Eighth International Conference on Harmonisation within Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling for Regulatory Purposes

Organised in Sofia, Bulgaria, 14-17 October 2002 by The National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

The 8th Harmonisation Conference in Sofia brought together 134 participants from 30 countries. In addition participants in the COST715 Action joint for the post – conference Management Committee Meeting.

The 8th Conference was addressed to model developers, model users, environmental protection agencies and environmental legislation experts. The venue in Sofia gave possibility to the whole meteorological society in Bulgaria to experience directly contacts with scientists from many countries and gave the basis for future common work and projects.

The opening of this Conference was realised by the Chairman of the Harmonisation Initiative Dr. Helge Olesen, from NERI, Denmark and by Professor Richard Scorer who works in the field for several decades and was strictly following all presentations to distinguish new ideas and approaches.

The conference accommodated 105 contributions (24 posters and 81 oral presentations). The distribution by conference topics was: in “Validation and inter-comparison of models; model evaluation methodology”–35 contributions; in “Regulatory models: country review” - 8; in “Short distance dispersion modelling; meteorological pre-processing” - 11; in “Urban scale and street canyon modelling: meteorology and air quality” - 23; in “Mesoscale meteorology and air quality modelling” -13; and in “Environmental impact assessment: air pollution management and decision support systems and transfer of EU environmental legislation in the candidate counties” – 16 presentations.

What distinguishes this conference from many others is its focus on common tools and methodologies. The basic criteria for selecting papers is whether they fit in with the philosophy of developing an improved modelling culture where modellers as well as regulators and users make effective use of each other's experience. Still, the presence of regulators and users at the conference was modest compared to scientists. More efforts to strengthen these links should be needed in future.