We thank Hilberts and Troch [2006] for their comment on our paper [Cartwright et al., 2005]. Before proceeding with our specific replies to the comments we would first like to clarify the definitions and meanings of equations (1)–(3) as presented by Hilberts and Troch [2006]. First, equation (1) is the fundamental definition of the (complex) effective porosity as derived by Nielsen and Perrochet [2000]. Equations (2) and (3), however, represent the linear frequency response function of the water table in the sand column responding to simple harmonic forcing. This function, which was validated by Nielsen and Perrochet [2000], provides an alternative method for estimating the complex effective porosity from the experimental sand column data in the absence of direct measurements of htot (which are required if equation (1) is to be used).