Source areas, connectivity, and delivery rate of sediments in mountainous-forested hillslopes: A probabilistic approach.

In mountainous-forested landscape, quantifying the materials produced at hillslope scale that effectively reach the channel network with a given probability is currently challenging, due to the uncertainties in modelling the frequency-magnitude distribution of failures and in determining the sediment connectivity between unstable areas and channel network. The purpose of this study is to develop a modular approach to assess the sediment source areas and the probability of mobilization from hillslope, and to estimate the probability of sediment input to the streams proposing a new connectivity index. The first goal was faced adopting a 3D probabilistic slope stability method that includes the spatially distributed characteristics of forest coverage.