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Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic

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DOI: 10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021

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Engineering Geology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enggeo

Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis

Hyuck-Jin Park a,⁎, Jung-Hyun Lee a, Kang-Min Kim a, Jeong-Gi Um b
a
Department of Geoinformation Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
b
Department of Energy Resource Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Instability in a rock slope is highly dependent on unfavorable orientations of the discontinuities in the rock mass.
Received 1 May 2015 Therefore, kinematic analysis has been used to analyze the structural condition of unfavorably oriented
Received in revised form 20 July 2015 discontinuities using the stereographic projection method. In this analysis, the orientation of a discontinuity is
Accepted 13 August 2015
compared with the slope orientation and friction angle by plotting the orientation of a discontinuity onto a
Available online xxxx
stereonet. This stereonet-based kinematic analysis assumes that a uniform slope orientation and a tightly
Keywords:
clustered orientation of the discontinuities exist. However, the slope orientation, represented by the slope aspect
Probabilistic analysis and slope angle, cannot be uniform if the slope faces are rugged, as in many natural rock slopes, or if the slope was
Rock slope created by deficient blasting. Moreover, the orientation of discontinuities measured in the field is often scattered,
Kinematic analysis even in a same discontinuity set. However, such variations cannot be included in traditional kinematic analysis
GIS and representative values of the slope orientation and mean orientation of a discontinuity are used, which creates
Monte Carlo simulation uncertainties. To overcome these problems, a GIS-based methodology using grid-based data on the slope orien-
tation data and a probabilistic approach is proposed. To take into account variations in the slope orientation, a
digital elevation model (DEM) of the slope face was used and the topographic data of the slope face was derived
from the DEM. The slope faces were divided into 2 × 2 m2 pixels, and the orientation of the slope face was eval-
uated based on the grid cells. In addition, the orientation of a discontinuity was treated as a random variable,
thereby accounting for natural variability, and a probabilistic analysis approach was adopted to deal with
uncertainties and variability. Therefore, a grid-based probabilistic analysis module for the kinematic analysis
was developed and used on a cell-by-cell basis to predict instability in spatially distributed slope faces. This prob-
abilistic kinematic analysis was performed in a GIS environment because GIS provides an excellent platform for
management and manipulation of raster-based spatial data. We applied this approach to the spatially distributed
steep rock slopes in the Baehuryeong area, Korea, located along a tortuous mountain road.
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Kinematic analysis is widely used to analyze the potential of the

The stability of a rock slope is mainly controlled by unfavorably ori-
ented discontinuities in the rock mass. Therefore, to evaluate the stabil-
ity of a rock slope, the structural condition of the unfavorably orientated
discontinuities in the rock slope needs to be evaluated as to whether or
not the structural condition results in an instability. This procedure is
known as kinematic analysis and it is a purely geometric approach
that does not consider any stress or force acting on the rock slope
(Park and West, 2001). If the kinematic analysis indicates that a rock
slope is unstable, then the kinetic stability of the rock slope is assessed
using the limit equilibrium method. In a limit equilibrium analysis, the
factor of safety is evaluated as the ratio of the resisting force (the
shear strength force acting upwards along the plane that resists sliding)
to the driving force (the force acting downwards along the sliding
plane) along the failure plane.
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hjpark@sejong.ac.kr (H.-J. Park).
various modes of structurally controlled rock slope failures, and a
conventional kinematic analysis is carried out using the stereographic
projection method. In the stereographic projection method, the mea-
sured orientations of the discontinuities are plotted on a stereonet and
their stabilities are evaluated with respect to the slope orientation and
friction angles of the discontinuities. Kinematic analysis uses
Markland's test (1972) and has been employed in many studies
(Gokceoglu et al., 2000; Park and West, 2001; Yoon et al., 2002; Park
et al., 2005; Aksoy and Ercanoglu, 2007; Gischig et al., 2011; Admassu
and Shakoor, 2013; Böhme et al., 2013; Vatanpour et al., 2014; Smith,
2015). The major assumptions of kinematic analysis that Markland
(1972) suggested are (Admassu and Shakoor, 2013) as follows.
1. A uniform slope angle, slope aspect, and friction angle.
2. The presence of tightly clustered discontinuity data.
3. The absence of cohesion along the discontinuity surfaces.
4. Continuous and planar discontinuity planes.
5. An even spatial distribution of the orientation of the discontinuities.
6. An unbiased representation of all discontinuity sets exists.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
0013-7952/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
2 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
However, the slope orientation (i.e., slope angle and aspect) cannot
be uniform if the slope faces are uneven and rugged, such as in many
natural rock slopes, or if the slopes are constructed by deficient blasting.
In addition, the aspects of slopes constructed along tortuous mountain-
ous roads will vary within a slope. Therefore, in many cases, the orienta-
tions of slopes are not uniform and the slope angles and aspects vary
within a given slope. This means that we have to consider the change
in orientation of the slope for a single slope during kinematic analysis,
which is difficult to consider in a conventional stereonet-based
kinematic analysis.
The variation of the orientation within a slope can be evaluated
using digital elevation model (DEM)-derived topographic data, because
the topographical attributes can be mapped easily from DEM using GIS
software, and the DEM data are widely available. Therefore, DEM-
derived information on the orientation of the topography has been
used commonly in many physically based slope stability analyses
(Jaboyedoff et al., 2004; Derron et al., 2005; Ghosh et al., 2010;
Grenon and Hadjigeorgiou, 2010; Günther et al., 2012; De Vita et al.,
2012; Yilmaz et al., 2012). Using DEM, the slope angle and aspect
were calculated based on a grid cell, and then raster maps of the slope
and aspect were derived. However, kinematic analysis using DEM-
derived orientation data can be difficult using the traditional stereo-
graphic projection method. This is because a large amount of the spatial-
ly distributed topographic attribute data are obtained from the grid cells
in the slope face, and it is not easy to analyze such a large amount of data
using the qualitative stereonet-based method. Therefore, the applica-
tion of GIS is an appropriate approach, because GIS provides a frame-
work in which to analyze and process a large volume of spatial data
efficiently. Consequently, in this study, a GIS-based environment was
adopted in our kinematic analysis.
In addition, in most cases, the orientations of the discontinuities
measured in the field are not clustered tightly. In fact, the orientations
of the discontinuities were widely scattered within the same set in
many cases. Therefore, one of the greatest challenges for rock slope
stability analysis is the selection of representative values from widely
scattered discontinuity data (Park et al., 2005). Consequently, there
are uncertainties involved in the analysis procedure, because single rep-
resentative orientations of the discontinuities are used in the rock slope
stability analysis and variations of the orientation of a discontinuity in a
set are not considered. In addition, natural variability is also one of the
most important sources of uncertainties, especially when dealing with
rock mass and discontinuities (Baecher and Christian, 2003). Therefore,
the conventional stereonet-based analysis, which uses a single repre-
sentative value of orientation of a discontinuity, cannot properly deal
with uncertainties and variability, and this can potentially result in
misleading conclusions (Grenon and Hadjigeorgiou, 2010). Conse-
quently, to consider the uncertainties and variability in the orientation
of a discontinuity within a cluster set properly, a probabilistic analysis
should be used. Therefore, in this study, we proposed a probabilistic
analysis approach in a GIS environment to deal with these uncertainties
and variability in the orientation of a discontinuity properly.
2. Probabilistic kinematic analysis in a GIS environment
According to Hoek and Bray (1981) and Wyllie and Mah (2004), a
plane failure may occur when the following kinematic conditions are
satisfied: (1) the potential failure plane must have daylight on the
slope face; (2) the dip of the failure plane must be less than the slope
angle but greater than the friction angle along the failure plane; and
(3) the dip direction of the failure plane lies at approximately ±20° to
the dip direction of the slope. A wedge failure needs similar kinematic
conditions; i.e., a wedge failure requires that a wedge can slide along
the intersection line between two discontinuities, forming a wedge-
shaped block. The dip of the line of intersection of the two discontinu-
ities should be less than the slope angle but greater than the friction
Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
angle along the discontinuities. In addition, the dip direction of the in-
tersection line should be in the same direction as the slope face.
The kinematic analysis of the rock slope stability commonly checked
the above conditions using stereographic projection techniques by plot-
ting the discontinuities on a stereonet. A stereonet analysis is adequate
for site-specific single rock slopes whose orientation is uniform. However,
in cases where the rock slopes are widely distributed in a regional
area and the orientation of a rock slope is not uniform, the analysis be-
comes time consuming, and is sometimes difficult to implement using
the stereographic projection method. Therefore, an efficient way to over-
come these limitations is to utilize a GIS-based approach. Because GIS is a
powerful tool for collecting, analyzing, and displaying spatially distribut-
ed data, GIS has been used frequently to analyze spatial data in spatially
distributed slope stability analysis (Gokceoglu et al., 2000; Irigaray et al.,
2003, 2012; Günther et al., 2004, 2012; Kim et al., 2004; Aksoy and
Ercanoglu, 2007; Ghosh et al., 2010). In the GIS environment, the spatial
distribution of the input parameters for spatially distributed slope
stability analysis has been assessed in a raster format by interpretation
of digital maps, fieldwork, and laboratory analysis (Terlien et al., 1995).
The raster format is widely used in spatial analysis and modeling because
of its simple data structure and easy integration with other data. In a
raster format, an area is subdivided into cells or pixels, and each cell
can be treated as a homogeneous area with one of more attribute values.
The slope face orientations, which are the major information for a
spatially distributed slope characterization (Günther, 2003; Günther
et al., 2012), can be readily obtained from raster-based DEM-derived in-
formation on a grid base using GIS software. Therefore, the kinematic
analysis procedure is performed readily in GIS environments as GIS pro-
vides an excellent platform to deal with grid-based spatial data in a ras-
ter format. Our kinematic analysis was performed on a cell-by-cell basis
using DEM-derived spatial data.
The uncertainty and variability in orientation of the discontinuities
was taken into account in our kinematic analysis using the probabilistic
approach. As mentioned above, the natural variability in orientation of
the discontinuities resulted in a scatter of the poles on the stereonet.
That is, the dispersion around the mean orientation was observed in dis-
continuity orientation data and consequently, that should be accounted
for in kinematic analyses. However, in many previous traditional analy-
ses, the mean (or representative) orientations of each set were chosen
and used for the kinematic analysis, even though an analysis using ori-
entations other than the mean values may show significantly different
results from the deterministic analysis (Wyllie and Mah, 2004). In this
study, therefore, the orientations of the discontinuities were considered
as a random variable and a Monte Carlo simulation, one of the common-
ly used probabilistic analysis approaches, was used. The probabilistic
analysis used a range of randomly generated orientations that satisfied
a chosen probability density function (PDF), depending on the type of
orientation distribution concerned, instead of using a single representa-
tive orientation of a discontinuity. Therefore, using the Monte Carlo
simulation technique, the dips and dip directions of the discontinuities
were randomly generated, and then the randomly generated orienta-
tion of the discontinuities were used to evaluate the potential for
plane and wedge failure. After repeated calculations were carried out,
the probability of a kinematic instability was calculated.
3. Application of the proposed approach to the study area
3.1. Study area
To apply the proposed approach to a practical example and to check
the feasibility of our approach, the steep rock cut slopes in a mountainous
area of Baehuryeong, Chuncheon, Gwangwon-do, Korea were selected
(Fig. 1). The slopes are located along a tortuous mountain road and
were constructed by uncontrolled blast in the 1980s. Therefore, the
slope surfaces are rough and large amounts of open joints are present
(Fig. 2). According to Ministry of Construction and Transportation
 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 3

Fig. 1. The location and geology of the study area.

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
4 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Fig. 2. Rough slope faces and open joints observed in the study area.
(MOCT) (2005), frequent rock fall occurrences were reported after the
road was constructed. For this study, 23 rock slopes, which were con-
structed along the 2.6-km-long Baehuryeong road, were selected to ana-
lyze the kinematic instability using the proposed approach. A field
investigation was performed to acquire the orientation and geotechnical
characteristics of the discontinuities and the slope geometry.
The study area comprises two main lithologies: a Precambrian gar-
net bearing gneiss and a Mesozoic garnet bearing two-mica granite
(Fig. 1). The garnet bearing gneiss is mainly distributed in the south of
the study area, and it intrudes the Precambrian banded gneiss, the
oldest rock in the regional surrounding area. The garnet bearing gneiss
is composed of quartz, plagioclase, biotite, and garnet. The two-mica
granite is located in the north of the study area, and shows intermediate
to coarse grain size with quartz, plagioclase, alkali feldspar, and biotite.
The granite intrudes the Precambrian banded gneiss and garnet bearing
gneiss. Slope Nos. 1 to 11 were composed of the two-mica granite and
the main lithology of Slope Nos. 12 to 23 was garnet bearing gneiss.
3.2. Collection of input data and construction of the spatial database
A kinematic analysis of spatially distributed rock slopes requires spa-
tially distributed input data. The spatial distribution of input parameters
is represented as a thematic map with raster format data, which gives
the values of the parameters for each pixel. Therefore, in this study,
the input parameters for the kinematic analysis were obtained from
field investigations and laboratory tests, and their spatial databases
were created to construct a thematic map for the input parameters.
The slope angle and slope aspect are two important parameters for
kinematic analysis and were evaluated in the form of a dip angle and
dip direction of the slope face. To create the distribution maps of the
dip and dip direction for slopes, a 1-m DEM for each slope face was con-
structed using a 1:5,000 scaled digital topographic map of the study
area, provided by the National Geographic Information Institute of
Korea. Then, the dip and dip direction of each cell in the slope faces
were evaluated for each cell and the distribution maps for the dip
(Fig. 3(a)) and dip direction (Fig. 3(b)) were constructed using the
ArcGIS software package. Fig. 4 shows two case examples (for slope
Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
Nos. 5 and 18) of the stereonet plots for the distribution of slope orien-
tations obtained from each cell and the representative slope orientation.
The kinematic analysis of the rock slope stability also requires the
orientation of the discontinuities as an input parameter. Therefore, the
orientations of the discontinuities were collected from field investiga-
tions and borehole data in the study area. The obtained orientation
data were plotted on a stereographic projection net and clustered
using Mahatab and Yegulalp's algorithm (1982) to identify the disconti-
nuity sets. Because the study area is composed of two different rock
types, and their structural properties were different, the study area
was divided into two domains based on the lithology and, subsequently,
the orientation of the discontinuities was analyzed for each domain. As a
result of the analysis, three joint sets, J1(033/67), J2(272/89), and
J3(303/54), were identified in the granitic area and four joint sets,
J4(174/83), J5(089/60), J6(264/64), and J7(188/18), were identified in
the gneissic area (Fig. 5). Subsequently, the mean dip/dip direction
values for each set were evaluated from the scattered discontinuities
(Table 1). In addition, the Fisher's constant (K) values, which describe
the tightness of a cluster, were also evaluated from the stereonet plots
and are listed in Table 1. These were calculated using
M−1
K¼ ð1Þ
M−jr n j
where M is the number of data within a cluster and |rn| is the magnitude
of the resultant vector for a cluster set (Fisher, 1953). Fisher's constant is
an important input parameter in the simulation procedure of the prob-
abilistic analysis. In addition, the friction angles of the discontinuities
were a required input for the kinematic analysis, and therefore, the re-
sults of previous research in the study area (Dongbu Engineering,
2003) were adopted to obtain the friction angles. In the previous
research, a series of direct shear tests were carried out to obtain the
friction angles of the discontinuities. The mean value of the friction an-
gles used in the kinematic analysis was 33° and 37° for the gneiss and
the granite, respectively. However, the friction angle was not considered
as random variable in the probabilistic analysis because the friction
 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 5

Fig. 3. Maps showing the distributions of (a) dip and (b) dip directions of a slope face.

angle was used as criteria to check the kinematic instability in a deter-
ministic performance function for Monte Carlo simulation.
3.3. Procedure used for the probabilistic kinematic analysis approach
In the study area, no toppling failures were observed during the de-
tailed field investigation. Therefore, only the potentials of the kinematic
instability for the plane and wedge failures were analyzed in this study.
However, in the kinematic analysis process for spatially distributed
slopes using the raster format spatial data, the calculation of the kine-
matic instability required much effort and time, because the kinematic
analysis was implemented on a cell-by-cell basis for a large number of
cells in the slope face. That is, the slopes in the study area were com-
posed of 27,975 pixels, and the kinematic analysis procedure needed
to be implemented in each cell for all pixels in the study area. Therefore,
to carry out the analysis procedure efficiently, we developed two
kinematic analysis modules using MATLAB platform (Mathworks,
2010): a grid-based deterministic analysis module, and a grid-based
probabilistic analysis module. In the grid-based deterministic module,
the representative orientation of a discontinuity for each discontinuity
set was used in the analysis. For a plane failure, the single mean value
of the orientation of a discontinuity was compared with the slope orien-
tation and friction angle to evaluate the potential of kinematic instabil-
ity of a plane failure. For wedge failures, the orientations of all possible
intersection lines between the discontinuities were calculated using
the equations proposed by Leung and Kheok (1987) and Admassu and
Shakoor (2013) using the mean orientation for each discontinuity set.
Then, the orientations of the intersection lines were used to check the
potential of a kinematic instability of a wedge failure by comparing it
with the slope orientation and friction angle.
On the other hand, in the grid-based probabilistic module, the orien-
tation of a discontinuity was considered to be a random variable, which
means that their scattered orientations were taken into account in the
analysis procedure. In this study, Monte Carlo simulations were adopted
as the probabilistic analysis method. For plane failures, the dip angles
and dip directions of the discontinuities were randomly generated and
compared repeatedly with the slope orientation and friction angle.
During the simulation procedure, the Fisher distribution was employed
as the PDF for the orientation of a discontinuity, which means that the
variable θ obeys the Fisher distribution and has the following density
function:
K sin θ eK cos θ
f ðθÞ ¼ ð2Þ
eK −e−K
where θ is the angular deviation from the mean orientation, which
ranges between 0 and π/2, and K is Fisher's constant. The Fisher distri-
bution, which is close to a normal distribution (Borradaile, 2003),

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
6 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Fig. 4. Stereographic plot for the distribution of slope orientation and the representative
slope orientation for (a) slope no. 5 and (b) slope no. 18.
provides a valuable model to evaluate the orientation of a discontinuity
data in view of its simplicity and flexibility, even though the Fisher dis-
tribution provides only an approximation of asymmetric orientation
data because of its symmetric distribution (Priest, 1993). To simplify
the above equation, the following approximate expression for the cu-
mulative probability distribution was used.
PðθÞ ≈ 1−eKð cos θ−1Þ ð3Þ
Using this equation, the orientation of the discontinuities was
randomly generated and Monte Carlo simulations were carried out.
The detailed procedure for the Monte Carlo simulations is provided in
the author's previous study (Park and West, 2001).
For wedge failures, the intersection lines evaluated from two differ-
ent randomly generated discontinuities were repeatedly compared
with the slope orientation and friction angle. Then, this probabilistic
Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
Fig. 5. Stereographic plots of orientation of discontinuities in (a) a granitic area (slope nos.
1 to 11) and (b) a gneissic area (slope nos. 12 to 23).
analysis procedure was carried out for each cell in the spatially distrib-
uted slopes using the discussed modules. After a sufficient number of re-
peated calculations had been completed, the probabilities of the
kinematic instability of the plane failures and wedge failures were ob-
tained for each cell. The number of iterations is determined on the
basis of the accuracy and efficiency of the simulation. In this study,
20,000 repeated calculations were carried out for each discontinuity
set. The probability of a kinematic instability was evaluated as the
ratio of the number of iterations that were determined to be kinemati-
cally unstable to the total number of iterations. In the kinematic analysis
procedure, the grid-formatted input data were converted to ASCII for-
mat data files to evaluate the kinematic instability easily using grid-
 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 7

Table 1 4.1. Kinematic analysis using conventional analysis method

Inputs for the discontinuity characteristics.

(a) For slope nos. 1 to 11 in the granite area In the conventional kinematic analysis, the representative slope ori-
Set J1 J2 J3 entation was used along with the mean orientation of a discontinuity
Dip direction 033 272 303 and friction angle to evaluate the possibility of a kinematic instability.
Dip 67 89 54
The representative slope orientation was commonly obtained from
Fisher's constant 28.8 29.4 24.1
Spacing (m) 1.8 0.8 1.1 direct measurements in the field, and therefore, a detailed site investi-
Friction angle (°) 37 37 37 gation was carried out and measurements were taken to obtain repre-
sentative orientations of the slopes used in this study. The obtained
(b) For slope nos. 12 to 23 in the gneiss area
Set J4 J5 J6 J7 representative slope orientations for 23 slopes in the study area are
Dip direction 174 089 264 188 listed in Table 2. Using these representative slope orientations, the
Dip 83 60 64 18 potential for plane and wedge failures was evaluated, and the results
Fisher's constant 29.6 28.5 33.2 31.4
are also listed in Table 2. Slope Nos. 8, 12, and 18 were analyzed as
Spacing (m) 1.3 2.2 0.4 0.8
Friction angle (°) 33 33 33 33
being kinematically unstable for plane failure because the discontinu-
ities in the slopes met the kinematic conditions of plane failure
(Fig. 6(a)). In Slope No. 8, three different discontinuity sets (J1, J2, and
J3) were observed, but only discontinuity set J3 (303/54) satisfied the
based modules developed in a MATLAB environment. Subsequently, the kinematic conditions for plane instability. In Slope Nos. 12 and 18, the
kinematic analysis for each pixel was carried out using the developed discontinuity set J6 (264/64) among four discontinuity sets (J4, J5, J6,
modules. The results of the analysis of each module were constructed and J7) was analyzed as being kinematically unstable for plane failure.
in ASCII format and transferred to grid format files using the GIS soft- In the case of wedge failures, the orientations of the intersection
ware. The analysis results were presented in the form of a map using lines between two discontinuities in the slopes were evaluated to
the GIS software. check the potential for wedge instability with the representative slope
orientation and friction angle. Slope Nos. 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, and
4. Results 23 were analyzed as being kinematically unstable regarding wedge fail-
ure in this analysis (Fig. 6(b)). In Slope Nos. 4, 5, 8, and 10, the disconti-
To compare our proposed analysis approach with previous nuity combination of J1 (039/67) and J3 (303/54) was analyzed as being
approaches, a conventional stereonet-based kinematic analysis was unstable, and for Slope Nos. 12, 15, 16, 18, and 23, the discontinuity
carried out to evaluate the potential kinematic instabilities in the combination of J4 (174/83) and J6 (264/64) was analyzed as being
study area. Representative slope orientations and the mean orientation unstable.
of the discontinuities were used in the conventional kinematic analysis.
Then, the proposed kinematic analysis approach was applied to the 4.2. Kinematic analysis using a grid-based deterministic approach
study area using the grid-based deterministic and probabilistic
modules. In the grid-based approach, the slope aspect and slope angle As mentioned above, the conventional kinematic analysis used only
for each pixel were obtained from grid-based distribution maps of the representative slope orientations and did not take into account any
dip direction and dip angle of each slope face. In the grid-based deter- variation in slope orientation. Therefore, in this study, the slope face
ministic analysis, representative orientation of the discontinuities was divided into 2 × 2 m2 grid cells and the orientation of each cell in
were used for the discontinuity set, whereas the orientation of the dis- the slope face was evaluated using the slope algorithm proposed by
continuities was considered to be a random variable and their variation Horn (1982), which is implemented in ArcGIS software. Then, spatial
was considered using the grid-based probabilistic analysis. distribution maps of the slope orientation were constructed.

Table 2
Results of the conventional kinematic analysis and the grid-based deterministic kinematic analysis approach.

Slope no. Slope orientation (dip dir./dip) Conventional analysis Grid-based deterministic analysis Observed failure

Plane failure Wedge failure % Unstable area for plane failure % Unstable area for wedge failure

1 250/69 Stable Stable – – No

2 274/68 Stable Stable – – Small falling blocks
3 272/62 Stable Stable 1.7 – Small wedge failure
4 329/61 Stable Unstable – 5.1 Small wedge failure
5 281/73 Stable Unstable 52.7 56.5 Wedge failure
6 262/76 Stable Stable 8.6 13.2 Wedge failure
7 263/66 Stable Stable – – Small falling blocks
8 306/70 Unstable Unstable 46.6 55.9 Wedge failure, plane failure
9 234/70 Stable Stable – – Small blocks
10 280/70 Stable Unstable 7.7 3.0 Wedge failure, plane failure
11 223/71 Stable Stable – – No
12 278/68 Unstable Unstable 3.1 1.5 Small wedge failure
13 178/69 Stable Stable – – No
14 306/72 Stable Stable – – Wedge failure
15 218/69 Stable Unstable – 3.6 Small wedge failure
16 241/68 Stable Unstable 0.9 1.0 Covered by vegetation
17 197/46 Stable Stable – – Covered by vegetation
18 254/66 Unstable Unstable 5.7 7.8 Covered by failed soil
19 331/71 Stable Stable – – No
20 219/57 Stable Stable – – Covered by vegetation
21 299/65 Stable Stable – – Small falling blocks
22 299/69 Stable Stable – – Covered by vegetation
23 241/68 Stable Unstable – 1.6 Wedge failure

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
8 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Subsequently, using the slope orientations of each cell in Fig. 3(a) and (b) show the results of the grid-based deterministic approach for
(b), a kinematic analysis was carried out on a cell-by-cell basis using plane failures and wedge failures, respectively. The results of the grid-
the orientation of a discontinuity and the friction angle. Fig. 7(a) and based deterministic analysis, which considered variations in slope

Fig. 6. Results of kinematic analysis using a conventional approach for (a) a plane failure and (b) a wedge failure.

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 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 9

Fig. 6 (continued).

orientation, showed different results compared with the conventional being kinematically unstable, but in the grid-based deterministic ap-
analysis based on representative slope orientation. In the conventional proach, a considerable portion of Slope No. 8 was analyzed as being ki-
analysis for plane failures, Slope Nos. 8, 12, and 18 were analyzed as nematically unstable, whereas very small portions of Slope Nos. 12 and

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
10 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

Fig. 7. Results of kinematic analysis using a grid-based deterministic analysis approach for (a) a plane failure and (b) a wedge failure.

18 were analyzed as being unstable (Fig. 7(a)); i.e., 46.6% of the total
slope face area in Slope No. 8 was analyzed as being unstable, which
means that 353 cells of a total of 758 cells in slope No. 8 met the neces-
sary conditions for kinematic plane instability (Table 2). However, in the
case of Slope Nos. 12 and 18, 3.1% and 5.7% of the slope area was ana-
lyzed as being unstable, respectively, which means that only 82 cells
out of the 2616 cells in Slope No. 12 and 26 cells out of the 460 cells in
Slope No. 18 were analyzed as being kinematically unstable. In contrast,
Slope No. 5, which was analyzed as being stable using the traditional
analysis approach, showed that 52.7% of the slope face areas were ana-
lyzed as being unstable for plane failure. In addition, Slope Nos. 6 and 10,
which were also classed as being kinematically stable using the tradi-
tional approach, showed 8.6% and 7.7% of the slope area were analyzed
as being unstable. In particular, the kinematically unstable areas in
Slope Nos. 6 and 10 (8.6% and 7.7%, respectively), which were analyzed
as being stable using the conventional approach, were larger than the
unstable areas in Slope Nos. 12 and 18 (3.1% and 5.7%, respectively),
which were analyzed as being kinematically unstable using the conven-
tional approach. This result showed that the variation in slope orienta-
tion significantly influenced the kinematic stability analysis if the
slope orientation was not uniform.
Regarding wedge failures, among the unstable slopes identified in
the conventional analysis (such as Slope Nos. 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18,
and 23), only Slope Nos. 5 and 8 showed considerable portions of
slope area that was analyzed as being unstable using the grid-based de-
terministic analysis; i.e., 56.5% and 55.9% of Slope Nos. 5 and 8, respec-
tively, were analyzed as being unstable in the grid-based analysis
(Fig. 7(b)). However, in the case of Slope Nos. 4, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, and
23, very small portions (5.1%, 3.0%, 1.5%, 3.6%, 1.0%, 7.8%, and 1.6%, re-
spectively) of the total slope area were analyzed as being unstable in
the grid-based deterministic analysis; i.e., even if the representative
slope orientations satisfied the conditions for kinematic wedge instabil-
ity, then the slope orientation in each cell was variable and many grid
cells in the unstable slopes using the conventional approach would
not satisfy the kinematic instability conditions. In contrast, 13.2% of
the slope area in Slope No. 6, which was kinematically stable using the
traditional approach, was analyzed as being unstable (Table 2). There-
fore, the representative slope orientation can mislead the results of
the kinematic analysis, and subsequently, the variation in slope orienta-
tion needs to be considered when using the kinematic analysis on rough
slopes.
4.3. Kinematic analysis using a grid-based probabilistic approach
As mentioned above, the uncertainty in the orientation of a disconti-
nuity is caused by a scattering of the orientations of the discontinuities

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 11

within a set, and this influences the results of a kinematic analysis.
Therefore, to consider the uncertainty in the orientation of a discontinu-
ity, the orientation of the discontinuities was considered to be a random
variable and a probabilistic analysis was carried out using the proposed
grid-based probabilistic module. The Fisher distribution was adopted as
the PDF of the orientation of a discontinuity and the slope orientation
for each cell in Fig. 3 was used. For each cell, 20,000 discontinuities
were generated for each set and subsequently, the probabilities of kine-
matic instability were evaluated for each cell.
Fig. 8(a) and (b) show the results of the grid-based probabilistic
analysis for the plane and wedge failures. The value of Fisher's constant
of each discontinuity set was in the range 24.1 to 33.2, as shown in
Table 1, and this means that the orientations were widely scattered.
The results of the grid-based probabilistic analysis were different from
those using the traditional approach and the grid-based deterministic
analysis approach. To determine the level of slope safety using the prob-
abilistic analysis, we need to estimate the probability of whether or not
a slope will be unstable (Silva et al., 2008). Based on the level of uncer-
tainty involved in the study area and from previous studies (Priest and
Brown, 1983; Ko Ko et al., 2004), a probability of kinematic instability
of 20% was used as the criterion for kinematically unstable slopes,
i.e., a cell with a probability of a kinematic instability N20% was predict-
ed to be unstable.
Regarding the plane failures, among Slope Nos. 8, 12, and 18, which
were analyzed as being kinematically unstable using the conventional
approach, only Slope No. 8 showed a considerable portion of the slope
being analyzed as unstable, but Slope Nos. 12 and 18 did not;
i.e., Slope No. 8 showed that the results of the grid-based probabilistic
analysis did not correspond with the results of the conventional
analysis. The results of the probabilistic analysis showed that 69.1% of
the slope face areas were analyzed as being unstable for Slope No. 8,
and the percentage of unstable area increased from 46.6% using the
grid-based deterministic analysis to 69.1% using the probabilistic analy-
sis. In the case of Slope Nos. 12 and 18, a relatively small portion (10.6%
and 16.7%, respectively) of the total area was analyzed as being
unstable, but these values were also higher than the results using the
grid-based deterministic analysis for Slope Nos. 12 and 18 (7.7% and
5.7%, respectively). Consequently, the scattering of the orientations of
the discontinuities significantly influenced the stability of the rock
slopes and the unstable area increased when the scatter in the orienta-
tions of the discontinuities was considered.
In contrast, Slope No. 5, which was stable using the traditional anal-
ysis and showed a substantial portion of unstable area (52.7%) using the
deterministic analysis, showed a higher portion (63.5%) of the slope
being analyzed as unstable using the grid-based probabilistic analysis.
In addition, Slope Nos. 3, 6, 10, and 16, which were analyzed as stable

Fig. 8. Results of kinematic analysis using a grid-based probabilistic analysis approach for (a) a plane failure and (b) a wedge failure.

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
12 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

using the traditional approach with a small portion of unstable area
(1.7%, 8.6%, 7.7%, and 0.9% for Slope Nos. 3, 6, 10, and 16, respectively)
using the deterministic analysis, showed a higher portion of slope area
(5.6%, 19.4%, 23.1%, and 11.4%, respectively) being analyzed as kinemat-
ically unstable using the probabilistic analysis. Most of the portions of
unstable areas increased significantly in the slopes using the determin-
istic analysis versus the probabilistic analysis, and this means that a
large number of grid cells in the slope face being analyzed as stable
using the conventional and deterministic analysis were analyzed as
being unstable using the probabilistic analysis, because the scatter in
the orientations other than the mean value were considered.
Regarding the wedge failures, the slopes analyzed as being unstable
using the conventional analysis (Slope Nos. 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, and
23) showed the various portions of unstable area were in the range
11.6% to 79.4% using the grid-based probabilistic analysis (Table 3).
However, as can be seen in Table 3, the values increased significantly
from the results of the grid-based deterministic analysis, which were
in the range 1.0% to 56.5%. In particular, in the case of Slope Nos. 4, 5,
8, 15, and 23, the portion of unstable area using the probabilistic analy-
sis (48.8%, 70.4%, 79.4%, 34.4%, and 46.9%, respectively) increased signif-
icantly over the results using the deterministic analysis (5.1%, 56.5%,
55.9%, 3.6%, and 1.6%, respectively). Therefore, the uncertainty and var-
iability in the orientation of the discontinuities significantly influenced
the stability of the rock slopes, and consequently, the uncertainty and
variability in the orientation of the discontinuities should be considered
using the kinematic analysis. In particular, the scatter in the orientation
of the discontinuities caused a wedge instability for other discontinuity
combinations, which were analyzed as being stable when the mean
orientation of the discontinuities for each set was used.
In the case of Slope Nos. 1 to 11, only the combination of J1 and J3
met the kinematic condition for wedge instability using the grid-based
deterministic analysis, but using the grid-based probabilistic analysis,
the combination of J1 and J2 and J2 and J3 also satisfied the kinematic
conditions for wedge instability. This is because the scatter in the orien-
tations of the discontinuities in J1, J2, and J3 were used to evaluate the
orientation of the intersection lines and the widely variable orientations
of the intersection line were taken into account using the probabilistic
kinematic analysis. In particular, in Slope Nos. 5 and 8, whose unstable
portions were N70% using the probabilistic analysis, the combination
of J1 and J2 and J2 and J3 also met the necessary conditions for wedge
instability and contributed to the increase in the unstable area (Fig. 9).
Meanwhile, Slope No. 6, which was analyzed as being stable using the
traditional analysis, showed that 41.5% of the total slope area was ana-
lyzed as being unstable, and this value was also higher when compared
with the results of the deterministic analysis (13.2%). Consequently, if
only the representative slope orientation and mean orientation of the
discontinuities are considered using the kinematic analysis, then the
analysis can lead to misleading results. Therefore, the grid-based prob-
abilistic analysis should be considered in kinematic analysis to take
into account the uncertainties in the orientation of the discontinuities
as well as the variation in slope orientation.
5. Discussion and conclusions
The purpose of this study was to propose a grid-based probabilistic
kinematic analysis approach for analyzing the stability condition of
rock slopes. For this purpose, the topographic data of slope faces was de-
rived from DEM and the slope faces were divided into 2 × 2 m2 pixels.
Then, the orientations of the slope faces were evaluated based on grid
cells. In addition, to consider the uncertainty and variability of the dis-
continuity properties, the orientation of the discontinuities was treated
as a random variable. Then, a grid-based probabilistic analysis module
for kinematic analysis was developed and used to predict the kinematic
instability on a cell-by-cell basis. This analysis adopted a GIS framework
because GIS provides an excellent platform to analyze and process a
large number of spatial data in raster format efficiently. According to
the analysis results for the study area, the uncertainty and variability
in the orientation of the discontinuities, as well as the variation in the
orientation of the slopes, significantly influenced the results of the kine-
matic analysis, and therefore, should be considered in the kinematic
analysis process to avoid any misleading results.
The main limitation of this type of analysis is the modeling of the
spatial distribution of the orientation of the discontinuities. In the case
where the rock slopes are distributed widely in a regional area and
the spatial distribution of the discontinuities is complex, such as in
this study area, few studies exist that used spatially distributed data
for the orientation of the discontinuities, especially on the medium to
small scales because of the high cost and nonavailability of fine solution
topographic data. However, in this study, as the grid size of the slope
faces was 2 × 2 m2 and the mean spacing values of most of the

Table 3
Results of the grid-based probabilistic kinematic analysis approach.

Slope no. Slope orientation (dip dir./dip) Conventional analysis Grid-based probabilistic analysis Observed failure

Plane failure Wedge failure % Unstable area for plane failure % Unstable area for wedge failure

1 250/69 Stable Stable – – No

2 274/68 Stable Stable – – Small falling blocks
3 272/62 Stable Stable 5.6 3.9 Small wedge failure
4 329/61 Stable Unstable – 48.8 Small wedge failure
5 281/73 Stable Unstable 63.5 70.4 Wedge failure
6 262/76 Stable Stable 19.4 41.5 Wedge failure
7 263/66 Stable Stable – 3.8 Small falling blocks
8 306/70 Unstable Unstable 69.1 79.4 Wedge failure, plane failure
9 234/70 Stable Stable – 4.5 Small blocks
10 280/70 Stable Unstable 23.1 11.6 Wedge failure, plane failure
11 223/71 Stable Stable – – No
12 278/68 Unstable Unstable 10.6 12.5 Small wedge failure
13 178/69 Stable Stable – – No
14 306/72 Stable Stable 1.1 3.9 Wedge failure
15 218/69 Stable Unstable – 34.4 Small wedge failure
16 241/68 Stable Unstable 11.4 14.4 Covered by vegetation
17 197/46 Stable Stable – – Covered by vegetation
18 254/66 Unstable Unstable 16.7 23.5 Covered by failed soil
19 331/71 Stable Stable – – No
20 219/57 Stable Stable – – Covered by vegetation
21 299/65 Stable Stable 3.4 5.3 Small falling blocks
22 299/69 Stable Stable 1.9 7.0 Covered by vegetation
23 241/68 Stable Unstable 4.0 46.9 Wedge failure

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 13

Fig. 9. Kinematically unstable slopes for wedge failure caused by: (a) a combination of J1 and J2, (b) a combination of J1 and J3, and (c) a combination of J2 and J3.

discontinuity sets were less than 2 m, we assumed that at least one dis-
continuity from each set could be observed in a grid. However, use of
the spatial distributed data of the orientation of the discontinuities in
raster format can improve the reliability of this proposed approach. In
addition, we could not validate the results of the proposed analysis
since detailed records of failures and instability were not available.
Nevertheless, this approach provides an improved methodology for
analyzing the stability of spatially distributed rock slopes using a GIS en-
vironment and a probabilistic analysis to overcome the limitations of
the conventional approach. Several previous studies have proposed a
grid-based kinematic analysis approach, but these studies did not con-
sider the uncertainty in the discontinuities and could not implement
the probabilistic approach. In addition, a number of probabilistic
kinematic analyses have been proposed, but these studies could only
be applied to a specific single slope and only a few studies (Grenon
and Laflamme, 2011) could be implemented in a GIS framework using
raster information. Consequently, our proposed approach is a valuable
tool to overcome the limitations of previous studies, because a probabi-
listic kinematic analysis could be implemented in a GIS-based environ-
ment. This can also provide useful information indicating critical areas,
such as sources of rock falls, where more specific investigation is
required and stabilizing measures need to be considered.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) grants (NRF-2013R1A1A2A10058724) funded by Korea
government (MOE).

Please cite this article as: Park, H.-J., et al., Assessment of rock slope stability using GIS-based probabilistic kinematic analysis, Eng. Geol. (2015),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2015.08.021
14 H.-J. Park et al. / Engineering Geology xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
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