Review of the Attributes and Performance of 10 Rural Diffusion Models

Abstract

An American Meteorological Society committee, working cooperatively with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has sponsored a peer review and evaluation of 10 rural diffusion models that are now used in regulatory procedures or have been submitted to EPA for such use. This review revealed that none of the models can be considered up-to-date scientifically, and that there is no basis for choice among them in terms of predictive accuracy. Regardless of the scientific merit of any model, significant inaccuracy in the predictions would arise from the inherent uncertainty in the diffusion process and from inadequacies of the input data.