Russian Regulatory Diffusion Models: Status, Results of Validation and International Intercomparisons

Abstract

Since 1962 Russian regulatory diffusion models have been based on techniques developed by a team of specialists from the Main Geophysical Observatory (MGO) in cooperation with other scientific institutes of the former USSR. A description of these techniques was presented in publications [1,2] and in the last version of the national regulatory document [3] which will be referred here as OND-86 (an abbreviation which stays for “National Regulatory Document introduced in 1986”). Unlike the majority of western regulatory dispersion models, the MGO model [3] does not use Gaussian formulae and is based on analytical approximations of the numerical solution of the advection-diffusion equation (ADE). This solution, which in fact is the Green function of the ADE, is also used to describe concentration fields from multiple, line, and area sources as a superposition of concentration fields from single sources. Coefficients in ADE are parametrized using surface meteorological data (wind speed, wind direction and temperature gradient). The solution obtained was generalized to the cases of complex terrain and building environments using results of numerical, field, and laboratory experiments.