Coloured noise for dispersion of contaminants in shallow waters

In this article, we explore the application of a set of stochastic differential equations called particle model in simulating the advection and diffusion of pollutants in shallow waters. The Fokker-Planck equation associated with this set of stochastic differential equations is interpreted as an advection-diffusion equation. This enables us to derive an underlying particle model that is exactly consistent with the advection-diffusion equation. Still, neither the advection-diffusion equation nor the related traditional particle model accurately takes into account the short-term spreading behaviour of particles. To improve the behaviour of the model shortly after the deployment of contaminants, a particle model forced by a coloured noise process is developed in this article. The use of coloured noise as a driving force unlike Brownian motion, enables to us to take into account the short-term correlated turbulent fluid flow velocity of the particles. Furthermore, it is shown that for long-term simulations of the dispersion of particles, both the particle due to Brownian motion and the particle model due to coloured noise are consistent with the advection-diffusion equation. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.