The process is as following.

1->Generate Perlin in black and white

2->Imagine the whiteness to be a height value. Darker == lower, ligher == higher.

3->Convert the bitmap into a slope / normal map. Follow this process :
   1.Convolution with a 3x3 kernel, y-1 and y+1 as 1,div by 2 bias 127, copy to red channel
   2.Convolution with a 3x3 kernel x-1 and x+1 as 1, div by 2, bias 127, copy to blue channel

Now red and blue are converted into slope values for every pixel. Use this slope value to accelerate or decelerate your particles.

Use a linked list with small datatypes for your particles. Read out from the slope map to move them, add some elastics...et voila.

A position on your normal / slope map has a color. This color encodes x in red and y in green. If you read the green value, you divide it's value by 128 and -1 one that value.

That will give you a value between -1 and +1. Depending on the speed you want to add to the particles, you multiply that value and add it to the velocity of the particle. Same goes for the red channel.