Abstract |
Through the Clean Air Act and its amendments, the U.S. government endeavors to protect and enhance the quality of the nation's air resources by a variety of air quality management systems. Source emissions, meteorological observations, air quality models, and air quality data are the basic components of an air quality management system. Air quality models provide a scientific means of relating emissions and atmospheric processes to provide estimates of ambient air quality values. The models consist of mathematical equations relating the release of effluents into the atmosphere to expected concentrations in ambient air. Air quality models, therefore, can be used to identify and to evaluate the level of controls required to solve industrial and urban air-pollution problems. This report addresses the use of air quality models in a regulatory framework and represents the effort of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) under the original Cooperative Agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, September 6, 1979, through March 31, 1981. |