Concomitant research from the Latrobe Valley Airshed Study*

The Latrobe Valley in southeastern Australia is rich in low grade brown coal which is being utilised in meeting most of Victoria's electricity needs. To monitor the air quality of the Valley and to assist in the wise exploitation of its resources, the Latrobe Valley Airshed Study was established in 1977. The Valley is one of the best instrumented anywhere, with a current strength of four 110 m meteorological towers, 14 multiparameter air quality monitoring stations, a radiosonde station specifically for the Study, and a doppler acoustic sounder. Given the long, unbroken time series of data now becoming available, the interpretative and modelling phases are underway. The presentation here, however, is concerned with some of the more fundamental research problems that have been tackled during the establishment phase of the Study: inversion height climatology, air pollution potential index in a region with tall stacks, moist plume dynamics and plume visibility, partial penetration of elevated inversions, two-plume interference study, the sea-breeze, katabatic winds, and blocking of flows by downwind terrain.