On Characterization of Anomalous Dispersion in Porous and Fractured Media

Abstract

A key characterization of dispersion in aquifers and other porous media has been to map the effects of inhomogeneous velocity fields onto a Fickian dispersion term (D) within the context of the conventional advection‐dispersion equation (ADE). Recent compilations of data have revealed, however, that the effective D coefficient is not constant but varies systematically with the length or timescale over which transport occurs. A natural strategy to encompass this “anomalous” behavior into the context of the conventional ADE is to make D time dependent. This approach, to use D(t) to handle the same anomalous dispersion phenomena, has also been common in the field of electronic transport in disordered materials. In this paper we discuss the intrinsic inadequacy of considering a time‐dependent dispersivity in the conventional ADE context, and show that the D = D(t) generalization leads to quantifiably incorrect solutions. In the course of proving this result we discuss the nature of anomalous dispersion and provide physical insight into this important problem in hydrogeology via analysis of a class of kinetic approaches. Particular emphasis is placed on the effects of a distribution of solute “delay times” with a diverging mean time, which we relate to configurations of preferential pathways in heterogeneous media.