ABSTRACT
To simulate solute transport in water media (porous or free surface), one usually uses eulerian methods which lead directly to concentration values. PANACHE is rather based on a lagrangian method which makes it ease to use and offer an explicit control over the additional numerical diffusion associated with every discretization method. This approach also called Random Walk Method, or Particle Tracking Method, is more and more often used to solve hyperbolic equations. Most of the applications may be found in the domain of groundwater contamination (Walton, [13]; Konikow and Bredehoeft, [4]; Kinzelbach and Ackerer, [5]; Prickett eta/, [8]; Schwartz and Crowe, [10]). So far, the literature does not provide so many applications of this method to solute transport in free surface flow. Van Dam [12] and Dykes and Robertson [1] in open sea, and Heemink [3] in estuaries represent some contributors. The oil spill modeling is a domain where many applications were reported (see Mackay and Paterson (7] among others).
