Assessing the influence of watershed characteristics on the flood vulnerability of Jhelum basin in Kashmir Himalaya: reply to comment by Shah 2015

This is a response to the comment made by Shah (2015) to the study carried out by Meraj et al. (2015), published in the Natural Hazards (doi:10.1007/s11069-015-1775-x). We thank the commentator for his comments on our manuscript. The original manuscript published by Meraj et al. (2015) focused on the influence of the geomorphology and land cover on flood vulnerability in two Himalaya watersheds: one each from the Pir Panjal and Greater Himalaya ranges. The 2014 floods were mentioned in the manuscript just to indicate the validity and correctness of the approach adopted to assess the vulnerability of these two watersheds in Kashmir basin (KB). KB is also synonymously used for Karewa basin or Jhelum basin as well. The downstream areas of both these watersheds were inundated during the 2014 floods up to varying depths and duration. The September 2014 floods in the KB were a consequence of the extreme rainfall event that was quite widespread in extent. The situation was exacerbated due to the loss of wetlands, unplanned urbanization, the siltation of water courses in KB and the inadequate flood control infrastructure (Romshoo 2015). The commentator has made most of the comments about the genesis of 2014 floods, which was not specifically the focus of the research published by Meraj et al. (2015), and hence the genesis of the 2014 floods was not addressed therein. It is therefore appropriate that the comments made in Shah (2015) are properly responded to point by point, in order to provide a balanced perspective to the readership of the journal, and are as follows:

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