Field observations demonstrate that shale gas wells feature a low flowback efficiency (<30%) and high salinity flowback water (approximately 200kppm) after multistage hydraulic fracturing operations. The water recovery and salinity profile could be regarded as a critical method for volumetric and chemical analyses to characterize the reservoir properties and complexity of the fractured network. This paper aims to understand the relationship between fracturing imbibition and ion diffusion, which are responsible for inefficient water recovery and high-salinity flowback fluid, respectively. Comparative imbibition experiments are performed on different shale and sandstone samples, and an electrical conductivity meter is used to monitor the change in ion concentration change of the imbibition fluid. A mathematical model based on theoretical analysis is proposed to clarify the correlation between imbibition and ion diffusion. Both the experimental and analytical solution results show that the imbibition fluid conductivity resulting from ion diffusion is proportional to the square root of time, which is similar to the law of capillary-driven imbibition into porous media. Water imbibition into gas shale and ion diffusion into water proceed simultaneously in the opposite direction, and only the imbibition front contacting the pore wall with salt ions can cause the salt ions to dissolve and diffuse into water. The analytical solution results also indicate that the effects of the porosity, surface tension, contacting area and wetting angle on the water imbibition rate are in consistent with that of the ion diffusion rate. The permeability, however, shows a positive correlation with the imbibition rate and a negative correlation with the ion diffusion rate. The initial water saturation is negatively related to the imbibition rate, and positively related to the ion diffusion rate. In addition, smectite and I/S could enhance the imbibition and diffusion rates. It is observed that Mite concentration has no relationship with the imbibition and diffusion rates, indicating that illite minerals do not significantly affect the imbibition/diffusion rate in these clay-rich shales. This research contributes to understanding the correlation between imbibition and ion diffusion, which is significant for flow-back analysis after fracturing operations. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.