The investigation of water's flow behavior in nanoporous shale media is fundamental to the high-efficiency exploitation of shale gas reservoirs. Such an investigation can provide crucial theoretical foundations for the development of relevant techniques, such as hydraulic fracturing stimulation and reservoir productivity prospecting. Through the integration of the fractal model and nanoscale water transport mechanisms, this article presents an apparent liquid permeability (ALP) model of water flow in the mixed-wet shale matrix. This model incorporates various hydrodynamic features of water at the nanoscale and the pore structure characteristics of shale media. The ALP, the enhancement factor of the shale matrix, and the relative contributions of the organic and inorganic matter for the total ALP under different influencing factors were consequently analyzed. The results demonstrate that the wettability state of the inorganic matter has little effect on the ALP, and multilayer sticking that occurs in water transport leads to a slight decrease in the ALP. However, the ALP is very sensitive to the organic matter: when the organic nanopores become strongly hydrophobic, a dramatic increase in the ALP, resulting from a significant slip behavior, is observed. Additionally, shale's ALP increases or decreases, depending on the combined effects of the large-sized inorganic matter (generally larger than that of organic matter) and the more-hydrophobic organic matter. Furthermore, the structural parameters of shale media were studied. Thus, the developed model provides deeper insights into water transport in a shale matrix and a quantitative framework for future research. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.