Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling

To comply with legal and other standards, businesses and regulators are increasingly required to make decisions based on risk assessments of the potential effects of their activities on the environment. Atmospheric dispersion modelling is a cost-effective method, allowing various scenarios to be explored before expensive investment takes place. Those involved in plant design, setting operating conditions, comparing options for site location and the estimation of exposures resulting from releases will welcome the expertise offered by this guide to such an important environmental management tool. Most literature focuses excessively on the mathematical theory behind modelling or on modelling for specific regulatory purposes. Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling corrects such ommissions by giving an understanding of the background to the methodolgies, providing exercises to develop the skills to carry these out and including examples of the use of commercially available models to enable the reader to assess the results of modelling for risk assessment.

Rod Barratt has extensive experience as a teacher and practitioner of air quality management. The author of 40 journal articles and two books dealing with environmental management, he is currently Head of the Open University's Department of Environmental and Mechanical Engineering