Slope reliability analysis often assumes isotropic or anisotropic random fields with horizontal orientation to characterize the spatial variability of soil parameters. However, this neglects the influence of rotated anisotropic spatial variability, leading to conservative and unrealistic failure probability estimates. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel method based on the Hierarchical Recurrent Highway Network (HRHN) with attention mechanisms. This method is applied to a time-dependent reliability assessment of the Baishuihe landslide. By incorporating the spatial variability of geotechnical properties—especially the direction of maximum fluctuation—the study constructs both the most adverse and favorable extreme scenarios, enabling the exploration of failure probability evolution under reservoir drawdown and rainfall infiltration. Compared with traditional horizontally anisotropic random fields, the proposed model produces a range of failure probabilities rather than a single curve. This interval range—formed by maximum and minimum failure probabilities—better captures the uncertainty of the model and accounts for external factors such as rainfall and geological changes. Our approach offers a more comprehensive and realistic perspective for geotechnical risk assessment.
Tang et al. (2026) studied this question.