A transition rate transformation method for solving advection–dispersion equation

Advection–dispersion equation is widely used to describe solute transport in hydrology. However, using conventional methods, e.g., finite difference method, to solve this equation may result in numerical dispersion and oscillation, especially when the advection velocity is large. This paper presents a novel transition rate transformation (TRT) method to simulate the advection–dispersion process. Advection–dispersion equation is invariant as the transition rate function is transformed under the condition that the first and second spatial moments of the transition rate are kept unchanged. According to this invariance, the TRT method constructs simple transition rate functions to solve the advection–dispersion equation. Our simulation shows that the results obtained by the TRT method agree well with analytical solutions. The freedom of the selection of transition rate functions may be very useful for the simulations of the advection–dispersion problems.