spatial heterogeneity at laboratory scale: a corner stone in modeling contaminant transport in porous media

modeling and computer simulation of contaminant transport has a long lasting history in groundwater hydrology. various geo-hydrologists made an extensive effort to model and mimic the dynamics of both flow and contaminant transport in porous media. however, the unique feature of such efforts is the lack of proper justification concerning the mismatch obtained via comparing observed and simulated breakthrough curves. the current study is conducted under highly controlled experimental setup in uniform soil to enhance and better explain the rationality behind the failure emerging from reproduction of breakthrough curves by advection-dispersion equation (ade) model. as the breakthrough curves obtained from the laboratory cannot be denied, it seems scientists should revise and perhaps revisit the ade model for a better performance.