explicitly stated in the original paper. Moreover, our response proves that Darwish (2026, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025ef006885)'s simplistic statistical approach is physically incorrect and obscures absolute risk by normalizing actual building collapse rates to the total number of buildings within a city. Furthermore, our reply shows that the comment conflates the distinct measurement of soil relaxation using shallow isotope mapping at the city scale, as conducted in Fouad et al. (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883), with deep structural geotechnical assessments for foundation design of individual buildings. The utility and complementarity of both methods are already discussed in Fouad et al. (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883). We acknowledge that the statement on the “7,000 at-risk buildings” is only mentioned in the abstract and is inadvertently missed in the main text; however, the calculation leading to this result is detailed in our supplementary data set and methods. Accordingly, Darwish (2026, https://doi.org/10.1029/2025ef006885)'s comment, while appreciated, misinterprets Fouad et al. (2025, https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883) and overlooks the contemporary literature on Alexandria's hydrogeological and coastal dynamic contexts and their implications for infrastructure instability.
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