Cellular automata (CA) can be applied for modeling the dynamics of spatially extended physical systems, representing an alternative to the classical PDE approach. Furthermore, CA implementation on large parallel computer is straightforward because of their characteristics of parallelism and acentrism. In this paper, a CA model for simulating the fluid-dynamics of contaminated porous soils is introduced. It is based on an empirical method for modeling complex phenomena from a macroscopic viewpoint; such a choice is motivated by the aim of simulating large scale systems. We report here first significant applications of this model concerning case studies and experiments in pilot plants. The results of the applications and a comparison between case studies and simulations are presented and commented on.