The 20th International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and Its Application was held in Valencia, Spain, during late 1993. At this conference, a new record of abstracts was submitted, a new record of scientists participated, and a new record of countries was represented. This clearly indicates society's continuous and growing interest in, as well as importance of, the complexities associated with the modelling of air pollution. The conference addressed the following main subjects: integrated regional modelling, global and long-range transport, new modelling developments, accidental releases, and model assess ment and verification. In addition, two project-oriented workshops were organized as part of the conference. The many contributing authors and scientists taking active part in the discussions following the papers, have made this proceeding a record of the current status in the field of air pollu tion modelling. We want to express our gratitude to their efforts. We also wish to extend our gratitude to the sponsors that made this conference possible. In addition to financial support from NATOjCCMS the conference received contributions from CEAM, the European Asso ciation for the Science of Air Pollution, Danish Center for Air Research, and Ris0 National Laboratory. A special grant was given by NATOjCCMS to facilitate attendance of scientists from Central and Eastern Europe. We also wish to express our gratitude to Rosa Salvador and Pilar Zamora of CEAM, who laboriously organized the conference pre-proceedings, and to Anne N0rregaard and Ulla Riis Christiansen of Ris0 National Laboratory, who seved as conference secretariat.

The interest in air pollution modelling has shown substantial growth over the last five years. This was particularly evident by the increasing number of participants attending the NATO/CCMS International Technical Meetings on Air Pollution modelling and its Application. At the last meeting 118 papers and posters were selected from an abundance of submitted abstracts divided over five modelling topics: (i) model assessment and verification, including policy applications, (ii) air pollution modelling in coastal areas with emphasis on the mediterranean region, (iii) accidental atmospheric releases, including warning systems and regulations, (iv) modelling of global and long-range transport and (v) new developments in turbulent diffusion. A round-table discussion chaired by John Irwin (USA) and Jan Kretzschmar (Belgium) on the harmonization of air pollution models was attended by more than 50 scientists and is reported in these proceedings. The opening paper addressed the main issue of this conference: modelling over complex terrain. Of particular interest were coastal areas where the surface inhomogeneities introduce small-scale circulation and varying atmospheric stability, often combined with a complex topography. As the conference was located on the beautiful island of Crete, problems faced by the host nation, particularly Athens and its environs were obvious examples for consideration. These together with other regions with similar geographical features were addressed. Heavily populated and industrialized as they often are, air quality is generally poor there and emission regulations are desired. Obviously, a major task of air pollution dispersion modelling is to assist policy makers in formulating sensible regulations.

Advances in Geophysics