Hydrodynamic limit for particle systems with nonconstant speed parameter

We establish the hydrodynamic limit for a class of particle systems on ℤ ^d with nonconstant speed parameter, assuming that the speed parameter is continuously differentiable in the spatial variable. If the particle system is on the one-dimensional latticeℤ and totally asymmetric, we derive the hydrodynamic equation for continuous speed parameters. We obtain nontrivial upper and lower bounds when either the speed parameter is discontinuous or there is a blockage at a fixed site.