ABSTRACT
This paper sets out the current “state-of-play” for probabilistic slope analysis as seen by the authors. In many aspects it does present a state of the art but advances are so rapid in this field that it would be presumptuous for the authors to try to present “the” state of the art. The advances that the authors find most pressing are modelling of many soil and rock properties as random fields to take account of spatial correlation. The vast majority of existing models do not do this and the reliabilities determined by them may be in error by several orders of magnitude. The paper also includes brief details regarding the biases present in dealing with data on rock defects, an overview of factors that affect the reliability and concerns regarding probabilistic modelling of progressive failure.
