MATERIAL DIFFUSION PREDICTION APPARATUS AND MATERIAL DIFFUSION PREDICTION METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an apparatus or the like that estimates and predicts diffusion status of a material emitted from an emission source even when a position and a size of the emission source of the material are unknown.SOLUTION: A material diffusion prediction apparatus 20 comprises: a material concentration and emission source estimation section 24 that regards an error between a concentration of a material calculated by an analysis model for calculating a condition where the material emitted in fluid is diffused in the fluid and an actual concentration of the material as having been generated due to an error of the analysis model, an error of strength of an emission source from which the material is emitted and an error generated at the time of concentration measurement of the material and obtains the concentration of the material and the strength of the emission source in a case where an error function that is a sum of squares of the error of the analysis model, the error of the strength of the emission source and the error generated at the time of the concentration measurement is minimized by means of a method of least squares by using material concentration information acquired and fluid velocity information; and a material distribution prediction section 25 for predicting variations of a material distribution on the basis of results obtained by the material concentration and emission source estimation section 24.