Lagrangian Statistical Model for Transport in Highly Heterogeneous Velocity Fields

Abstract

We define an effective Lagrangian statistical model in phase space (x, t, v) for describing transport in highly heterogeneous velocity fields with complex spatial organizations. The spatial Markovian nature (and temporal non-Markovian nature) of Lagrangian velocities leads to an effective transport description that turns out to be a correlated continuous time random walk. This model correctly captures the Lagrangian velocity correlation properties and is demonstrated to represent a forward model for predicting transport in highly heterogeneous porous media for different types of velocity organizations.