Breakthrough curves (BTCs) obtained from column tests in heterogeneous soils are not satisfactorily simulated with the advection-dispersion equation (ADE) for some heavy tailed cases. Furthermore, the dispersion coefficient calculated with the ADE for heavy tailed BTCs are scale dependent when simulating columns of soil larger than the original test depth. In this paper we compare the usage of a fractional ADE (FADE) and the classical ADE to fit column tests BTCs made with Brazilian lateritic soils, discussing both contaminant transport theories and underlying stochastic models. The FADE can more accurately simulate heavy tailed BTCs, and when applying the adjusted FADE parameters to longer depths of soil, the FADE also predicts a more realistic scenario of contaminant transport through heterogeneous soil. The addition of fractional calculus in the advection-dispersion equation proves to improve contaminant transport predictions based on column tests over the classical ADE, with the use of a constant fractional dispersion coefficient that is scale independent.

Summary We propose an extension of the shifted Grünwald‐Letnikov method to solve fractional partial differential equations in the Caputo sense with arbitrary fractional order derivative α and with an advective term. The method uses the relation between Caputo and Riemann‐Liouville definitions, the shifted Grünwald‐Letnikov, and the traditional backward and forward finite difference method. The stability of the method is investigated for the implicit and explicit scheme with homogeneous boundary conditions, and a stability criterion is found for the advective‐dispersive equation. An application of the method is used to solve contaminant diffusion and advective‐dispersive problems. The numerical solution for the fractional diffusion and fractional advection‐dispersion is compared with their respective analytical solutions for different time and space grid refinements. The diffusion simulation exhibited a good fit between the analytical and numerical solutions, with the explicit scheme going from stable to unstable as the time and space refinement changes. The fractional advection‐dispersion application produced small deviations from the analytical solution. These deviations, however, are analogous to the numerical dispersions encountered in conventional finite difference solutions of the advection‐dispersion equation. The new method is also compared with the traditional L2 method. Notably, an example that involves asymmetrical fractional conditions, a fractional diffusivity that depends on time, and a source term show how the methods compare. Overall, this study assesses the quality and easiness of use of the numerical method.

The conventional mathematical model expressed by the advection–dispersion equation has been widely used to describe contaminant transport in porous media. However, studies have shown that it fails to simulate early arrival of contaminant, long tailing breakthrough curves and presents a physical scale-dependency of the dispersion coefficient. Recently, advances in fractional calculus allowed the introduction of fractional order derivatives to model several engineering and physical phenomena, including the anomalous dispersion of solute particles. This approach gives birth to the fractional advection–dispersion equation. This work presents new solutions to the fractional transport equation that satisfies the initial condition of constant solute injection in a semi-infinite medium. The new solution is derived based on a similarity approach. Moreover, laboratory column tests were performed in a Brazilian lateritic soil to validate the new solution with experimental data and compare its accuracy with the conventional model and other fractional solutions. The new solution outperforms the existing ones and reveals an interesting fractal-like scaling rule for the diffusivity coefficients.

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