The National Centre of Scientific Research "Demokritos" is a research center in Greece, employing over 1,000 researchers, engineers, technicians and administrative personnel. It focuses on several fields of natural sciences and engineering and hosts laboratory facilities.
Atmospheric dispersion modeling is the mathematical simulation of how air pollutants disperse in the ambient atmosphere. It is performed with computer programs that include algorithms to solve the mathematical equations that govern the pollutant dispersion. The dispersion models are used to estimate the downwind ambient concentration of air pollutants or toxins emitted from sources such as industrial plants, vehicular traffic or accidental chemical releases. They can also be used to predict future concentrations under specific scenarios. Therefore, they are the dominant type of model used in air quality policy making. They are most useful for pollutants that are dispersed over large distances and that may react in the atmosphere. For pollutants that have a very high spatio-temporal variability and for epidemiological studies statistical land-use regression models are also used.
The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute is the Dutch national weather forecasting service, which has its headquarters in De Bilt, in the province of Utrecht, central Netherlands.
The Air Quality Modeling Group (AQMG) is in the U.S. EPA's Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) and provides leadership and direction on the full range of air quality models, air pollution dispersion models and other mathematical simulation techniques used in assessing pollution control strategies and the impacts of air pollution sources.
This page is out of date and should be considered an historic reference only
The Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling Liaison Committee (ADMLC) is composed of representatives from government departments, agencies and private consultancies. The ADMLC's main aim is to review current understanding of atmospheric dispersion and related phenomena for application primarily in the authorization or licensing of pollutant emissions to the atmosphere from industrial, commercial or institutional sites.
Germany has an air pollution control regulation titled "Technical Instructions on Air Quality Control" and commonly referred to as the TA Luft.
The National Atmospheric Release Advisory Center (NARAC) is located at the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It is a national support and resource center for planning, real-time assessment, emergency response, and detailed studies of incidents involving a wide variety of hazards, including nuclear, radiological, chemical, biological, and natural emissions.
PUFF-PLUME is a model used to help predict how air pollution disperses in the atmosphere. It is a Gaussian atmospheric transport chemical/radionuclide dispersion model that includes wet and dry deposition, real-time input of meteorological observations and forecasts, dose estimates from inhalation and gamma shine, and puff or continuous plume dispersion modes. It was first developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in the 1970s.
The AERMOD atmospheric dispersion modeling system is an integrated system that includes three modules:
NAME atmospheric pollution dispersion model was first developed by the UK's Met Office in 1986 after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, which demonstrated the need for a method that could predict the spread and deposition of radioactive gases or material released into the atmosphere.
Area sources are sources of pollution which emit a substance or radiation from a specified area.
DISPERSION21 is a local scale atmospheric pollution dispersion model developed by the air quality research unit at Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), located in Norrköping.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to air pollution dispersion: In environmental science, air pollution dispersion is the distribution of air pollution into the atmosphere. Air pollution is the introduction of particulates, biological molecules, or other harmful materials into Earth's atmosphere, causing disease, death to humans, damage to other living organisms such as food crops, and the natural or built environment. Air pollution may come from anthropogenic or natural sources. Dispersion refers to what happens to the pollution during and after its introduction; understanding this may help in identifying and controlling it.
MERCURE is an atmospheric dispersion modeling CFD code developed by Électricité de France (EDF) and distributed by ARIA Technologies, a French company.
RIMPUFF is a local-scale puff diffusion model developed by Risø DTU National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy, Denmark. It is an emergency response model to help emergency management organisations deal with chemical, biological and radiological releases to the atmosphere.
Austal2000 is an atmospheric dispersion model for simulating the dispersion of air pollutants in the ambient atmosphere. It was developed by Ingenieurbüro Janicke in Dunum, Germany under contract to the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
SAFE AIR is an advanced atmospheric pollution dispersion model for calculating concentrations of atmospheric pollutants emitted both continuously or intermittently from point, line, volume and area sources. It adopts an integrated Gaussian puff modeling system. SAFE AIR consists of three main parts: the meteorological pre-processor WINDS to calculate wind fields, the meteorological pre-processor ABLE to calculate atmospheric parameters and a lagrangian multisource model named P6 to calculate pollutant dispersion. SAFE AIR is included in the online Model Documentation System (MDS) of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and of the Italian Agency for the Protection of the Environment (APAT).
The Operational Street Pollution Model (OSPM) is an atmospheric dispersion model for simulating the dispersion of air pollutants in so-called street canyons. It was developed by the National Environmental Research Institute of Denmark, Department of Atmospheric Environment, Aarhus University. As a result of reorganisation at Aarhus University the model has been maintained by the Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University since 2011. For about 20 years, OSPM has been used in many countries for studying traffic pollution, performing analyses of field campaign measurements, studying efficiency of pollution abatement strategies, carrying out exposure assessments and as reference in comparisons to other models. OSPM is generally considered as state-of-the-art in practical street pollution modelling.